See what life is like for country teachers in South Australia – visit Port Lincoln with Tayla and Kobi.

Video transcript

It's the start of a beautiful day here in Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula. And while many of the town's residents are already hard at work on the largest fishing fleet in the southern hemisphere, we're taking a refreshing dip before the busy school day begins. Speaking of which, we better get moving.

Hi, I'm Tayla, and this is Kobi. We're teachers here in Port Lincoln. I teach PE and science here at the high school. I grew up in the Riverland, but went to school in the Barossa Valley. Bit of a country girl at heart and Port Lincoln was a perfect fit for me. I'm a foundation teacher at the Port Lincoln Junior Primary School. I grew up in this town, so landing my first job here meant coming home.

The junior primary, primary and high schools are located right next door to each other. First, let's head over to the junior primary school and we'll check in with Tayla later on.

I have a great bunch of students this year and I've got lots of mixed personalities and quirks, and I just love greeting them in the morning the way they come in with a big smile and excited to be here. Watermelon. Watermelon.

Around 200 students flock to the junior primary school every day with first year foundation students making up five classes. My students love their studies with Aunty Jenny in the cultural room, which is a special and celebrated place within the junior primary school, as is the library with its fun and creative displays. For students needing support or just a bit of timeout, the wellbeing room is a calming place.

As a new teacher, it's great to know there's always help on hand when you need it in the classroom. Come recess and lunchtime, the Mud Play area is overflowing with creative youngsters making mud pies, while others have fun playing on the rainbow parachute. Five days at school is a long week for them. You know, after day one they're like, "are we done now?" No, you have to come back tomorrow. I spend my week doing a little bit of PE sometimes in science and occasional PLP lessons. Nice one!

Celebrating 100 years this year, Port Lincoln High School is bigger and better than ever before. 840 students attend the school supported by 135 staff. Today, my year 10 science class are learning about genes with a simple strawberry experiment. So that is how you extract DNA from strawberries. Well done guys. Crushed it.

So the reason I actually came to Port Lincoln was because of the support that I was offered during my placement here. I just had mentors just willing to give me their time and help me get better. So the support's been unreal. The high school boasts some great modern facilities, but at the top of the school there's always something fishy going on. At the Aquaculture Centre, students can foster their love of marine life in a practical way. The perfect subject to study when your town is the seafood capital of Australia.

Port Lincoln on the shores of beautiful Boston Bay really is a wonderful place to live and work. You'll find the major retail stores and supermarkets, fashion and homeware shops, pubs, restaurants, and cafes. You can even find gourmet croissants. These are the real deal.

So, do you know any fun facts about Port Lincoln? Not only is this place Australia's seafood capital, we do have the most millionaires per capita. Definitely not from teaching! Haha. One of my favourite things to do on the weekend is to visit the local cellar doors and breweries. Hello taco Wednesdays!

For outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers, the Eyre Peninsula offers heaps of bucket list adventures with amazing opportunities to interact with wildlife unlike anywhere else on earth. I'm talking endless kilometres of pristine coastlines to explore, with beaches and national parks that are simply breathtaking. We're on a short road trip today, just up the coast towards Coffin Bay for you guessed it, world famous oysters.

So what do you love about living in Lincoln? Everything's a five minute drive away. Um, and also the community like walking down the street saying g'day to everyone. I think Port Lincoln's just been rated like top three most welcoming places in Australia. Oh really? There you go.

Because you grew up here, are there any like, I guess, memories that you have specific to Port Lincoln or your schooling? So I went to school at where I work now, so there's still some teachers there now, that taught me. Yeah, so it's pretty funny having chats with them in the yard. Like "I remember you when you were this little."

How do you deal with the behaviour at school? Yeah, It's tough. Like there are definitely challenging days. Yeah, there's heaps of support from other teachers.

Do you think there's any like drawbacks to living here? My family are eight hours away. Yeah. But yeah, I mean that's why we make new friends. That's why we do all these other things. Honestly, when you're sitting out here, look how beautiful it is. Is there anywhere else you'd rather be? I mean, it's unreal. Cheers to this. Cheers.