As Melbourne's outer-suburban sprawl has inched towards Exford Primary, the school has retained its country feel, with children bussing in every day from the small hamlets surrounding it.
It was a sense of community that kicked in on Tuesday afternoon when a bus carrying dozens of the students from the small school was hit by a truck.
The bus overturned, severely injuring many of the children on board.
Nine students were trapped and seven children sustained life-threatening injuries.
Seven remained in Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital on Thursday morning, all in a stable condition.
Teachers from the school rushed the 900 metres to the site of the accident, not yet knowing the extent of the chaos and destruction.
When they arrived, they found the bus lying on its side and dozens of students, some seriously injured, needing help and comfort.
"Our staff just instinctively wrapped their arms around the kids and provided love and support and comfort in a really difficult situation," principal Lisa Campo said.
The crash happened at the intersection of Exford Road and Murphys Road in Eynesbury, about 44 kilometres west of the Melbourne CBD.
The township has a population of about 3,000 and has become a part of Melbourne as the city's fringe has grown ever outwards.
People passing by on Exford Road stopped to help, some of them past parents from the school.
Cameron Chalmers, who works for an air-conditioning company, was driving home from work behind the truck and ran to help as soon as the bus flipped.
"The kids were screaming and there was smoke and dust. And we just started pulling out as many kids as we could out of those sunroofs," he told 7.30.
Fellow tradesman Dean Eastway was also behind the bus and said he was among the people who "took out all of the kids that we could".
"They were trapped and yelling out, 'I don't want to be in a bus again. Where's Mum?' All sorts of stuff, and there were all sorts of injuries. It was just terrible," he told 7.30.
The driver of the tip truck involved in the crash, 49-year-old Jamie Gleeson, was granted bail on Wednesday afternoon on four charges of dangerous driving causing serious injury.
The truck driver's father, Robert Gleeson, said his son was "shattered" by the incident.
"Jamie's just totally upset as well, like everyone else is," Mr Gleeson said.
"He's a pretty soft young fella, actually, and he cares a lot about people. He's got a great mind and he'll just have to work his way through this like everyone else will.
"We just feel so sad for them (the children and their families).
"We just hope they recover and recover healthily and are able to go on with their lives."
Whole school affected by tragedy
Student Waniya told ABC Radio Melbourne the crash had affected the whole school, which has about 300 students.
"Everyone's really sad and worried about their friends," she said.
She said she wanted to let people know how bad the crash was.
"Little children got also impacted," she said.
"And not only was it big kids that got hurt, it was little tiny preps that got hurt."
Waniya said the school had been dealing with the incident well in the circumstances.
"They've been supporting us, telling us what's wrong, everything. They've just been there with us the whole way," she said.
Her father, Saeed Bashir, said it had been a very sad time.
Mr Bashir picked his two children up on Tuesday afternoon and saw ambulances and police cars rushing back in the other direction.
"When we reached home, I realised that a school bus was involved in a crash," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"The news started coming in that there's a lot of kids, severe injuries … and then you start thinking about your kids."
Mr Bashir said his son had been asking for some time whether he could catch the bus to and from school.
"They have a lot of friends on the bus, they want to join them on the bus. And I was just lazy, not enrolling them in the past," he said.
His young son, he said, had a close friend severely injured in the crash.
"He was quite sad, emotional and told me straight away, 'Papa, I don't want to go on the bus.' He was telling me for [the] last one year that he wanted to join his friends on the bus and he was quite emotional."
The close-knit nature of the small school and communities around it means the impact is still being felt by those who saw the scene.
"It is important to acknowledge that we're human in these roles and some of the people who respond have children," Victoria Police Superintendent Michael Cruse said.
And whether you have children or not, it is a really terrible and confronting scene that they have gone to."
Football club raises money for children
The Eynesbury Eagles football club said it would hold a fundraiser for the children injured in the crash.
"Everyone's sad and shocked but at the same time they're all getting around each other, and you get that great sense of community," football director Mark Heaney said.
"Friends of my own kids, and two of our junior players from our under 13s group were on the bus. We're a very small community."
The school has fewer than 300 pupils, principal Lisa Campo says, meaning she and deputy principal Craig Wilson know every child and family at the school.
She said this familiarity would be important as the school community began to process the events of the week.
"It is just distressing knowing what our kids have been through and I can only just imagine their fear, being confronted with that scene," Ms Campo said.
Ms Campo said because staff knew the children so well, she was hopeful they would be able to pick up on any lingering distress caused by the accident.
But for the moment, the principal said, the focus would be on caring for the students who might be physically uninjured but still affected by the horror crash in other ways.
As the school and those who were involved in the crash come to terms with a life-changing event, detectives have begun investigating the circumstances.
The Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard on Wednesday that prosecutors expect it to be a lengthy investigation due to the complexity of interviewing children.
