After finishing their daycare journey together, these Lake Macquarie kids are ready for their next milestone - 'big school'.
And if you ask them, they say they are most looking forward to seeing their friends and making new buddies.
What do they think they will learn? Reading and writing is at the top of the list.
Ava Fookes-Noone, Tilly Piper, Koa Donohue, Hazel Walker, Zara Stone, Lylah Byrnes and Jace Rickard are among the tens of thousands of children who will start Kindergarten across the state this week.
Those in the group from Lake Macquarie all went to the same daycare centre - Go Kindy at Kahibah - for the past few years but they will now split to a handful of primary schools.
They were having what Tilly's mum Genna Piper called a "last hurrah" at Speers Point Park on Sunday.
"She's excited, so I'm excited," Ms Piper said when asked how she felt about Tilly starting school.
More than 1.2 million students will begin the new school year in NSW this week, with those in Kindergarten set to be the first to experience what the state government is calling once-in-a-generation curriculum reform - new English and maths syllabuses.
"These are the first syllabuses of the NSW Curriculum Reform and are key to building strong literacy and numeracy foundations in the early years and beyond," Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said.
"The students starting Kindergarten ... will be the first of the 'curriculum reform generation', benefitting from these evidence-based, back-to-basic syllabuses from their very first day.
"The new curriculum will be supported by nearly 1700 new Assistant Principals, Curriculum and Instruction, who have been recruited and will be supporting public schools across the state in implementing the curriculum changes."
Meanwhile, Cessnock City Council announced last week upgrades and installation of new road safety measures at six schools across the local government area.
Work is complete outside Kurri Kurri High School and Holy Spirit Primary School and will be finished at Stanford Merthyr Public School soon. Weston Public School, Paxton Public School and Kurri Kurri Primary School are due to have work completed before June, the council said.
"These works are creating safer pedestrian connections for children, their parents and carers and the school community," Cessnock mayor Jay Suvaal said.
"These improvements can help save lives by reducing car speeds within school zones and giving pedestrians safe route options when walking to and from school."
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