After 10 years on the job, Bob Bacchetto is a master of his craft.
As the supervisor of the school crossing between St Edmund's College and St Clare's College in Griffith, Mr Bacchetto knows everybody.
He's shaking hands and bumping fists with Eddies boys from year 4 to year 12. He's asking Clare's girls how yesterday's mathematics assessment went. He's chatting with a year 10 boy throwing a rugby ball around, correcting his form. He calls them all by name.
When Margie Maher, deputy principal of St Edmund's and Mr Bachetto's wife, joined the school's leadership team in 2017, teachers were taking shifts supervising the crossing.
Mr Bacchetto, who had recently retired from a long career in ACT Fire & Rescue and a six-year period as a learning support assistant at Dickson College, put his hand up for the job.
"It feels like I only started two years ago, I just love the job," he said. "I'm too used to it. I find myself waving cars down when I'm somewhere else out of habit."
Students at both St Clare's and St Edmund's will chat to Mr Bacchetto in the afternoons as they hang around waiting for friends or parents.
"Often they just want to vent, you know, and I'm glad they feel like they can talk to me. The teachers will come out and tell me I'm doing a good job at that, so that instils a bit of confidence, too."
As friendly as he makes the drop-off and pick-up experience for the students, he says they're doing even more for him.
"It's a great routine for me, to get up in the mornings then head off and do whatever retired people do, then come back later," he said.
"The students are doing more for me and my mental health than I'm doing for them, almost. I always leave here happy."
In the past decade, Mr Bacchetto has played many kinds of roles at St Edmund's. He's performed as a barman in a one-off role in the school play, to the raucous applause of the students; he's been on the sidelines watching the under 12s play rugby at weekends, lollies in hand; this week, he was in the hall on the judging panel for a school singing competition.
Last year was the first time Mr Bacchetto saw a cohort all the way from year 4 through to year 12.
"Even after they've left school and started working they'll come back and say hello. That's a real good part of the job," he said. "It surprises me every time."
Of course, the most important part of Mr Bacchetto's job is getting the students to school safely.
He estimates that about a thousand students cross McMillan Crescent every morning and evening.
Many students are dropped off by car or bus directly adjacent to Mr Bacchetto's station, avoiding the crossing on Canberra Avenue where two St Edmund's students were seriously injured in a hit-and-run collision last year.
St Edmund's principal James Keeley recently called for the school zone on McMillan Crescent to extend to the strip of Canberra Avenue at the front of the school.
Mr Bacchetto is careful to guide student drivers at his crossing, making sure their commute is safe, too.
"Sometimes they get to driving age and get on their Ps and go too fast," he said. "They tend to listen to me and slow down a bit."
Mr Bacchetto hopes to continue as crossing supervisor until his wife Margie retires from her role as deputy principal at the school.
"I just want all the students to know they're doing so much for me," he said.
"And I want to thank the parents for allowing me to be a part of their kids' lives."
