“Live your dreams”: former student Peter Overton’s message as Lane Cove Public turns 150

Nine News presenter Peter Overton has made a joyful return to his old primary school, joining students, families and staff at Lane Cove Public School on 7 August 2026 to celebrate the school’s 150th anniversary.

Overton, who started at the school 55 years ago and was school captain in 1977, was welcomed back in the cheekiest way possible. With students dressed in old-fashioned uniforms and a classroom from a century ago recreated on stage, a young “teacher” summoned him over the microphone.

He settled into a wooden school desk, looked around the hall and grinned. “I remember that chair.”

A milestone 150 years in the making

Lane Cove Public School opened on 14 January 1876 with just 13 students and its first principal, David Graham. One hundred and fifty years on, it is home to around 684 students, 48 per cent of them from a non-English speaking background, with 54 different languages spoken in family homes across the community.

The milestone drew an enormous crowd. Families packed the hall and spilled out across the school grounds and into Coral Park, with performances from students throughout the day, all there to celebrate a school that has been part of Lane Cove life for a century and a half.

The turnout spanned generations. Among the crowd was John Notley, a lifetime member of the school’s P&C who, at over 90, stands as one of the community’s most enduring links to its past. Overton was delighted to spot him and greeted him warmly from the stage.

Fifty-five years of memories

What followed on stage was a warm and often very funny question and answer session, led by students, that had the audience laughing one minute and misty-eyed the next. Overton told them that principal Terry McKinnon had walked him through the school that morning, including the classroom where it all began for him.

The memories came flooding back, from the milk truck that visited the playground to the teachers who shaped him.

Now 60, Overton drew a line straight from that era to the students in front of him, praising the platform their own teachers were giving them to take them into high school and beyond.

There was plenty of sport, too. Overton was King House captain, played in the band and won the 400 metres at Lane Cove Public, although he was quick to keep himself humble.

He grew up in Longueville, where his parents still live, and remembered walking to school, or catching the bus on wet days.

The funny stuff

Asked about school bands and orchestras, Overton revealed his instrument of choice, and the very practical problem that came with it.

Pressed on his most embarrassing school moment, he told a story on himself that brought the house down.

Live your dreams

Overton has been at Channel 9 for 35 years and has read the Nine News bulletin for the last 18.

For all the celebrity and the travel, Overton’s message to the students was grounded and heartfelt. He urged them to chase their own path, whatever it looked like.

He credited his own parents for giving him that freedom.

He was careful to remind the students that being on television does not make anyone more important than the people around them.

And he had a word for every teacher in the room.

The way things were

If Overton captured the school of the 1970s, long-serving teacher Deborah Walkerden took the audience back further still, from her own childhood in the classrooms to more than 20 years teaching at the school herself. She painted a picture of a very different era, when children learned to read from the same beautifully illustrated readers, wrote with pens dipped into inkwells set into their desks and drank milk from foil-topped glass bottles at recess.

She recalled marching in house colours, with the girls’ houses named after Australian women authors, and a school that has changed enormously while holding onto its heart. Her message to the community was to keep those memories alive.

After more than two decades at the school, she reflected on what it had meant to her.

Voices from the celebration

Principal Terry McKinnon opened the formalities by placing the day in its long context.

The Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, Murat Dizdar, sent a video message from Pittwater High School, apologising for missing the day and offering a shout out to the school and its principal.

A message from Nicole Kidman

Another of the school’s famous former students featured in the day too. Nicole Kidman, who could not attend in person, recorded a special video message for the students.

A technical hitch meant the video could not be shown on the screen during the assembly, so organisers played the audio for the students on the day. The full video is expected to be shared once it becomes available. In her message, Kidman said she was sorry to miss the celebration and spoke fondly of her own memories of the school.

Her absence in person did little to dim the day. For many, Overton’s address, delivered live to a rapt hall, was the highlight.

Stepping back in time

The celebration was far more than a single assembly. One room in the school’s original 1876 building, where those first 13 students once sat, was set up as a museum, complete with old desks and objects from the school’s early days. The library was filled with memorabilia sent in by former students, alongside the contents of the 1976 centenary time capsule, which was unearthed during the week.

Outside, the community gathered over a free sausage sizzle and a bake sale, and 150th anniversary tea towels and aprons were on sale to mark the occasion. The school is also gathering community memories through an oral history project, to be brought together in a book later in the year.

It was a huge effort by the school’s teachers, and one warmly appreciated by the whole community.

Happy 150th, Lane Cove Public School.