When fire threatened the seaside community located 20 minutes south of Batemans Bay on December 31, St Peter's Anglican College Principal Darren McPartland was part of the cohort which banded together to save the school.

As the sun set and the red clouds rolled over, Broulee residents brandishing buckets and hoses set about watering down buildings and putting out spot fires.

Mr McPartland said the threat finally subsided with a change in wind direction at around 10.20pm that night.

"Had the southerly not come we'd have had no school left," Mr McPartland said.

The following morning, the firefront was headed back in their direction and about 40-50 residents jumped the school fence once again to lend a hand.

Ember showers sparked fires across the school ground and from 10am to 6pm on New Year's Day teachers, parents and friends of the 450 primary and secondary students fought to prevent a complete loss.

After 48 hours of adrenalin and fear, they stepped back to survey the damage: the administration block, a classroom, a gardener's shed, a pump system on the bore and most of the gardens were lost, but St Peter's still stood.

"At one point it was so black in smoke I thought the whole school was gone," Mr McPartland said.

For several students at the school the damage was much greater, with nine families losing their homes, eight losing their businesses and three additional families losing both their houses and their workplaces.

In the weeks that have followed, the Australian Defence Force, local tradespeople and schools as close as Canberra and as far away as WA have offered assistance, but the loss has been widely felt.

In Broulee, the economic impact has hit butchers whose insurance won't cover $60,000 in stock lost in the blackouts, bee keepers who have 35 hives left after flames engulfed another 230, and one family who lost prized possessions from their home after shipping them for safe keeping to their business at the Batemans Bay Homemaker Centre, which was lost while their house was saved.

"I've had parents say to me 'I saved the house but I should've saved the shed - at least I could be earning some money'," Mr McPartland said.

While no schools on the South Coast were destroyed by fire, students at Broulee are now among thousands in the ACT and NSW who are dealing with the trauma of losing their homes, witnessing their parents fighting to save their properties and struggling to stay afloat in the aftermath.

St Peter's has increased counselling services at the school and offered leniency to families struggling to meet the $5000 annual tuition.

Each student who lost their home has been issued with two sets of school uniforms, the Anglican Diocese has provided $1000 to each family and Canberra's St Anthony's Parish Primary School staff and parents have delivered backpacks full of school supplies.

Further afield, an Anglican school in California has made a cash donation through funds raised from a nacho sale and several schools in Perth, where Mr McPartland previously worked, have offered support including two which will pay two students' annual school fees.

"There's lots of little things that give you a boost," Mr McPartland said. "There's a good sense of community, but I think that's all country schools."

Ten kilometres up the road at Mogo Public School, most families have been impacted in some way by the bushfires which tore through the town. The school has just 34 students and at least six lost their homes and property.

Mogo school Acting Principal Lyndall Schuchmann said they had noticed some students had returned to school unsettled.

"Students' behaviour can escalate quickly and some students are withdrawn," Ms Schuchmann said.

"All students, even those that did not lose homes, have been through quite a lot over the summer.

"They didn't have a typical Christmas holiday break - being on high alert, being evacuated, living in temporary accommodation, and seeing their local environment completely burned."

In response, the NSW Department of Education has employed a full time counsellor for one month at Mogo and committed to increasing the school's regular counsellor provision as needed.

Ms Schuchmann said staff will be watching students to see they remain engaged at school and observe how they are interacting socially. She said they would be looking for signs of distress, like if they were eating, if they were withdrawn and if they were attending school regularly.

Ms Schuchmann said for the month ahead the school would focus on getting students back into routine and feeling of belonging to the school and community.

"We want to create a safe place for students. We encourage them to talk about the fires and their feelings, but if students choose not to talk that's okay too.

"Things may have changed outside the school world, but at school we have routines, they know what to expect, and that we are a safe place for them."

Children in the city haven't been devoid of the bushfires and evacuation drama which, sadly, will define this past summer for many Australians.

ACT Minister for Education Yvette Berry said the extreme weather events had "of course had an impact" on the mental health and wellbeing of school communities. She said the ACT government had been working with students, families and staff to meet their needs post-emergency.

Ms Berry said school psychologists had undertaken additional development for responding to the impacts of natural disasters.

"All school psychologists received additional training in trauma before the start of the school year," Ms Berry said. "Teachers have also received additional professional learning so that they can support students through this difficult time."

The ACT now has 81 psychologists working across the public school system, ensuring all students and their families have access to a school psychologist.

Ms Berry said wellbeing plans will also be developed for individual students and families who may be impacted directly by bushfires.

"The education directorate is also providing schools with evidence-based resources for them to share with families," she said.

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A spokesperson for the education directorate said resource packs designed to provide guidance to educators within ACT public schools on how to support students to recover from the impact of the bushfires had been distributed.

The information in these packs, sourced primarily from Emerging Minds and Headspace, will be used across states and territories.

In the Canberra and Goulburn Archdiocese, at least 12 Catholic schools were directly affected by the fires.

Regionally, Catholic schools on the South Coast, Braidwood, Batlow, Adelong, Bombala, Bega, Cooma, Gundagai and Tumut have all been impacted, with St Mary's Primary School Moruya and Carroll College Broulee then hit by floods this week.

Catholic Education director Ross Fox said extra counselling services had been offered for all principals, staff and students at their schools, particularly for families impacted by the bushfires.

Mr Fox said during the school holidays, Canberra Catholic schools got together and organised more than 300 new backpacks filled with back to school supplies for students, as well as gift cards to help affected families.

"The principals delivered them to schools in areas impacted by the bushfires," Mr Fox said.

Students from St Mary's Primary School Batlow got together to create messages of thanks for firefighters and volunteers, which they on the school fence.

"These kinds of responses are typical of Catholic school communities and I'm humbled by the resilience shown across our most impacted regions," Mr Fox said.

In Broulee some staff faced the first evacuation from fires way back in November. Mr McPartland said both he and the teachers have been "running on adrenaline but exhaustion".

"Everyone's been under pressure at different times. It's important we make the workforce as normal and supportive as possible for them. The last thing they need is to see me fall over," he said.

The same "all the normal things" approach has been taken to helping students move on. Returning to normalcy has included contacting the company responsible for taking school photos, so students will soon have their last 10 years of pictures replaced.

"Ninety per cent of people will go through a really tough time and be stronger," Mr McPartland said.

"There are those who keep a lid on their problems. With such large scale and total stress in the community I think some issues will bubble to the surface. And that's something we have to keep an eye on."