It was an ideal place for our children to grow up – but the coalmine has silenced our schoolyard | Alison Smiles-Schmidt

The permanent closure of our school is imminent, yet some call this progress. I call it an emergency and a lesson to learn from the story of Wollar

In the New South Wales town of Wollar you can't hear children laughing in the school playground any more. Coal has silenced the schoolyard, coated the remaining houses in a layer of dust and cut off the future of our community, just as it is doing to our children's future on a global scale.

When the world takes part in the climate strike on Friday, those with a remaining connection to Wollar will strike too, at the empty local school.