Brauer College VCE students and siblings Hana and Jacob Price will be among hundreds of Warrnambool students returning to school campuses on Friday.

"I definitely thought we wouldn't be back until after the school holidays," Hana said.

Year 12 and many year 11 students studying final-year subjects have permission to return to school grounds under more flexible coronavirus restrictions along with prep to grade two students, while all metropolitan students continue to learn remotely.

Hana, who has her eyes set on going to university next year, faces a string of final in-class assessments, school holidays and then just weeks until exams in late October.

"It will all come back to the exams," she said. "Without that one-on-one teaching ... if we don't have that leading up to exams it will be hard to perform as best we can."

Jacob, a year 11 student studying VCE subjects, said interaction with his classmates was limited in the past three weeks.

"My friends and I like to bounce ideas off each other... we have been kind of lacking that through online learning," he said.

"That social interaction is what we have really been missing."

Brauer's assistant principal Hugh Richards said the college was thrilled to have some students returning.

"It's go, go, go from here on and it's so much more effective when they are back on site; you can just do much more," Mr Richards said.

"Our teachers have done an amazing job keeping the kids engaged and working during the whole lockdown but it's not as good as being on site."

He said the school would host a barbecue for returning VCE and VCAL students on Friday.

Remote learning had particularly thrown plans for hands-on learners doing VCAL into disarray, Mr Richards said.

"A large part of their assessment is competency based and project work, and you can't do that at home," he said.

"When you are building cages for Cudgee Wildlife Park, you've got to be here."

Hana and Jacob, both set to receive a second dose of vaccination in coming weeks, said they missed their normal routine but learned resilience while at home.

"We don't experience as many hardships as what people back in the day would have," Hana said. "It's taught us how to be resilient, which is hard to come across in this day and age."

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