Reliving colourful days of the old schoolyard in the hinterland

January is back-to-school month. For many of us, school days were the best days of our lives.

Remember one-teacher schools?

Long-term local residents will recall some of the hinterland one-teacher schools that once flourished at Perwillowen, Cooloolabin, Poona, Kiamba, Valdora, Yandina Creek, Maroochy River, Fairhill and Browns’ Creek.

All closed by the 1960s and children were transported by bus to bigger centres.

Our first one-teacher schools (provisional primary schools) were at Buderim in 1875, Mooloolah Plains in 1878, and Mooloolah Bridge in 1879.

The Maroochy Provisional School was opened between Yandina and Nambour in 1879. Children from Yandina and Nambour made up the required number and travelled to meet halfway between the two settlements, known then as Maroochie and Petrie’s Creek respectively.

The Department of Public Instruction required parents to find a suitable site for the school, erect a building and furnish it before a teacher was supplied. A horse paddock was a requirement as well.

Parents also had to assure there were enough pupils, and they canvassed the settlers for eligible children who might have had a river to cross or a lonely bush track to travel alone.

George Gridley’s children attended Fairhill Provisional School “walking along a five-mile track their father had brushed for them” from their farm in Eumundi.

Stories from school days at Maroochy Provisional School are told. To make up the numbers, older children’s ages were altered to meet the regulation five to 14 years.

Records tell of children finding a carpet snake on the way to school and taking it along for ‘show and tell’.

The teacher banned tomahawks at school after the children chopped down a tree to catch a koala and the tree fell on a pupil, knocking him out (the koala escaped to another tree).

Mischief was afoot: once they got wet through by shaking bushes and had  to be sent home early. Another time,  they let the teacher’s horse escape out of the paddock.

Teachers of those early days coped with remote conditions. The first teacher at Yandina Provisional School in 1889 came to Maroochydore by the steamer Tarshaw, was met by a committee  member and rowed up the Maroochy River to Yandina.

How can we ever forget the formalities of our early schools?

There was much emphasis on parades and marching, honouring the flag, sitting up straight and using good manners.

On school verandas, children chanted tables and spellings, learning by rote.

Classrooms contained long wooden desks and benches. Slots in the desk held slates, while a smaller slot held slate pencils. A vesta tin with a small sponge for cleaning the slate was kept handy.

A cupboard or press in the corner of the room held reading books and copybooks. A monitor measured out the ink for the inkwells on each desk and gave out the pens and nibs. No one wanted to blot a copybook while practising the art of neat writing.

A teacher’s equipment was a large clock, desk and chair, large blackboard, chalk and duster. A cane (or two) was also on issue and could be applied to outstretched hands for misdemeanours – even forgotten homework.

Arbor Day and Wattle Day were two special dates of the year.

And how can we forget the friends we made – still friends many, many years later.

Good luck to all for another successful school year.

 Audienne Blyth is a member of the Nambour Historical Museum, open  1-4pm Wednesday to Friday and  10am-3pm Saturday.