The school files were created by bringing together all of the correspondence about each school. The correspondence is from teachers, parents, the Education department and district offices, other government departments, local members and Education ministers. Some school files are up to 15 boxes of papers; some are only a few centimetres thick.
These files contain petitions for schools including details of possible pupils; teacher appointments, teacher’s leave and transfer requests and teacher’s examinations; occasional complaints about teachers by parents and inspectors and occasional complaints about children and/or parents by teachers; plans of school buildings and plans of school sites, including proposals that did not proceed; detail about how schools worked and detail about how schools interacted with the community.
Information in the NRS 3829 School Files, 1876-1939 includes:
Applications for the establishment of schools
Application forms contain details of prospective pupils, together with information relating to the proposed site and building. Letters from promoters of schools concern the site, building, teacher and a variety of other matters. Inspectors' reports deal with the prospects of the district and the viability of the proposed school, and contain recommendations relating to the site, the permanent building and if necessary the temporary building, teachers, etc.
The schools progress and its physical provision
Letters and memoranda deal with changes in the schools status, closures and re-openings, and the adequacy of the site and buildings (ranging from routine repairs to new buildings). Valuable information on the progress of the district and on conditions in the school is often included.
Miscellaneous
Relatively little correspondence deals with pupils or courses of study. Much can be gleaned, however, from letters dealing with a variety of aspects of the schools operations
Please note: School files may contain hand drawn sketches through to professionally drawn architects plans. Plans which have been extracted from these files are listed in the online Schools and related records index. You can also find a listing of the plans in the Maps and Plans Index which is available in the reading room. These plans are of schools, classrooms and teachers' residences showing buildings, improvements and additions.
Post-1939 records are strictly administrative.
