Coburg Primary School's 1925 facelift

Argus, 20 Feb 1925

The man waving his arm about is the Minister for Education, Sir Alexander Peacock and he's opening the new look Coburg State School no. 484 in Bell Street. The remodelling cost  £16,208 and the school claimed it could accommodate 1,500 children. (There were 1,250 on the roll.) On three and a half acres of land, the school was said to be one of the largest in Victoria. 

Move forward 90 years or so and here are some photos I took at the back of the school in March last year at a Saturday Farmers' Market.

It's all so very different from when I was a student there from 1962 to 1964. Sure, there were bubble taps and a playground, but it was all pretty stark. The playground was asphalt and divided by a huge shelter shed and toilets. 

The first photo you see here was taken standing in what was then the boys' playground. We girls only ventured there when we practised marching, or played rounders (as a class activity) and perhaps crossball and tunnel ball were practised there, too - pretty sure that's right. My memory tells me we did folk dancing in what was the girls' playground. And for some reason I think the folk dancing happened on a Friday afternoon. (I have no idea why I remember that, of all things.)

One of my favourite additions to the school grounds is the Chicken Wing on the school's western boundary.

I had to smile when I first saw it, because on the other side of the cyclone fence behind the Chicken Wing (and just a little further north) is what is now Peppertree Place, but was the Methodist Parsonage grounds in my day. That's where I lived and my dad had his own collection of chooks that roamed free-range through the garden during the daytime. He'd be chuffed to know that the school was growing vegies and keeping chooks, just as he had done next door all those years ago!