Narrabri West Public School celebrated its 140th anniversary by welcoming families to the grounds for grandparents’ day on Monday.
Peter Westman and Robert Baker spoke to a school assembly about what it was like for them to attend Narrabri West when they were children.
Both men were previous Dux of the School.
Mr Baker cut the celebratory 140th anniversary cake with school captains Blair Lennox and Mikaela Whan as well as school principal Tania Nichols.
Unlike other country schools that began in the 1880s, the West School was not a ‘pioneer’ school like the Narrabri Public School which was established in 1868.
Instead, the arrival of the railway in the early 1880s indirectly led to the establishment of a school in Narrabri West.
By 1883 there were enough families living near the West Railway Station to predict that a new township was soon to be. In March of that year, 21 families asked that the Minister for Education see fit to provide a school in the West due to the challenges of sending children to school in Narrabri township.
The minister approved the establishment of the Narrabri Railway Station Public School in June 1883.
Continued growth in student numbers posed as a challenge, with the school undergoing expansions throughout the later part of the 1800s. By the end of 1890, enrolments were close to 100 growing to 230 by 1895.
Enrolments declined in the early 1900s, however, grew again and were close to 200 by the 1920s.
Some elements of the original school remain, including the school bell. The current ‘beehive’ building is modelled on the original ‘beehive’ building that formed part of the original school.
Across the years, the site has changed and modernised, however, the strong community spirit of the West School has remained as it did in its early settlement days when it primarily consisted of railway families who had sought an education choice for their children close to home.
