NRS-17104 | Visitors' Books [Moonan Brook Public School]

The Public Instruction Act, 1866 authorised special religious instruction by visiting clergymen and their delegates (Public Schools Act, 1866, s. 19), and regulations under the Act authorised members of the public to visit schools during ‘the hours of secular instruction’ to observe teaching methods, teaching material and equipment (Regulations adopted by the Council of Education on 27 February 1867, s. 84-85). The regulations required every teacher to keep a visitors’ book ‘in which visitors may enter their names and if they think proper any remarks. Such remarks the Teachers are by no means to erase or alter.’ (Regulations … s. 86).The purpose of the visitors’ book was to create a record of the persons other than pupils or teachers who attended the school during business hours. Visitors’ books were divided into three columns – date, name and remarks. The remarks usually recorded the purpose of the visit which included religious instruction (by far the most usual purpose for visiting a school), school inspection, medical inspection, departmental officers visiting on business e.g. to inspect the buildings or equipment, and guest speakers. Occasionally visitors (particularly Inspectors) remarked briefly on the conduct or the ambience of the school.It is likely that the first volume in this series is now missing.From 1888 until the end of 1957, with the exception of the period 1897-1900, the Visitors’ Books record regular attendance at the school by clergy and other church-workers to provide religious instruction to the pupils. The school was visited by the Bishop of Newcastle, then conducting a visitation, in 1909, and by the Archdeacon of Newcastle in 1924.Other regular signatories to the record include the Inspectors of Schools on their regular visits of inspection. Until 1929, the Inspectors commonly add to their signatures a note of the number of pupils in attendance on the day of inspection. School Medical Officers, Health Inspectors and officers of the Child Welfare Department also appear throughout the period covered by the surviving volumes, and from 1934 until 1942 the record is dominated by the signatures of Sisters from the Bush Nursing Association. From c.1952 onwards occasional visits by Police Lecturers and Assistant Supervisors in Art and Physical Education are also recorded.The Visitors’ Books record those members of the general public who attended the school’s Education Week Open Days, held from 1955 onwards, and the ANZAC Day ceremonies in 1948. Several pages are devoted to the signatures of those who attended the school’s Centenary Celebrations in November, 1969, and communications from two former pupils have been attached to these pages (one by means of Scotch tape). A group of “centenary visitors” were at the school in April, 1948 (the event whose centenary was then being celebrated is not specified), and a party from Kurri Kurri Primary School, headed by a former teacher at Moonan Brook, signed the book in February, 1957. Occasional visits by former pupils and other individual members of the public also appear from time to time.