HAY PUBLIC SCHOOL - 150 YEARS HISTORY 1869-2019 by Hay Historical Society

The book was written by Ian Beissel and is the product of extensive research, writing and the collection of image material, extending over several years. The book is entitled Hay Public School: 150 Years of History 1869-2019.

The book is organised into two parts. The first section is a chronological account of the first fifty years of Hay Public School, from 1869 until just after World War I. The section also includes early attempts at schooling in Hay that began in the first few years of the township’s existence prior to the establishment of the public school.

The second part of the book takes a thematic approach to the most recent hundred years of the school. Sections include:

• The lives and careers of the various Principals of the school;

• A survey of the extensive changes to the buildings and playgrounds up to the present day;

• A history of specialist Kindergarten teaching at Hay;

• Technological changes over the years, from electric lighting and slide projectors to robots and wireless internet connections;

• The Junior Farmers’ Club in the late-1930s and 1940s and the modern-day Stephanie Alexander Garden and associated kitchen classroom;

• A survey of music-making at the school beginning with a school band formed in the 1940s;

• P. and C. fund-raising, from the children’s ‘frolics’ of the 1930s to the ‘continentals’ of the 1940s (which became the fetes of more recent decades);

• The creation of the innovative Oslo Lunch Centre in the 1940s and the school milk program.

Sport at Hay Public School is covered in separate chapters dealing with team sports and athletics (including the early spectacular events involving massed drills and displays, maypoles and sporting contests). There is a separate chapter on swimming at Hay from a public school perspective, detailing a history of recreational and competitive swimming, as well as learn-to-swim classes. The chapter also details the successful efforts to establish a pool at Hay.