Built in the late 1800s to cater for the needs of families who lived and worked in the city, and with a long history of supporting families of diverse cultural backgrounds, Sturt Street Primary School has a rich cultural heritage.
Against the wishes of parents and the community, the Liberal Government closed Sturt Street Primary School in 1996. Since then, a keen interest group of local residents and families has advocated for the reopening of the school.
Parents wanted a school with a strong multicultural focus, after hours programs and community meeting facilities. Ethnic communities, particularly the Greek community, also maintained strong loyalties to the school and maintained an interest in its future.
http://sturtstcs.sa.edu.au/about/history/
The following set of rules was displayed at a recent History Day at the School:
Rules for Teachers 1872
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, trim the wicks and clean chimneys.
2. Each morning teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or any other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labour faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five pence per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
Ah, the good old days!!
