Video transcript

This learning resource is brought to you by the New South Wales Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education. We’re a museum that protects some original school buildings built in 1877, 1893 and 1910. The rooms have been faithfully restored back to how they were when they were first built.

This is our 1877 school room. It is warmed by fire light and furnished with beautiful Australian red cedar and pine furniture. Those long desks you see are called long toms and children sat at bench seats. At the time, all the school work was written up on the blackboard for the day. Children sat at the desks and they used slate boards and pen and ink to complete their work.

The next room that we're looking at is our 1910 room and here the students sat at dual desks made of timber and iron. Arranged in rows, they sat facing the blackboard. That blackboard is actually the wall painted black. This room was also lit by firelight to keep it a warm. There was a fire in each of the rooms.

Adjoining that room is another room that was used as an infant's room. It's furnished with lots of displays of how school used to be and objects that children used to use at school.

We also have a wooden demountable building and that room is set up as a room from the 1950s and 1960s. Students still had timber desks and they were still arranged in rows but this time they weren't screwed to the floor so they could be rearranged if necessary. Sometimes these rooms were used as craft or sewing rooms.

We're going to show you some of the wonderful objects in our collection and talk about ways that students used to use them at school. We hope to help you answer the questions – How has school and family life changed and remained the same over time? and What aspects if the past can be seen today and what do they tell us?