CANOBOLAS Public School celebrated its connection to the community during its 150th anniversary celebrations yesterday.
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For many in attendance, the school has been the educational launching pad for generations of family members, among them Ross Stanford, 86, and his family.
Mr Stanford joined his daughter Pam King, a past student, and her daughter Eleanor King, 8, who is in year three at the school, to mark three generations of attendance.
Each member learnt to read and write differently, with Mr Stanford learning with pen and ink, he even had an inkwell in his desk, through to the digital smartboards that are used in Eleanor’s classroom today.
“It was a one-teacher school when I was here,” Mr Stanford said.
“About 50 students in six classes but one teacher, Albert Ross. We only had the old building here, apart from the old weather shed.”
Mr Stanford said he lived one and a half kilometres from the school and used to walk to and from school each day with his brother and sister.
However, when he reached high school he and his brothers used to ride ponies, in all weather, five miles into Orange where they had a paddock in town, then they would walk the remaining four blocks.
Mrs King and her three sisters also went to the school and from the time she went to school in the 1960s she has seen many changes.
“The school got really small and I went to Calare for year six, but I was her for most of my school life. It got down to 12 people in the early ‘70s but it’s at 100 now,” she said.
Mrs King still lives in the area and is still acquainted with some of her former classmates.
She decided to send her daughter to the school because she liked the community atmosphere of small schools.
However, now the school is much larger and learning systems have changed, with the introduction of phonics in the early 2000s to the use of smartboards today.
“There are lots more classes, they’ve got a specialised library, they do video link debating and education session now,” Mrs King said.
“They’ve got the smart board which is just amazing it’s like a computer.”