The Nursery and Kindergarten Centre
‘Centre’ The Princes Hill schools have enjoyed a long, friendly and beneficial relationship with the Melbourne City Council. Individual incidents of co-operation include the Council’s donation of trees planted on Arbor Day 1924 at Pigdon Street, its closure or part-closure of several streets around the schools to reduce through traffic in the 1960s and 1980s, and its provision of access to Princes Park to help alleviate the shortage of schoolyard space at Princes Hill Secondary College.
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According to an agreement between the Melbourne City Council and the Education Department, the Council built a largish annexe to the Infant Department at Pigdon Street, while the Education Department supplied the teachers.’ The Centre was open to children under the age of four and a half. Intent on representing a cross-section of the community, the kindergarten only accepted children recommended by the Health Department Medical Officers; the school staff had no say in the selection.
Kindergarten Class at Pigdon Street, c. 1940.
Few enrolment records for the kindergarten have survived, but we do know that in 1940, twenty children were enrolled in the Nursery Class under the care of Miss Bennett, and another 34 attended kindergarten under the care of Miss Frier. By 1949, enrolments in the Nursery School had increased to fifty. A nursing sister was also in attendance. Marjorie, who was a student in the late 1930s, remembers Sister Smith, ‘an older woman with white hair, rather tall and slim. She was kind and friendly and we were not in awe of her or scared of her.’ When Marjorie’s own children attended the Health Centre in the 1950s, Marjorie and other mothers assisted the staff with morning lunches.
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Despite the difficulties, innumerable visitors came to observe this unique centre in operation. Indeed, the number of visitors could sometimes get out of hand. During 1948, more than 300 groups visited Pigdon Street. These included the Mothercraft Nurses from the Kindergarten Training College at Kew, Social Service Students, Psychology Students, Departmental and non-Departmental training students, Kindergarten training students, Infant Mistresses, educationalists and social workers.10
The Class for the Partially Sighted
On 6 October 1941, the first class for partially sighted children in Victoria was opened at Pigdon Street.11 Its antecedents lay in the Victorian Asylum and School for the Blind, which was founded in 1867 and registered as Primary Special School SS 3778 in 1906. Amendments to the Education Act in 1890 and 1912 provided for the care of physically handicapped, feeble-minded, deaf, dumb and blind children within the state school system.12 The Class for Partially Sighted children at Pigdon Street was a special project of George Osborne, then Assistant Chief Inspector of Primary Schools. In 1943, he formed a special course to train teachers for Opportunity Grades and Special Schools. Students studied psychology, the education of the handicapped child, art and handwork, speech and reading aids, and did a case study of a handicapped child, as well as visiting various special schools for teaching experience. 13
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Princes Hill’s Saturday School of Modern Languages has attracted attention for its innovative and successful language teaching. The school has developed curricula that are now widely used in Victoria and interstate, and has achieved excellent academic results. In 1988, the Saturday School of Modern Languages was rewarded with a new name, the Victorian School of Languages, and was given the authority and responsibilities of a state school, complete A with its own School Council, financial responsibility and determination of curriculum policy.26
Princes Hill School Park Centre
In 1973, Alleyne Sier and Frank Keenan, Director of Parks and Gardens of the Melbourne City Council, realised a unique project at Princes Hill. Following amendments to the Youth, Sport and Recreation Act in 1973, which permitted the use of schools for community purposes, they won the support of the Minister for Youth, Sport and Recreation, Brian Dixon, and opened the schools as an after—hours community centre, known as the Princes Hill School Park Centre.27
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