Reprinted from Raglan Chronicle, 11th August 2016

Reprinted from Raglan Chronicle, 11th August 2016, page 4

by Edith Symes

Old wooden school desks with round inkwell compartments and in some cases connecting seats, wood-framed slates which pupils once learned to write on and a hand-held school bell are among the treasures collected recently for an upcoming exhibition to celebrate 150 years of education in the Raglan district.

The ‘Back to School’ exhibition – opening in mid-September to coincide with the area school’s 150th anniversary the following month – will highlight the geographical “breadth” of education locally, says project co-ordinator Pat Day, a past president of Raglan & District Museum Society.

In all there have been a staggering 16 schools in an area stretching from the northern side of Aotea Harbour to Waingaro.

They include the likes of Kauroa School which opened in 1872 at Okete Church, Rukuruku School which began lessons in a corrugated iron building at Te Akau South in 1923 and Ruakiwi School which was set up in 1917 in a dining room.

Though only six of the 16 schools remain open, several of those surviving also had humble beginnings. Te Akau School, for instance, opened in 1913 in a cabbage tree whare, while what is now Raglan Area School taught its foundation pupils in a tent in James Street in 1866.

Of the schools that have gone over the years, Makomako down Aotea way looks to have been one of the last to close its doors. It survived through to 1983.

“Many of our local schools disappeared with [the advent of more] school buses and cars,” Pat told the Chronicle.

Others like Raglan School just grew and grew. From its inauspicious beginnings it progressed into a new building – now the Old School Arts Centre – in Stewart Street. The Standard Six or Form ll children later moved on to Raglan District High which was built in Norrie Avenue, and which became in 1962 the area school for both primary and secondary students.

There were proposals at one point for a Te Kopua School in the town centre. Though it never got beyond the early planning stages, longtime local Angeline Greensill believes the project progressed as far as talks with the then Education Department.

Pat’s wife Barbara has spent hours recording conversations with older locals in the district who remember long walks in bare feet on metal roads to then remote schools like Te Mata. Catching a lift on the cream lorry or riding horses were other alternatives back then, they say.

These and other memoirs for each school will be displayed along with photos on the walls of a mock classroom – complete with wooden desks – which is to be set up soon in the museum, Pat explains.

An old-style dental clinic or “murder house” – with a dental chair and drill from the museum’s collection – will also be recreated, with the official blazer of longtime local dental nurse Pat Halliday and her reminiscences on display.

It’s “amazing” what’s turned up, says Pat of the request by the Museum Society for memorabilia to support the exhibition. “We also had quite a lot in our collection.”

Among the material there’s an exercise book of a Daphne Muriel Law in Form ll, dated 1944, and a later compilation of notes and photos of several schools in the district by A J MacDonald (Alexander).

The exhibition also acknowledges the role played locally since the 1920s by the Correspondence School. “And that’s a big one,” Pat emphasises.

Pat is grateful for funding from both Raglan Community Board and Raglan Lions, and reckons the exhibition has been one of the “easiest” to co-ordinate thanks to the work of cataloguer and museum assistant Kaz Willoughby.

Kaz also went to the Old Friends website on Trade Me, cutting and pasting relevant local schoolyard memories before they were lost.

The Back to School exhibition opens at the museum in Wainui Road on September 17 and will run for the rest of the year.

• In the weeks leading up to the exhibition’s opening the Chronicle hopes to publish edited transcripts of Barbara Day’s recorded conversations with longtime locals about their school days.