Laverton Half Time School – 1904

Laverton Half Time School 1904

This photo is of school children at the Laverton Half time school.  It was taken on the 6th July 1904.  You will see all the children are very well dressed and all have shoes.

This is a description of what a ‘Half Time School’ was:-

Half-Time Schools

With the aim of distributing schools as widely as possible, the 1866 Act lowered the number of pupils required for a Public School (all National Schools were renamed Public Schools on 1 January 1867) from 30 to 25, and created two new kinds of schools. The first of these was the Provisional School, which could be established by the Council of Education in places where attendance was likely to be between 15 and 25. The second type of school was under the charge of an itinerant teacher. Early experiments with this form of school produced teachers with as many as seven teaching stations in their circuit and in 1869 the Council of Education restricted the number of schools per teacher to two with the result that they became known as Half-Time Schools, each school requiring at least 10 children before it could be established. Parents were expected to provide the site and necessary school buildings and furniture for Provisional Schools and Half-Time Schools; the government was not prepared to invest capital in them because of their small size and possible impermanence. If, however, a Provisional or a Half-Time School grew sufficiently in enrolments it could be converted to a Public School, at which time the Council of Education would become responsible for most of the capital costs of new buildings or additions. Not until 1875 did the government withdraw the requirement for local communities to provide at least one-third of the capital of a Public School.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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