History of small schools around Barraba

HISTORY NOTES by Margaret Currell

Anyone who has read Carol’s “History of Country Schools” (Barraba Community News 28 January) will have enjoyed the stories of our schools of another era!  These notes may add some information as I attended Cobbabah School for one year before being sent to boarding school in Sydney. I can tell you it is a big jump from Correspondence School to a small school to a boarding school with 600 pupils!

As settlers and miners settled in the Barraba district there was soon a need for education for the families of these men. To get a school in an area, several parents had to gather ages of available children, their distance from home to the school and how they were able to travel. The parents were also responsible for a suitable building for the school and accommodation for the teacher. The teacher often ended up boarding with one of his pupil’s family.

Usually someone supplied the building – a room in a home, or had a building erected – just a teaching room with a veranda on one side. Some perhaps had a fireplace for warmth in winter and no doubt the windows on one or both sides supplied some comfort in summer. The toilets were the “long drop” – all very well if there were no snakes about!!

These small country schools were one teacher from Kindergarten to at least 6th class. The school was one teaching room for all pupils. The long desks were five pupils sitting on one side on a long form – no biros mostly just pencils or pens with nibs dipped into an inkwell in a hole in the desk.

Some teachers were strict with their pupils and kept them in the classroom at playtime or lunchtime. There was also the cane for those, especially the boys, who misbehaved.

The pupils had lunch and playlunch prepared by their family and after school at 3.30pm they were dismissed to be picked up by their parents, walked home, or caught their pony and rode 3 or 4 miles to their home. I remember two boys who rode some four miles to school each day – their steeds were hard to catch but they usually passed us at a full gallop on their way home through the paddocks!

Readers of Carol Faint’s “History of Country Schools” (Barraba Community News 28 January 2026) may have some stories to tell so please don’t be shy – we were young once – tell us about your bush education so we can celebrate Barraba’s small schools towards the end of the year – September for example!

Additional Notes from Lesley Grigg

Many thanks to people who responded through Facebook regarding their connections to small schools in Barraba.

Sue Hancock commented that her dad, Cyril Hancock, was a Barraba resident from 1932. He had grown up in Bundarra and his headmaster suggested he become a bush teacher. There were former pupils of his living in Woods Reef.

Meg Blomfield said that she knew there was a school room at Kyooma. It was basically a shed with a blackboard. The pupils, as well as the Spencers from Kyooma, included the Crowleys from Calamondah, the Williams’s from Anglecamp, and station hands’ children, Noelene Haynes from Kyooma Cottage.

Peter Crowley remembered his mother, Val Crowley, telling stories of her and her three brothers riding 14 miles to school at Tarpoly,

Greg Urquhart said his grandfather, Joseph, grew up near Cobbadah and would have attended school at Cobbadah.

 Lynette Edmonds McGuckin went to Weemeelah small school. Jenny Vere went to Gulf Creek for a short time.

We would love to hear from you if you attended a small school in our area plus stories relating to your school days or your family’s stories. Email your interest to either carolyn.faint@gmail.com or  paullesley.g1@bigpond.com or write to The Editor, Barraba Community News.