Kewdale Primary School has been privileged to be the central educational facility for the local community since its establishment in 1915. Recently celebrating 100 years of continuous education to the Kewdale area and the surrounding neighbourhoods, Kewdale Primary School remains dedicated to excellence in student learning.
The poem below, is written by Author Jackie French to celebrate 100 years of Kewdale education. The poem is a lovely tribute to how the school has developed and changed over time while still being at the heart of Kewdale education.
KEWDALE PRIMARY SCHOOL
It’s only been a hundred years,
Since kids have studied here,
Kids who’d trekked through trackless swamp,
Because no school was near
One small room, and wooden posts
To keep the bush at bay,
And twenty-six who sat in class,
Though few came every day
Farm work, illness, floods, or lice,
Might keep the kids away.
The teacher walked two miles to school,
Racked gravel in the yard
With not much paper, pens and snakes,
Teaching kids was hard.
Summer’s heat, a fire that smoked
A tank that soon ran dry,
But still kids came, and sat and learned
As year by year went by.
Crows flew to eat the vege crops,
The big boys chopped the wood
The cattle chomped among the flowers
Yet what grew here was good
For it was more than ‘rithmatic’
As slowly the school grew
Met war, depression, war again
Faced them together too.
Fore barefoot kids had found the world
In words among schoolbooks.
They’d also found community
As well as keeping chooks.
A hundred years of girls and boys
Taking what they’ve learned
With each small lesson teachers gave
A hundredfold returned
It’s only been a hundred years
Of treasures to instil
And in another hundred years
May they be given still.
Jackie French
Australian Children’s Laureate 2014-2015