THE past, present and future of King Street Public School was reflected on at their 50-year anniversary on Monday.
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King Street was born in September 1964 when Singleton Public’s Year 5 and 6 students walked with desks and blackboards to the new site, which would officially open later that year on November 24.
In homage to the school’s birth, senior pupils of King Street retraced the original students’ march between Hunter and King Street before a special assembly.
The school’s first principal Jim Porteus, who came to Singleton as a volunteer to help the town out after the flood, said the site was completely different to its earliest days when there were only a few buildings.
He acknowledged the role of the school community, guided by the P&C, and the local community in choosing the colours, badge design and motto, Our Best Always.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re the best as long as you do your best,” he said at the assembly.
The school’s jacaranda and silky oak trees and its gardens were dedicated to the 1960’s Singleton Public School principal David Leithhead, who swapped woodwork lessons for the students to go to the new plot and plant trees and landscape.
Original teacher at King Street Joy Poole remembered Mr Leithhead’s love of nature and, facing one tough decision, after one of her pupils told her that the “Mt Everest Golden Rain Tree” allocated to her classroom’s care had died.
“I didn’t know whether to leave town or tell him,” she laughed.
Mrs Poole and one of the original students Olwyn Bower reminisced on how Singleton Public became so crowded that some classes would have to pick up their desks and set up all their equipment in the nearby church halls before the 1964 move.
At King Street, two-storey buildings were constructed in 1969, adding Year 3 and 4 students to the school and, in 1979, the infant classrooms were completed so the school covered all primary years.
Following the assembly on Monday, roses were planted near the site of the original rose garden where the infant classrooms are now located.