Try linking up with old school friends on the Facebook group called I went to Moorefield Girls High School. Reunions are sometimes organised here and if you click the Photos link on left panel you may find some people you remember.
Facebook Group
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Looking for my class – 3rd Year 1958, 5th Year 1960
I had a call from Eunice Chevor looking for classmates from her year. Can anyone help? Just leave a comment and I will connect you to Eunice.
Kathleen’s History Snippets
What a thrill to receive an email recently from Kathleen Gampenov (nee Crabtree) with some new information on early school history quoted below:
I am sending a couple of photos to add to your collection for the Hurstville origin of Moorefields school.
I went to Jannali first [1954] and then came back to Hurstville for the next two years [1955-1956].
We were in the main building with the belltower on Forest Road and two girls designed the badge, Margaret Hollier and Sandra Durrington, both were very artistic.
Hope this little bit of information helps. Kathleen Gampenov [nee Crabtree]
Well, it certainly helped as there was no information in our school archives about which building at the Forest Road (Hurstville Public School) site was occupied by Hurstville Girls Junior High nor about the designers of our school badge.
Did you notice the HGJH initials on the image with the blazer pocket? Does anyone recognise themselves or others in the image of the HGJH Class of 1956?
Please leave comments below to help us gather history and network with ex students.
Changing URL? Take your ClustrMaps archives with you.
This blog has recently had two changes of address (url) and managed to maintain ClustrMaps archives dating back to 20 June 2008. Our current ClustrMaps widget is on top of the right panel of this page while our ClustrMaps Archives can be viewed by clicking on the link in the Blogroll widget directly below.
Many, many thanks to the ClustrMaps Team who responded promptly to my SOS to ‘bring back my map with the new address’. Just a quick update by the ClustrMaps Team followed by pasting revised html text in the ClustrMaps widget.
Transfer of subscribers to new address (URL) successful!!
If you have an active subscription (ie you have received an email notification of this post), you don’t need to do anything.
Many subscriptions have not been activated. If you have an inactive subscription (ie. you have not received email notification of this post) you need to click the link in the verification email message from Feedburner, sent after you applied, in order to activate your subscription. If you can’t find the verification email message in your inbox, just re-subscribe by clicking the link on the Subscribe for Free widget on the top left hand corner of this page and don’t forget to activate.
If you would like to subscribe click the link on the Subscribe for Free widget on the top left hand corner of this page to receive email alerts of new posts. Don’t forget you need to click the link in the verification email message from Feedburner after applying in order to activate your subscription.
Will try and get some posts up soon.
Cook Book – 1960's
This little Cook Book is the first of what hopefully will be many Moorefield publications from our archives to be digitised and posted to the blog for all to enjoy. It was handed in by Susan Molloy (5th Form, 1964) who offered the following comments:
“This unpretentious little recipe book is one of my favourites – full of practical ideas to feed a hungry family. What it lacks in glossy photos of perfectly presented food, it more than makes up for with memories of staff, students and Kogarah life in the wonderful 60’s. For ex-students like me that’s a feast in itself!!” Susan Molloy (5th Form, 1964)
What year was this little gem printed or distributed to the community of Moorefield Girls High School at Kogarah in Sydney, Australia? Who was involved with this project – any names, memories etc.? The 69 images in this set represent the entire contents of the Cook Book. If you have any recollection of the book, please leave comments at the bottom of this post.
The scanned images of each page have been uploaded to our Moorefield Flickr account where you can click on the Cook Book Set and:
- view each page individually (select the “All Sizes” link on top of the image for further options ie. size, download, open/save and print), or,
- use the slideshow option at the top right corner of your screen.
Posting all available School Magazines (Yearbooks) online for 24/7 access from anywhere in the world while at the same time preserving archives in a format other than hard copy is our goal. This is a very time consuming process and as time is very limited, will also be a very slow process.
Stay tuned …
Reunions
Presently there are over 500 ex students and 10 Moorefield Groups (mainly “Class of ….” Groups) registered on https://www.facebook.com/ . If you view the Groups pages you will see lots of news and occasionally a post of Upcoming Reunions in the Events field. Clicking on Events will open a dedicated page with details of reunions such as When, Where, RSVP’s, Photos, Other Information and Wall Posts.
At http://www.friendsreunited.com.au/ up to 1500 ex students have registered including 24 ex staff. Certainly the generations of the 80s and upwards are using these social networking sites but there are also some members from the generations before.
Obviously these reunions are arranged independently from Moorefield but this blog would be a good way of announcing upcoming events organised by ex students and staff. Each announcement will include organiser details so you can make direct contact – there can always be last minute changes.
Any groups organising reunions are welcome to make announcements through this blog, on the understanding that Moorefield GHS does not endorse them.
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Group: |
Year 10, 1978 / Year 12, 1980 |
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Date: |
11 October, 2008 (Saturday) |
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Venue: |
Brighton R.S.L. ? Novotel ? |
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Time: |
Lunch |
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Contact: |
jennifer@pam.com.au |
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Found on: |
Friendsreunited |
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Group: |
Class of 1998 |
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Date: |
23 August, 2008 (Saturday) |
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Venue: |
Victoria House, Bexley |
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Time: |
6.30pm – 10.30pm |
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Extra Info: |
Cocktail Party – $45 per person |
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Contact: |
Danielle Smith (Marshall) Leave Facebook message |
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Found on: |
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Group: |
3rd Year, 1960 |
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Date: |
29 November, 2008 (Saturday) |
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Venue: |
Cronulla RSL |
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Time: |
12noon – 10pm |
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Contact: |
Jenni Noble (Weideman) chasehalt@westnet.com.au |
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Found on: |
Direct contact with MGHS |
Apologies to Kiri Hiku (Class of 1994) for not posting reunion notice on time. By all accounts it was a good night! Are there any more reunions being arranged that we can announce? Please leave comment.
Early Days – Recollections
Thanks to Susanne Wyndham (Tate) – Class of 1958, who made contact with me after the 50th Anniversary Celebration last year and offered a copy of her recollections of the early days of Moorefield, some of which I have reproduced below. I was also able to scan some of her photographs that can be viewed by clicking the Flickr widget on the right side of this blog.
“I grew up in Hurstville and attended Hurstville Primary School. In the early post World War II years, the schools were building up in numbers and new secondary schools had to be built. Until the early 1950s, some girls would go to St George Girls High, a selective school, where they studied two languages. Next was Sutherland Intermediate High (eventually moved to Port Hacking High School) which went to Third Year and students did a language and home science. At Hurstville Home Science School (eventually moved to Penshurst Girls High School) the girls could do commercial subjects (typing and bookkeeping) and home science”.
Until 1910, secondary education was officially sub-divided into a variety of types of courses and schools, with the high schools offering an academic course to a selected intake of pupils, but from the 1920s the distinction between the various schools grew increasingly blurred.
Junior high schools (1930-1976) were separate secondary schools that emerged in 1930 offering junior secondary education only in areas such as home science or junior technical courses. The long-term trend was towards comprehensive high schools and by the 1950s many of the other types of secondary schools were either being transformed into or closing in favour of comprehensive high schools which offered languages and commercial subjects.
ØGovernment schools of New South Wales, 1848-2003, [Sydney]: NSW DET, 2003.
“When I went to high school in 1954 the new Moorefield was not ready so I went to the new school at Jannali … 
in 1955 we were split and … those of us on the St George side of the Georges river were “housed” at Hurstville and were to be known as Hurstville Girls Junior High School … by second term in 1957 we joined First Year classes at the newly completed Moorefield Girls High School … In 1958, 19 girls were the first Leaving Certificate year … I was one.
Our parents had to set us up with three lots of uniforms. When at Jannali we wore their grey pinafore and white blouse. At Hurstville we had a navy box pleated uniform with white blouse. While at Hurstville our class helped set up the school colours, badge and motto which became those for Moorefield … The new school at Moorefield had a royal blue uniform. We always wore panama hats in summer and velour hats in winter, with gloves all year round.”
Any more information on setting up Moorefield’s colours, badge and motto? What building did Hurstville Girls Junior High School occupy? To assist in building this blog, please leave any comments you like at the end of this post.
Memorabilia
In March this year I found a very special box of Moorefield memorabilia in the Library mail tray, kindly donated by Carol Scott-Todd (Class of 1960). Carol felt the significance of her collection lay in the fact that it was part of Moorefield’s origin. She added that we were free to use or dispose (!!!) of the articles as we saw fit.
After reading Carol’s letter and unwrapping the flag, I was surprised to see the combination of the original name of the school (Hurstville Girls’ Junior High School) with our still current Moorefield crest and motto. As far as I know we don’t have another object in our archives tying the original name and our current crest and motto together. For this reason, the flag is extremely significant and thanks again to Carol, who even in her youth had the foresight to save this special object for posterity, by retrieving it from the rubbish in the late 1950s!
Below I have posted images and Carol’s descriptions of her very generous donation. Thanks to Lisa Cox’s Year 9 Photography students who displayed the articles and captured the following images.
Flag – Hurstville Girls’ Junior High School
This was sewn by the “Needlework” staff for girls to use at sports carnivals for their school marching competition and general display at the sports grounds. It had two poles (one on each end) and was carried by two flag bearers for the last time in 1956 or 1957 at the “District” Athletics Carnival.
When Hurstville Girls’ Junior High School ceased to exist the flag was thrown out because it had no further use … at Moorefield. I picked it up from the rubbish and took it home “for posterity”, then after leaving school in 1960 attached all my pieces off my school uniform. For a time thereafter I used it as a display piece on my wall. You will notice the motto on the H.G.J.H.S. flag was retained for Moorefield. Moorefield Hat Band – draped over flag lower left – worn on compulsory Panama hat. Note the Hurstville Girls’ Junior High School black hat band lower right was the basis of the blue band (same style).
Trophy Cup – Snr. Athletics Champ. 1960
This small trophy cup was the first cup presented as a senior athletics champion award. It was donated by the P & C Association of the day and I vividly remember Miss Culey “summonsing” me to her office (a rare and terrifying thing those days), to be given explicit instructions as to how I must write a letter of appreciation and thanks for the “special” trophy!
Intermediate Certificate – Needlework, Compulsory Practical Work – Petticoat
The petticoat had to be made from our self-drafted patterns and completed in class and at home to strict specifications. Miss Mutton was the “Needlework” teacher of the subject (which was practically compulsory at the time). Her signature appears on the small certificate of completion attached to the petticoat, in 1958. I didn’t dare wash it before sending it, in case the whole thing disintegrated!
School Tie and Stripes worn by Senior Transport Prefects (not photographed). In 1959 the stripes were given to prefects to identify their position. They were worn on each forearm sleeve of Moorefield’s blue blazer.
“Scott” Badge – one of the four sports houses at Moorefield.
Sports Ribbons – first issued at school carnivals 1960.
School Blazer Pocket with School Badge and Transport Prefect BadgeThis blog offers you all an opportunity to connect with peers from any era and remember shared experiences by adding comments below or on any other post. Any feedback or information will assist in the development and continuance of the blog.
#7 Our Bookshelf
Check out Our Bookshelf on the right hand side of your screen, directly under Meta. This widget was imported from the LibraryThing, an online tool developed for booklovers. I have added 15 books to our LibraryThing catalogue with at least one of the following tags:
- Kogarah (N.S.W.) – History
- Published ex student
- St George District – Biography
There are lots of ways to use the LibraryThing but this blog’s purpose is to highlight the history of the area surrounding Moorefield Girls High School and to promote books published by ex students. This is a nice way to keep a digital record. If there are any other books out there that would fit any of the above 3 tags or if you would like to add more information please post a comment.
#7 LibraryThing
Once I decided on a reason to incorporate this tool into my blog along with a selection of books and relevant tags, setting it up was fairly intuitive. Creating a widget was also fairly straightforward by copying code from the LibraryThing into a Text Widget (title : Our Bookshelf) on my blog.
The readership and popularity of the catalogued books are directly affected by the global nature of this tool. Most of my selection has low rates of sharing by other members with the exception of those tagged with St George District – Biography. Unreliable Memoirs by Clive Robertson has 288 hits, some of my books are rated and one book includes a text bubble comment.