We have thousands of unique primary sources in our archives about school and education. To see if there is anything available on your school, go to this search and type in your school’s name, for example, Montagu Bay Primary School.
Libraries Tasmania has admission registers for schools across the state. They can be a wonderful link to the past showing things like a students name and when they attended a school.
School Inspectors used to be a big part of education, and Libraries Tasmania has hundreds of reports available from many different schools. There are two finding aids available online to help narrow down what you are looking for. The first covers 1890 – 1909 and looks at reports of examinations in State Schools. The second, from 1890 – 1970, looks at the reports on the schools themselves.
Applying to be a teacher hasn’t always been the way it is now. Libraries Tasmania has hundreds of different records showing this process, ranging from the initial application to transfers and applying for promotion. Some of these records are available online, in particular over 800 applications from 1910 to 1935 here.
There are many more specific types of records available than are described here. These include general correspondence, incidental reports on staff, registers of student’s work and correspondence about teachers resignations. This guide gives access to some of the more interesting of these.
We can help you with questions about your school. If it’s a quick question, you can call us on (03) 6165 5538 during business hours. If it requires more research, you can ask your question using this form.