North Drakesbrook School

By Jemma Bruning

The North Drakesbrook School was located about 5km north of Waroona amongst the pines on the South West Highway, opposite Hall Road. The school was opened on the 12th of September 1910 with 17 students and it closed 25th of June 1943.

The original building was a tent with a wooden frame covered with canvas and topped with an iron roof.

The school had to have at least 10 children to enrol before a school could be established, so a farmer’s wife, Mrs Margaret Bowles, was the main person involved in getting things started and built, when she wrote to the Educational Department in an attempt to get a school officially opened.

The first teacher was Mrs Lucy F. England and she taught for 12 months before a local woman, Mrs Nellie Roberts, took on the job and taught until 1940. Mrs Aileen Vera MacDonald commenced duties on the 5th February 1941 and taught until the school closed on the 25th June 1943.

The number of students jumped to 34 in 1923 and up to 40 children attended in later years, from infants to eighth class.

The tent was gradually enlarged and became more permanent weatherboard. A new school building was erected in 1926. All the children walked to school or came by horse and cart, and former students recall how play time was spent in baseball, rounders or on a maypole in the school grounds. When school closed in 1943, the children travelled by a bus into Waroona school.
A stand of pines on the west side of South Western Highway mark the spot where the school once stood.