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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-29 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Evanston Primary School

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:51): In the five minutes I have for this grieve, I would like to bring a couple of matters to the attention of the house. One is that today is a very special day in my local community. On 29 November 1963, there was the official opening of the former Evanston primary school. The school now celebrates its 60th anniversary. Sadly, though, that school has since closed.

To mark that occasion, earlier this week the Mayor of the Town of Gawler, Karen Redman, myself and also a former teacher Mrs Anne Hausler—who was my year 6 teacher at primary school then—officially unveiled a storyboard on the site, because the school had not only been closed in 2012 but, also, it has since been demolished and built with houses. So there was no recognition of the school, the work of the teachers, the parents and the community that actually served the community for 50 years.

The school was officially opened on Friday 29 November 1963 by then Minister for Education, the Hon. Sir Baden Pattinson KBE, LLB, MP. The school opened its doors to students on Tuesday 6 February 1962—it took almost two years to officially open the school—and closed on Friday 7 December 2012. The inaugural headmaster of the school was Mr William H.B. Turner, who was supported by seven teachers, eight classrooms and 218 students. The school was opened during the population growth periods in those areas. At one stage, the school had up to about 450 students when I was a student there between 1964 and 1971.

The school reopened in 2013 as the primary years of the newly created Gawler and District College B-12 on the Gawler High School site and was also joined by the former Evanston preschool. As I said, I am an old scholar of Evanston Primary School and Gawler High School, while my sons attended the Evanston preschool. Like a lot of areas, as the suburb aged over time, enrolments at the school fell dramatically and that is one of the reasons the school closed after serving local families and thousands of students for 50 years.

The plaque or something similar for the site was first mooted by Mrs Anne Hausler, a former schoolteacher. After many years' absence, Mrs Hausler visited the school site during 2021 and was surprised to see no plaque on the site to mark the important history of this school. Mrs Hausler said that despite teaching at the school during the 1960s for a number of years, she would not have been able to find the site of the school as there were no signs or directions.

I am pleased to say that the storyboard has been funded and erected by the Town of Gawler. Gawler Mayor Karen Redman came to the official launch and said that Evanston Primary School provided quality education to the people of southern Gawler for many years. She went on to say that the school was staffed by fantastic teachers and she thought it appropriate to acknowledge the school and where it was as part of our history of the town.

The school actually came about as a chance discussion which took place between myself and a former teacher at Evanston Primary School—who was also a former teacher of mine when I was at high school—on a train on the way back from a tour of parliament. The discussion held was that the primary school students would walk across to the high school on a regular basis to do their science and other classes.

As a result of that, discussions were held between the three schools. At the time I was a member of the Gawler High School Governing Council. It was discussed to explore what would be better for the students in that area. The schools decided, after a public vote, to merge and that is what happened.

The school was named after the suburb in which it was located. Evanston was originally named Evans Town after Ann Taylor Evans, the wife of the land developer James Philcox, and became Evanston in 1854 when the land was transferred. At one stage it was proposed to name the suburb Tambelin, but this was rejected by the Geographical Names Board.

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