Education Department
These School records (1881-present) originate from individual schools. They include admission registers, punishment books, examination books, stock books, visitors books, staff meeting records and observation books. Of these records, the admission registers are probably of most relevance to people tracing their origins. They record: name and age of child; religion; date of leaving last school; name, residence and occupation of parent or guardian; date of admission to each division; and date of leaving school.
All school records are restricted for 30 years with the exception of visitors books, staff meeting records and observation books.
These records may be a source of information about children who were residents of children's homes, or cared for under a substitute care program, particularly where no other records of that home or program survive. For example, the records of Carlingford Public School may contain information about children from Dalmar at Carlingford.
If State Records does not hold the records of a particular school, it is possible that the school itself still holds them. In these cases, enquiries should be directed to the Principal of the school.
A card index to those records which are held by State Records is available in the Kingswood search room and online. A number of records relating to schools in the Hunter and Riverina regions are on loan to the University of Newcastle Archives and the Charles Sturt University Archives, Wagga Wagga respectively. A full listing of these records is available from State Records. In addition, State Records' A guide to New South Wales State archives relating to Aboriginal people lists the records of Aboriginal schools which were run by the Department, and is available in search rooms. This guide is available in the Kingswood search room and online.
Sources used to compile this entry: Thinee, Kristy and Bradford, Tracy, Connecting Kin: Guide to Records, A guide to help people separated from their families search for their records [completed in 1998], New South Wales Department of Community Services, Sydney, New South Wales, 1998, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/connectkin_guide.pdf.
Prepared by: Melissa Downing & Naomi Parry
Created: 10 August 2011, Last modified: 9 July 2020
Last updated: 5 August 2022
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/nsw/biogs/NE00809b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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