Schools/index.html
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Freotopia > schools, institutes, and 'colleges'.
See also: schools elsewhere; universities.
Schools in the Fremantle area
According to the Dictionary of Western Australians, the first colonial schoolteacher was John Cleland, from October 1830.
The little that I know about the earliest schools in the Swan River colony is based on David Adams's 1981 Early Days article. His table 1 shows 'schools 1829-1856'.
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[[Schools/schools/beaconsfield.html|
Beaconsfield Primary]], 1894, 1898, 1913-14 - until 1978
Beehive Montessori School is near the sea on or adjacent to the former Leighton shunting yards at 2 Curtin Avenue, Mosman Park.
[[Schools/schools/boysschool.html|
]]Boys School, Adelaide St, 1854
Catholic Convent Girls School, 1889, aka St Patrick's Hall, 3 Parry Street, demolished, now the site of St Patrick's Care Centre.
[[cbc.html|
]]Christian Bros College, Ellen St; s/a CBC, Perth.
Community School (Fremantle) was an alternative secondary school 1973-1983, in St Mary's Church, North Fremantle, Dalkeith House, High Street, and then the North Fremantle Town Hall.
East Fremantle Primary (Plympton School), 1898, Marmion/Forrest Streets Fremantle
The Family School was a tiny school run by a small group of parents in the St Paul's Church hall behind the church in South Terrace in the 1990s. One of the leading parents was Sue Stange (Wilson), mother of actress Maya Stange (who later attended the Lance Holt School and then John Curtin SHS).
Fremantle College is at the former South Fremantle High School site. Education minister Peter Collier announced 15 Dec 2014 that Hamilton Hill and SFHS would be merged to form Fremantle College, the new school to include a gifted and talented selective academic program, the South Fremantle campus upgraded at cost of $30m. The new College opened in 2018 and will be an independent public school. No change to John Curtin HS aka College of the Arts.
South Fremantle High School (1967), on Lefroy Road, became part of Fremantle College, on the same site, having closed in 2017. According to Geoff Teague, it was built on part of what used to be the quarry there - most of which is still (2021) undeveloped.
Hamilton Hill High School has been closed and become part of Fremantle College, and the property sold.
[[Schools/churches/fgs.html|
Fremantle (boys) Grammar School]], 1885. The same building was also used as Girton College (for girls), and as an RLDS church. It is now a private dwelling.
Fremantle Primary, Brennan St, now occupies the block bounded by Brennan, Alma, Attfield, and Stevens Streets.
The Fremantle Intermediate School was built in 1904. In 1927 it was renamed South Terrace State School (ie, primary school). The buildings continue to exist as Block A of Fremantle Hospital; in 1987 they were used as the Day Care Centre at the NW corner of the complex.
Fremantle Infants School (ie, kindergarten), aka Alma St Infants, was on the NE corner of Alma St and South Terrace; where the corner of Fremantle Hospital with the Emergency Dept was until it was closed in 2014.
Both of the older schools were referred to from 1952 as South Terrace Primary School, and that name was retained for the new school in Brennan St (built in 1961 on the site of the former Alma St Cemetery) until another change in 2000 to Fremantle Primary School.
The former Fremantle Technical School (1903) in South Terrace, which was until recently the Challenger Institute of Technology, and before that Challenger TAFE, has been sold to the Prendiville Group, a tourism company. The company’s headquarters will relocate to South Terrace within the former technical institute building. Its plans for the site also include a training school for hospitality professionals, visitor accommodation and a new food and beverage venue.
Girton College, 200 High St
A Miss Susan Hancock ran a school for some ten or so girls in the rooms built in 1882 for such a purpose on either side of the 1841 Wesley Chapel in Cantonment Street. That it was called the Central School is alleged by an Elizabeth Eaton who so informed Michael Barker, editor of the Fremantle Shipping News', for an article published 20 April 2022, in which the school is said to have run 1891-1904.
Hazel Orme Kindergarten, 96 Samson St, White Gum Valley; opened 1932 in Price St, according to Ewers: 137.
[[Schools/schools/girlsschool.html|
Infants and Girls School]], South Terrace.
The former John Curtin High School, built 1954-58, is on East Street between Ellen, Vale/Finnerty, and Ord Streets. The land that it's on was granted in 1879 to the people of Fremantle for a public park, but was requisitioned first by the Defence Department and then, opportunistically, by the Education Department, and so lost to the people. The school's playing field was formerly the Skinner St Cemetery, and the remains of hundreds of people are still below the ground there. It is now called a college.
King St School, Plympton
Lance Holt School, 10 Henry St
[[img/northfremprim.jpg|
]]North Fremantle Primary School, Stirling Highway
North Fremantle Primary School (present), 30 John Street
Our Lady of Carmel, 82 Collick Street, Hilton, 1997
Port School was an alternative secondary school which began in Leake Street in central Freo, and then moved to a squash courts building in Carrington Street Hamilton Hill, now 62 Wheeler Road.
[[Schools/schools/princessmay.html|
Princess May School]], 1900
Richmond Primary, 1921, 37 Windsor Rd East Fremantle
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Sacred Heart Convent]], Riverview, Tuckfield St, 1889
St Patrick's Primary School at 8 Ellen Street brings together the former St Joseph's Girls School, Parry Street, and the Maristella Kindergarten in Hampton Road. The Parry Street school building now serves as the St Patrick's Parish Centre.
Samson Primary School is now known as the school attended by Sam Kerr, in August 2023 the most popular person in Australia.
Seton Catholic College was established in January 1990 as a secondary school of the Archdiocese of Perth. It is a college founded on the traditions and experience of the two pre-existing schools from which it was developed - St Brendan's College, established in 1964 by the Society of African Missions, and De Vialar College, established by the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in 1968 from their previously existing St Joseph's School in Parry St, established in 1855.
Spearwood Alternative School is a government-run alternative primary school at 370 Rockingham Rd, Hamilton Hill.
The Studio School, part of All Saints College (Bull Creek), was announced in May 2021 as about to open in Fremantle. In June 2022 it is in a building opposite the Town Hall in Adelaide Street, but until the building was ready, it opened in the former Dockers/Civic Centre building at Fremantle Oval.
Waldorf School is a Rudolf Steiner-inspired primary school at 14 Gwilliam Drive, Bibra Lake. The name 'Waldorf' comes from the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Company, the owner of which had the first Waldorf school set up.
White Gum Valley Primary, 1901, 29 Hope Street, occupies the block bounded by Hope, Montreal, Watkins, and Wood Streets.
Schools elsewhere
All Saints College, fee-paying coed Anglican school, pre-K to year 12, Ewing Avenue, Bull Creek.
Christ Church Grammar School, Claremont.
Girdlestone Girls High School, Perth.
Governor Stirling High School is in Woodbridge.
Guildford Primary School, 125 Helena Street, is the oldest school in WA, and still retains part of its early 1868 structure. The school is the oldest continuously operating state school in Western Australia and the third oldest in Australia.
Hollywood Senior High School was a public co-educational high day school, located in the suburb of Shenton Park in Perth, Western Australia. It was opened in 1958, closed in 2000 and amalgamated with another similar school, Swanbourne Senior High School, to form a new school, Shenton College.
Iona Presentation College, Mosman Park.
Loreto College (Osborne Hotel)
Mazenod College, Lesmurdie
Perth Boys School, 139 St George's Terrace, Perth.
Perth College, Mount Lawley.
Perth Technical School, 137 St George's Terrace, Perth.
Presbyterian Ladies College, Ormiston College, 140 Palmerston Street, Perth; 14 McNeil Street, Peppermint Grove.
St Charles Seminary in Guildford trains men for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
St Louis School, Claremont, est. 1938.
St Patrick's Boys School was in Irwin Street Perth 1878-1963. See the Wikipedia article.
St Thomas' Primary School, Warden Street, Claremont - near the Church of St Thomas the Apostle, cnr College Road and Melville Street, Claremont.
References and Links
Adams, David 1981, '"Superior" boys schools in a pioneering community: the Swan River Settlement, 1829 to 1855', Early Days, vol. 8 part. 5: 75-93.
Burke, Gary 1990, Long Live the Jojoba Bean! The Story of the Community School (Fremantle), Production Function, Balcatta.
Charlesworth, Helene 1997, Small but Strong: a Pictorial History of the Town of East Fremantle 1897-1997, Town of East Fremantle: 34.
Garrick, Phyl & Chris Jeffery1987, Fremantle Hospital: A Social History to 1987, Fremantle Hospital.
Hasluck, Alexandra 1981, Portrait in a Mirror: An Autobiography, OUP, Melbourne.
Haynes, Bruce T. ed. 1976, Documents on Western Australian Education 1830-1973, Claremont Teachers College (ECU).
Johnson, Tim 1992, Guns, Graves and Dreaming: the History of Fremantle's High School: John Curtin Senior High School, unpub.
Lang, Karen & Jan Newman 2004, Wharf Rats and Other Stories: 100 Years of Growing up in Fremantle, Fremantle Primary School.
Rubinich, Tullio 1998, Plympton to East Fremantle: A Century of Schooling, 1898-1998, M. V. Kimberley Publications, Fremantle.
South Fremantle High School page in Wikipedia.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 15 December, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/schools/index.html (it was last updated on 30 April, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.