One of the most popular genres in the writing of educational history is that of individual schools. The quality of such histories varies quite dramatically as authorship proceeds from amateur enthusiasts to professional historians. The main problem with school histories is that they are usually written for the purpose of valorising or celebrating the existence of a school. In the process those elements of school life and culture that do not serve the purpose rarely appear, or if they do, they are treated as outliers or unrepresentative alongside the main themes and narratives.

A professional historian, Geoffrey Sherington ponders the writing of his school history. Shore, Allen & Unwin, 1983, p. vii
Historiographically, school histories usually belong to the tradition that is often described as “Whig” or “progressive”. There are very many examples of excellent historical studies in this tradition, indeed, until the 1970s it was the dominant writing tradition in the English-speaking world. School histories however, generally occupy the least respected end of the spectrum, mainly because of these common features:
- the desire to celebrate a school’s history
- in the process ignoring or devaluing evidence contradicting the tale
- valuing very highly the work of school leaderships, particularly principals
- in the process taking less interest in other members of the school
- taking little interest in the diverse experience of the majority of teachers and students
- showing little knowledge or responsiveness to the cultural and social contexts of the school over time
- taking minor interest in pedagogy and curriculum as they operated in a school
- taking little interest in using historiography, social theory and research methodologies of relevance
- the text being subject to the censorship of school authorities.
Then there are the market considerations in the writing and publication of these kinds of histories. The market is usually conceived as the families of current students and alumni, most likely to be receptive to positive messages about their school and their schooling. It is rare that a school history will find a commercial publisher. Schools usually finance their published histories.
Having belonged to a “successful” school, current and former students thereby add distinction to themselves and their families. A school history may assist this process. The outcome may be thought of as a “commodity” of value, useful in social networking and the search for training and employment. School histories may be part of a public relations exercise that contributes to the recruitment of new students and the consolidation of loyal alumni communities who may favour the school with future enrolments and support of various kinds, including contributions to school funds.

The tome celebrating the history of Melbourne High School, published in 2005.
Given these considerations it is not surprising that the greatest number of school histories are commissioned by wealthier nongovernment schools rather than public schools. It is usually the case that the writing of such histories is closely supervised by school governing authorities so that they may serve the public relations aims of the school and its leaderships. Exceptional public schools may also participate in the process. Lindsay Fox, wealthy Australian businessman and old scholar of Melbourne High School, and the “Helen McPherson Smith Trust”, financed a massive hard-back history of Melbourne High, Strong like its Pillars (Gregory, 2005). At 770 pages, with huge numbers of old scholars mentioned, it is an exemplary example of the commissioned history. Richard Teese (1984) discussed the production of this kind of history: “Every grammar school seeks to be historical, to be an object of continuous cultivation to itself through its deeds of foundation and growth, its chronicles, its hagiography”.
It is not uncommon for draft school histories to be rejected or modified if unwelcome narrative, comment and analysis occurs. In the period following the multiple scandals associated with teachers accused of long term paedophilia and the associated practice of many school principals in ignoring or suppressing knowledge of the sexual abuse of young people, one is not surprised that these issues rarely appear in commissioned school histories. Schools experience other problems from time to time such as embezzlements or outbreaks of severe bullying.
In Australia a majority of nongovernment schools are owned or associated with churches or other religious groups. It is especially difficult for schools, and therefore their published histories if their religious and moralising purposes are contradicted by the dark histories of abuse. A 2024 newspaper story reported that a commissioned history of St Andrew’s Cathedral School in Sydney (Anglican) had been “canned” for this and possibly other reasons. (Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November). Several years earlier the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Final Report, 2017) revealed the degree to which such problems were widespread.
Schools are workplaces that attempt to reconcile many social conflicts and diverse populations. How “religious” should a church school be? How much latitude should a principal be granted by its governing council? How should all the issues associated with gender relations be dealt with? How much power should influential alumni have over the governance of a school? How were fractious students dealt with by school authorities: expulsion, suspension and in former times, corporal punishment? Which teachers and students are to be celebrated, and which not? If some students develop criminal careers, should they be noted as well as those who become wealthy, powerful and respectable?
There are few school histories in Australia that explore a range of such issues. Not many develop arguments concerning the sociological and political significance of their schools. The following questions relate to these issues. Does this school contribute to social class making by including and excluding certain families of differing backgrounds? Has this school in history and through to the present day consolidated or challenged prevailing views about appropriate gender characteristics for girls and boys? To what degree has the school offered curricula that serve more than university entrance and specific employment futures? To what degree has the school included and excluded students and families on the grounds of their wealth, ethnicity and religious or non-religious character? Do schools have policy concerning Indigenous students and families? What sources of income, private, government and other, does a school receive and what is that income spent on?

A school history not necessarily written for its old and present scholars. How are we to interpret the history of this school in terms of its place in social, political and economic history?
A study of a school that explored such contexts is now decades old: David Labaree’s The making of an American high school: The credentials market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (1988). It reviewed the history of a school in terms of it being a product of both democratic politics and capitalist markets despite its stated goal of producing an informed citizenry for the new American republic. Instead, its author argued, it became a vehicle for conferring status on the select group, boys of course, who were educated there.
Where to find a similar literature in Australia? If a school, say, educated more than its fair share of prime ministers and premiers, or other wealthy and powerful individuals, the fact would no doubt be celebrated in a school history. Whether the phenomenon would be situated in an argument about the ways some schools help make middle and ruling classes is unlikely. Historian Peter Gronn (1992) has done some of this work for Geelong Grammar School, but not through a school history.
To find such a critically informed literature one needs to look elsewhere. Some research theses of universities may be useful. Other publications such as those by McCalman (1993) and Crotty (2001) have such arguments at their centre, but they focus not on single schools, but young people and their families across many schools. They were not subject to the public relations imperatives of individual schools and their power to finance publication or not.
Researching a school history
So far this entry has concerned the pressures that produce constrained school histories. This section discusses sources and considerations that may be engaged in researching and writing improved school histories.
Survey the historiography
It is helpful to know a little about the social history (sometimes referred to as “history from below”) as well as the “history from above” traditions in educational historiography. This was an important development in Britain, North America and Australia from the 1960s. “Ordinary” people, not only the leaders, “the great white men and women”, could be the subject of historical research.
It is also important to consider the best available histories of education relevant to the school under study. For example, Sherington, Petersen and Brice (1987) wrote the most recent study of girls and boys nongovernment schools. Campbell and Proctor (2014) followed up on Barcan’s (1980) general history of education and schooling in Australia. Theobald (1996) remains the most significant historical study of women teachers and girls in schooling in Australia. O’Donohue (2001) and Trimingham Jack (2003) challenged the standard history of Catholic schooling, Catholic education in Australia 1806-1950 by Ronald Fogarty (1959).
There are histories of government schools published for most states in Australia, though many of these are aging celebrations of state education departments, for example: Mossenson (1972) for Western Australia, Thiele (1975) for South Australia, Blake (1973) for Victoria and Phillips (1985) for Tasmania. For many years both Queensland and New South Wales education departments ran units that produced publications assisting the writing of school histories, for example Government Schools of New South Wales 1848-2003 (2003), updated as a website since 2003. At last, histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education are also increasingly available.
There are other literatures of relevance on the history of teachers, teaching, children and youth. Whitehead’s many publications from 2003 onward provide a comprehensive study of women teachers in Australian schools, private, corporate and public.
These are but a few examples of the historical literature that ought to be consulted in the researching of school histories. If a school history is to be properly contextualised in broader educational as well as Australian history, then a search of relevant work is a crucial early step. Searches may include the main journal of educational history in Australia and New Zealand, the History of Education Review. Other entries in this dictionary may provide helpful leads. Otherwise, it is the usual work of searching library catalogues, the internet and elsewhere. Searching and reading associated literature will help define crucial questions that may be usefully addressed in an intended school history.
The official record from governing authorities
Governments and their agencies produce annual educational reports, education gazettes, internet sites, education enquiry reports and similar. Many of these, through to the mid-twentieth century report on individual schools as well as the changing law and policy concerning schools, age of compulsion and curriculum more generally. The reports of school inspectors, usually lasting from the 1870s to the 1970s, are invaluable. Parliamentary papers and debates may be consulted. Some may be on-line, older issues may need to be read in state or university libraries. In some states there may exist guides to such sources, as is the case in New South Wales with C. Wescombe & G. Sherington, Education in New South Wales: A guide to State and Commonwealth Sources 1788-1992 (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1993).
The official record from school authorities
School councils, principals, and parents and citizen bodies usually produce annual and other reports. There should be minutes of meetings. Sometimes there are school journals that were required to have been kept by principals. Schools produce official newsletters. All of this can be a little overwhelming if there are great quantities produced over a long time. Nevertheless, as with the official records of governing authorities, they help produce “history from above” and sometimes “below”. We certainly need to know much about the intentions and practices of those responsible for running schools. By themselves they are not enough for a really useful school history. What happened in the classrooms, the playgrounds, chapels, sports fields and the staffrooms as the intentions of those “above” were implemented–or not?
School magazines and yearbooks

Two years after the school foundation, Adelaide High School’s magazine, Easter edition, 1910
Secondary schools in particular, especially long-lived and prestigious ones produced school magazines and yearbooks. Much can be learnt from them about certain aspects of the school’s history and culture. They must be read carefully and critically, however. Their job is usually to represent the best and most attractive elements of school life. Sometimes there is slippage. The student editor of Adelaide’s Scotch College magazine published an editorial (vol. 9: 1, 1932) welcoming the Russian revolution of 1917, hoping that common patriotism that caused selfishness and war would be overwhelmed by internationalism. Clearly the school authorities were shocked. In a later issue the editorial announced the end of student editorial freedom and the promulgation of “the spirit of the school” to take its place (vol. 9: 3, 1932).
This incident at Scotch College made explicit the controls that are usually, but sometimes unevenly exerted over the ways that schools communicate to their communities and beyond. The episode suggests that the ways that schools represent themselves are in themselves a worthy subject of school histories. Such representations contribute to shaping the futures as well as imagined pasts of schools. “What happened” may be less influential in the long-term history of a school, than constructed representations of a school’s history and culture, no matter how tenuous the relationship may be between “what happened” and the representations.
Oral history
The information gained through interviews with knowledgeable informants can be immensely valuable, especially if the experiences of “ordinary” students, alumni and teachers are explored as well as those of the influential and powerful. Long-lasting schools may have affected the lives of thousands of students and teachers however. A fair question to ask is how a representative sample of a school population may be identified and invited for interview? Rarely are the resources and personnel available to do this kind of work as well as the researcher/author of a school history might wish. It then becomes important to develop a rationale for the selection of interviewees, and briefly discuss the likely consequences of the rationale in understanding a school’s history.
There are a series of technical and ethical issues to be considered and solved in the taking of oral testimony. How are possible interviewees to be identified and approached? There may be privacy issues involved here. Will interviewees be given transcripts to approve? Who will store and own the interviews into the future, and can they be used for purposes other than the immediate purpose for which they were taken? The full range of issues cannot be addressed here, but there are plenty of excellent practical guides for interviewing and the taking of oral histories.
It may also be useful to develop a theoretical understanding of how oral history works. The memories of interviewees are usually reshaped over the years. Often interviewees talking about the same persons or events differ in their narratives and interpretations. The role of the writer/historian is to make the best sense possible of such material, and not necessarily to suppress minority or differing narratives.
Surveys
Questionnaires can be composed for targeted audiences. Their construction and means of distribution and collection must be carefully planned. Similarly, whether respondents are to be anonymous or give permission to be named in any publication is a serious question. Information sheets and permission forms are often constructed for these purposes. Survey outcomes may provide either quantitative or qualitative information, or both. Along with important preliminary questions, for example: “What years did you attend the school?” or “What years did you teach in the school?” some of the most useable information comes not from quantifiable “Yes”, “No” or “Maybe” answers to questions or propositions, but responses that allow informants to reflect on their experience. These are “qualitative” responses. They allow informants to express their own sense of what was important about a school and their experience of it without being constrained by the frustrations of “Yes” and “No” or scaled answers (for example): “From 1 to 5, how important were the sporting opportunities made available by the school (1=Very important, 5=Not important). As is the case, for oral history, there are many useful guides for the development of surveys.
Student newspapers
These are often ephemeral. They may have similar issues concerned with censorship as outlined for school magazines above. In a history of Unley High School in South Australia the author was able to use an immensely valuable collection of such newspapers that gave voice to student concerns (The Unley Eye, 1960-1973). When articles on aspects of authoritarian governance of the school were subject to censorship, the students published The Other Eye (1968) without permission. The school’s historian was able to use its content to analyse the school’s culture well beyond how it was represented in official publications (Campbell, 2010).
Other newspapers and magazines
Many of these are able to be explored through Trove, a database established by the National Library of Australia. Not all publications are available, including more recent issues of newspapers such as The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. It is best for the period up to the 1960s, and especially good for regional newspapers. The search engine takes a little time to get used to, but the results produced by entering school and person names can produce enormously valuable results.

A biography of Geelong Grammar School’s most influential headmaster, James Darling.
Memoirs and biographies
Old scholars, school heads and others who became famous or infamous may have biographies written about them. There may also be autobiographies. They may not only provide information about schools attended in particular periods, but point to sources of information, including interviews, that may not easily be discovered through other means. The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a quality publication for knowledge about such persons. In South Australia there is an on-line reproduction of employment records of school teachers employed by the Education Department through to the 1950s. Searches via the internet, state libraries and the National Library of Australia are all capable of producing relevant information, sometimes with the help of librarians. Each Australian state has its own archives, as well as the National Archives based in Canberra.
Private and public papers in various archives
State and national libraries and other organisations often hold relevant collections of papers belonging to individuals and institutions. State and national government archives often hold records of public schools, as do archives of state education departments (where they exist). Queensland for example produces excellent guides that assist school historians. Such libraries and archives often hold photographic material which, when published in a school history, significantly improves the accessibility of the history being told. For some material archivists and librarians may be needed to assist in the searching and access. When a school under study has its own archives, then these are an essential source of material, text as well as images. Both texts and images may be subject to copyright however, and the restrictions arising need to be observed with care.
Quantitative sources
School attendance and enrolment registers, vocational guidance records, copies of student assessments, some of which sources may need official agreement for their release or use (usually with conditions) may be used to quantify matters such as the social character of student families, length of school enrolment and public examination successes of students at various stages in a school’s history. Mackinnon (1984) and Campbell (2010) used such sources in their respective histories of the Advanced School for Girls and Unley High School. Surveys, as discussed above may also produce quantitative information.
Writing a school history
There are many issues to be resolved in the writing of a school history. The organisation of chapters needs to be decided. Usually this is done on a chronological basis, but there is also the issue of themes such as school leadership and governance, school culture, student experience, the school’s place in the market of schools and numerous other issues. Occasionally the thematic approach will take first place, before chronology, but chapters are usually easier to organise by chronology. Parker’s history of MacRobertson Girls’ High School in Melbourne (2006) was a strong attempt to make themes the principle means of organisation.
The contents of a school history may include:
- Title page
- Publication details page
- Contents page
- Foreword and/or Preface (if required)
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapters
- Conclusion
- Appendix/Appendices (if required)
- Bibliography
- Index

An unusual example of a school history where eight historians were invited to consider different substantial themes in the school’s long history.
The bibliography may include:
- Primary sources
- Manuscript, regular series (eg. school council minutes)
- Manuscript, personal papers
- Published, regular series (eg. school year books, reports of a minister of education)
- Interviews (names of interviewees and dates of interview)
- Secondary sources
- Published books and articles ordered alphabetically by author.
It is almost always useful for an author to have readers who can check his/her/their writing for accuracy, spelling, grammar and communicability. School histories that are commissioned will very likely be subject to review and approval of school authorities as well.
Multi-authored histories may require strong coordination to ensure consistency of approach. Sometimes different authors may treat different thematic issues in the history of a school. This was certainly the case in the admirable Melbourne Girls Grammar School Centenary Essays, 1893-1993 (1993) edited by McCarthy and Theobald. Not only were very difficult episodes in the school’s history explored, but unusually the school’s principal and governors “extended to the editors and authors full professional control of the project and access to sources” (p. xi).
Much of the discussion in this entry is of secondary school histories. Many elementary and primary school histories also exist (Burckhardt, 1995), and their research and writing may follow similar lines as those suggested above.
Finally, school authorities when realising that a school centenary or half-centenary is approaching often wish to celebrate and acknowledge the history of the school. Full histories are not the only publications that may be organised for the purpose. Sometimes collections of interviews, or extracts from a range of school publications, or collections of photographs also serve. Nevertheless a well researched and argued school history, aware of the range of relationships within and beyond the school gates, has the capacity to extend our knowledge of the ways education has and does operate in Australia.