EAST CLAREMONT PRACTISING SCHOOL 1940

Some doubt as to accuracy of names of students. 'Max Knight' appears in front and back row? Established July 17, 1905, in the grounds of the Claremont Teachers' College for teacher training purposes. Located on land between Princess Road and Bay Road. The school colours are gold and green and the school song is '' A School Among the Gum Trees''.

The original Prac was very small with three classrooms, two short verandahs and a lean-to office. The three original classrooms comprised one large demonstration room, with tiered benches on a raised platform and two smaller rooms separated by a passage. The classrooms opened onto an interior passage and verandah and had high ceilings, high windows and stark white walls.

The Rural School was established at the Practising School to assist in teacher training (at Claremont Teachers College) for postings to one-teacher rural schools. It was comprised of a single class with students ranging in age and from all primary grades/years. The initial Rural School operated in a Prac School room, but in 1912 -13 a new room was added with its own entry foyer and storeroom and Arthur Dunleavy Hill was appointed as its Head Teacher. In 1922 an entirely separate weatherboard and iron 'Combined Country School and Household Management Room' was built just south of the main brick building and in its own fenced enclosure. While Mr Hill taught in the classroom, his wife taught cooking and sewing to the girls in the room at the rear. The Rural School was closed in 1975 when school buses conveyed country children to larger centres and it was no longer necessary to train teachers for one teacher schools. The weatherboard building remained in Prac School grounds and in the final years of that school was used as an art room.

New Library was built and funded by School P &C and Education Dept. In 1992. The building operated as a libray and school assembly hall with canteen facilities attached. It was behind the Rural School and along the Bay Road fence. Building was demolished when new wing was added to main school.

The school had four factions/houses : Thor whose colour was red, Poseidon whose colour was green, Zeus whose colour was blue and Mercury whose colour was gold/yellow. Later an additional faction was introduced: Rooney

The school closed in 2010 and the students were amalgamated with Claremont Primary School to create Freshwater Bay Primary School which opened in 2011.