Sebas PS alumni reflect on legacy

WITH the Sebastopol Primary School community set to celebrate one-hundred-and-fifty years this week, past students and teachers have been invited to share in the reminiscences.

One of them is Maureen Payne, who taught at the school from 1977 to 2020.

She said throughout her time the school’s always had a defining characteristic.

“It’s a battling school,” she said. “It’s always been a school that deals with a lot of challenging situations. Although mainly working class, the population’s varied over the years.

“We’ve risen right up to 200 then down to 50 but they’ve always been real battlers at the school.

“We’re in a very peculiar position when you graph out the school’s socio-economic status but the school’s always been one to punch above its weight in trying to improve and introduce new initiatives around literacy and numeracy.

“I taught from prep to 6, was librarian, art teacher, music teacher, digital education, and I was the first integration teacher in the school.”

Attendees of Sebastopol Primary School’s 150th celebration will be able to explore the school, which will be decorated with archival photos and documents as well as student re-enactments and artwork. Photo: SUPPLIED

Ms Payne said she’s excited to catch up with attendees at this week’s celebrations and talk about their connection to the school’s legacy.

“I’m really hoping to see some past parents and students that I knew from before,” she said.

“I know there’s the time capsule that’s going to be opened. I believe I contributed to that so it’ll be interesting to see what was put in there and what other people did too.”

Chris Ottini attended Sebastopol Primary School from 2004 to 2010 and currently works there as an education support officer.

He said the atmosphere of the school has changed a lot even in his time away.

“There’s a lot of new paintwork that’s happened and a lot of rooms are used for different functions than when I was there,” he said.

“I like working here specifically because of the culturally diverse demographic that we support which is great to see in such a small group of children.

“I work with some of the teachers that I had here, but I’m interested in seeing how many people will come here that I know.”