The Beginning

The establishment of Epping Boys High School 50 years ago was a response to the rapid suburban growth of this area and to the increased importance attached to secondary schooling in the post World War II era.  Epping Boys’ High was one of the new comprehensive high schools, neither purely academic and selective, nor purely technical and narrowly vocational in focus.  It was built to accommodate the baby boomer generation, who aspired to greater educational opportunities than many of their parents, and its development as a school benefited greatly from the rising prosperity and hope of the time.  The early editions of Panorama reflected this sense of dynamic growth, belief in the future and modernism.  As Paul Tonkin wrote in Panorama in 1964 The decrepit past of bygone days is through.  New supermarkets, recreation centres, clinics and modern schools are all replacing the Sydney that was.  No more does a visitor think of Sydney as a wild, struggling city, but as a new up-to-date community, thriving with modern achievement.”

This feeling of optimism and progress was reflected in the rapid physical growth of the school.  Opened by the Minister for Education in March 1959, the school had already been operating for two years.  The first principal, Mr McGregor, was head of a small staff, which taught 275 boys, as well as 130 1st year girls, who left for Cheltenham the next year.  Subject masters were not appointed until 1960; by 1962 there were 838 pupils, 42 staff and 2 clerical assistants.  When he retired in 1965, Mr McGregor was the only remaining teacher left from the 1957 group. Change had been unbelievably rapid.

The original barren, rocky site of eleven acres was also improved and augmented with land purchased next to Vimiera Road. Later, an old orchard on which the sporting fields were developed was purchased by the Education Department and the parents.  The eleven acres became twenty two acres by 1960. Parsons’ Pathway commemorates the work of one Manual Arts teacher and a team of boys who cleared a path through the scrub so that students could board buses in Vimiera Road.  The area between the Assembly Hall and Crimea Road to the basketball courts had to be filled and levelled with hundreds of tonnes of ashes.  Over 500 trees were planted and regularly watered, under the guidance of Mr Ern Caletti.  Ashes were provided by a parent in the business and fathers did much of the hard work to provide the grounds and playing fields we have today.  The most difficult area to develop was today’s Senior Area, from a rocky plateau to lawns, paths and gardens.  As an early history states “No Parents and Citizens Association ever had a better team of fathers than the men who did that job – and stuck at it, week after week, for three years.”  The rock used was split and laid on the site.  The school grounds won 1st Prize in the Northern Zone section of the Herald Garden competition in 1969, a tribute to the efforts of these parents.  This community effort in the early years reflects how much having their own local high school meant to them.

The original classrooms were built in two stages, the second stage being completed in 1959, when the official opening took place.  The Learmonth Block (K Block), and the Library were added later.  The Learmonth Block commemorates the work of Ron Learmonth, the English master, who did much to encourage reading, writing, drama and oratory among the boys.  By 1964, a year of “firsts”: the playing fields were operational, the Cadet Corps had its own Rifle Range, the brass band was established, the 1st Year Camp at Narrabeen, and “An Evening with Shakespeare” was held.  The school Fete, Debating Expression Night and Panorama were already regular fixtures. In other words, most of the school’s enduring traditions had been established.

Other enduring features - the school houses and motto “Strive to Achieve” - were chosen in 1959, and the school song in 1960, later modified by Col Byrnes in the early 1990s. Darvall, Harris, Midson and Terry were named after early landowners and pioneers of Epping and Eastwood.  The school flag was sewn by the girls’ needlework mistress.

By 1965 the school was seven years old, but already much of its built structure and physical surroundings were well established, through the hard work and fundraising of the parents, leadership of the first Principal and support of the teachers and boys.  Many of the academic rewards, in the form of outstanding Leaving Certificate results, and sporting successes were beginning to crown all the early efforts of the new school community.