Hillside Public School is turning 100, and it wants the people who lived it to write its history. As the centenary approaches, the school has put out a call across its community for memories, stories and old photographs — anything that captures what Hillside was like across a hundred years of students walking through its gates.
So far, the response gives a sense of what that history looks like. There are recollections of one-room classrooms and school milk delivered each morning, sports carnivals and friendships that started on the playground and never really ended, and teachers former students still talk about decades later.
Former student Cindy, who attended Hillside in the 1970s, added her own memories to the collection: a school small enough that everyone knew each other, older students looking after younger ones, and soccer played most days.
She remembers ABC lessons coming over the radio, mothers playing tennis on the school courts while classes went on inside, a fellow student who arrived by horse and cart, and the school-wide tradition of forming an arch at the gates for graduating students to walk through. She still reckons a school that size achieved plenty.
Organisers are hoping more of the school community will come forward before the big day, whether the memory is a favourite teacher, a funny moment from the classroom, a friendship that has lasted, a Hillside tradition, or simply what an ordinary day at the school used to look like. Every story adds another piece to the picture the school is building of its first century.
The celebrations take place on Friday, 30th October 2026, at Hillside Public School, 122 Cattai Ridge Road, Glenorie NSW 2157. Gates open at 5pm.
