Outdoor class at Barambah Aboriginal Settlement School 1912

1916 — The Home Secretary announces a new school is to be built along state school lines to accommodate 150 pupils. Well over 100 pupils are enrolled in a school built for 56, to ease over-crowding, some classes are taught outside when the weather is favourable.

“If the object of the school is to keep the children quiet, out of mischief during the daytime and to train them to be lazy with as much incidental teaching as a teacher can give 117 children in five different classes in an overcrowded room with less than four square feet per child, it is a success, but if the aim is to cultivate their intelligence, to give exercise to their self activity, to train them to be industrious and self reliant with a fair knowledge of the work of class three when leaving, the school is a failure.”
- District Inspector of Education, W Earnshaw 9 August 1917
By contrast,
“… progress is, under the circumstances, very satisfactory.”
- The Chief Protector of Aborigines, Annual Report 1917,

Overcrowding, lack of resourses and staffing are ongoing problems. The teacher, Augusta Lipscombe, 1908 – 1917, appears not to have been a qualified teacher. Her replacement resigns after six weeks.

1919 – an additional grade at school is introduced. Seven years are now spent at school to complete Grade Three. To ease over-crowding, a bough shelter is built where some classes are taught. In an attempt to improve conditions, the veranda is enclosed in 1920.