A class at work at Ainslie Primary School, Braddon, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Abstract

Photograph of girls and boys sitting at double desks and writing with pencils while a male teacher attends to a student at the back. Many of the children are in school uniform which includes tunics for girls and ties for boys. Most girls wear ribbons in their hair.The wooden desks have holes to hold ink wells and decorative corner supports. On the walls are some landscape painting reproductions and maps of Tasmania. Through the windows can be glimpsed the slope of Mount Ainslie and the dome of the Australian War Memorial. Ainslie Primary School was built in 1938 to a design by Charles Whitley, an architect employed by the Department of Works. It was the first primary school in Australia to have incorporated into its planning a library, lecture room and needlework room. This photograph is from an album that was held at the London office of the Australian National University over the period 1949 to 1952. The album was used to inform prospective staff about Canberra. These images are part of the series produced by the Department of Information and kept at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. National Archives holdings in this series have gaps and some images may be held only at the ANU Archives.