Harcourt North Primary School (School No. 4043; previously known as Harcourt North Sate School 1921 – c.1970)

Full description

Harcourt North Primary School (School No. 4043) (VA 3846) opened in January 1921 as Harcourt North State School. The co-educational primary school was located on McIvor Road in the Victorian Goldfields area within the City of Greater Bendigo. It opened with an initial enrolment of 16 students in Grades 1 to 8 and operated from a single-room wooden building that had been transported from Sandon State School (School No. 1539) and re-erected on the Harcourt North site in December 1920.

A shelter shed was added to the site in 1926, and in 1932, another school building was transported from the former Moonlight Flat State School (School No. 1486) (VA 5357) near Castlemaine to be used as a classroom. After much rallying from the school community, a 5-room teachers’ residence was erected and occupied on the school site in November 1950. 

In 1970, there was a statewide decision to broaden the use of the term ‘State School’ to include all government schools, rather than referring exclusively to primary-level schools. Subsequently, all primary schools began to use ‘Primary School’ in the name. Accordingly, the school name was changed to Harcourt North Primary School around this time. 

Declining enrolments led to a merger of Harcourt North Primary School with Harcourt Primary School (School No. 299) (VA 3845) in December 1993. The new school, Harcourt Valley Primary School (School No. 5404) (VA 5730), operated from the Harcourt Primary School site on Market Street, and the Harcourt North site was permanently closed.