NRS-16744 | Class Roll [Dangarfield Public School]

Full description

The Class Roll Books were required to be kept under Regulations in accordance with the Public Schools Act of 1866, issued on 27 February 1867, s. 17. They give a day-by-day record of each pupil’s attendance at school.

The format of the Roll Books remains consistent over time. The volumes are designed to allow for each double-page opening to constitute the record for one class during one quarter of the year. Pages are divided vertically into columns, which are organised in groups of five, representing school weeks of five days each. Each column is headed with the date (day and month), and the attendance of each pupil is recorded in that column against the pupil’s name. Rolls were normally called twice daily, morning and afternoon, and one bar of a cross was entered for each pupil present, so that a complete cross (X) against a pupil’s name indicates that they were present all day, while a single stroke (/) indicates their presence only for a morning or afternoon. In addition to their attendance record, the information recorded about each pupil includes their name and number in the admission register, their age, class at last inspection, and religious denomination, the fees due for them and fees in arrears, and their total attendance in each quarter.

Normally each opening is used for a single class, as the basic format of the volumes provides, or separate openings are used for the girls or boys of each class. Individual volumes, however, may be used to record the attendance in either one class or several.

The series from Dangarfield Public School is represented by a single volume, recording attendance in all classes at the school for the years from 1958 to 1963. Enrolments were sufficiently low to permit of each term’s attendance in all classes being recorded in the compass of one double-page opening. Copies of the school’s Term Return of Enrolment and Attendance have been inserted loose in this volume at the appropriate pages.