PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION

Kindergarten children at play, 1950 

The kindergarten girls and boys, 1950.

Back row: Alan Johnston, Daryl Meehan and Peter de Mornement
Standing in middle row: Simon Conquest, Michael Atkinson, Justin Moloney, Henry Steil, Terence Pacini, Kristen Johnson, Leveda Lynch, Kristen Mary Scarff, Patricia Dwyer, Margaret St Ellen, Mary Wright, Jane McDavitt, Jane Bowden, David McCarthy, Ann-Marie Ehrlich, Susan Acton, Susan Burke, Peter McDavitt and Garry Oliver
Seated in middle row: Peter O’Donoghue, Paul Coleman, Philippa Simpson, Mary Flynn, Diane Cooper, Adrienne Ireland, Susan Glover, Peter O’Brien, Diane Walling and Sandra Busch
Front row: Carol Anderson, Francis Buckle, James McArdle, David Wood, Roslyn Edwell and Michael Grosvero
Absent: John Warry, Elizabeth Daly, Philippa Watson, Russell Barrett, Michelle-Ann Jacquinot and Celine Callil

Kindergarten children were taught the importance of manners, cleanliness and politeness. There was no official school uniform, but the boys wore shirts and ties, and the girls were expected to wear neat frocks and hair ribbons. All the youngsters wore pinafores for gardening and art and craft activities. Clean fingernails and fresh handkerchiefs were mandatory. The children were drilled in the correct way to greet visitors and to stand when anyone entered the room. They finger-painted, grew wheat in saucers, cut chains of figures with blunt-ended scissors and were taught their alphabet by reading books with buttoned covers and felt pages. Above all they were introduced to prayer, instructed in the catechism and encouraged in the celebration of feast days and participation in nativity plays. 

Jillian Lambert, the daughter of Jillian Ryan, an early Loreto Toorak student, recalled: Cut-up apples and glasses of milk interrupted our serious play and each afternoon I remember settling down on my own little mattress for the mandatory sleep-time. Curtains were drawn, talk turned to whispers and then to silence. I always felt somehow special and genuinely cared for during my kindergarten years.