More than eight hundred former staff, former students and community members celebrated the school’s centenary with current staff and students in thoroughly traditional and modern styles.

An impressive display of memorabilia and photographs, a time capsule, an array of food stalls and a commemorative book detailing the school’s history were available to the visitors, but a digital documentary was also shown.

Principal Matt Bradley says the P&C’s Centenary Committee did a wonderful job over several months to ensure the success of the day, including collecting material for the book and video.

“We wanted to engage as many people as possible in celebrating the school’s history, the part it has played in the community, and the young people who have passed through its doors to play their part in the local and wider society,” said Matt.

“It looks like our rolling on-line updates on preparations, and the school’s history presented digitally achieved our aim.”

The school opened in July 1925 and at one time had more than a thousand students.

An evening event at a local club to close the day was attended by more than a hundred people.

A feature of the day was the unveiling of the Centenary Cloak, a possum skin cloak commissioned by the school to mark the centenary and the school’s close connections with the community and its history.

Images symbolising the shared local Aboriginal and school values, and local families’ connections to the school, were burnt onto the skin side of the cloak, overseen by the local possum cloak knowledge holders, Uncle Doug Archibald and Aunty Selena Archibald, who sewed the cloak, sharing her expertise with students.

The cloak is a cultural gift to the school, which will hold it in custodianship.

The school has always been a community hub as well as a school, and since 1986 when it became a Demonstration School, it has widened its influence through involvement with the the University of Newcastle’s School of Education, supporting more than 500 teaching students a year as they hone their practical classroom skills.

Academic excellence has also been a trademark of the school, winning the Hunter region Tournament of the Minds STEM division four years in a row.