Future generations of students to attend Invermay Primary School will enter through a gateway marking the generations who came before them.
As part of the school's 150th birthday celebrations on November 17, Invermay Primary School officially opened its new decorative gate which features important facets of the current school, its students and its past.
Principal Justin Marshman and students worked with local garden art designers Overwrought Gallery to come up with important legacies of the school to incorporate into the gate.
"Rather than a plaque on a stone or a wall, we wanted something more visible and practical," Mr Marshman said.
The gate now features images based on the large oak trees at the front of the school site, current year six students jumping for joy, the school's historic bell, its school values and the year it was established.
On each side of the gate are 100 fence pickets sold to families which bear the names of current and past staff and students.
Among the first people to walk through the new gateway were some of the oldest former students who returned to the school to help celebrate its milestone including Trish Twaits and Rhonda Jacobs who were students there in the 1950s.
During the school's celebration day its current students enjoyed a two hour party with sport, games, activities, food and drink before two hours of formal presentations including the school's history, and interviews with former students and staff, including former principal John Mooney who led the school 50 years ago when it turned 100.
There was even birthday cake and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.
Mr Marshman also told the story of Patrick Griffin, whose name appears on the bottom of letters written in the 1860s petitioning for the school to be built, and whose children and five further generations of the family were pupils at Invermay. They still live in the area.
Historical artifacts on show included letters from families in the district in the 1860s, when it was known as Dead Horse Gully, requesting for a school to be established.
There was also the 'corporal punishment book' which the principal or head teacher had to write a child's name in, what they did and their punishment if they received the strap. Only boys could receive the strap, and the book has entries right up to the 1970s.
