Telopea Park School celebrates its 100-year anniversary on 11 September 2023. Celebrate the school’s anniversary and rich history through the selection of objects and photographs from the school’s archive.

In 1923, the first pupils to attend Telopea Park School were the children of the public servants, brickworks employees and construction workers involved in building the fledgling city of Canberra. Over the years the school has grown, but the original buildings – which housed just 120 students at the end of 1923 – remain at the heart of the school.

The school, built on the area known as Telopea Park – named after the botanical term for the waratah flower (Telopea speciossissima) in Walter Burley Griffin’s plan of Canberra – has been through many iterations as a primary school and a high school, sometimes one or the other, and now both.

In 1984, following an agreement between the Australian Government and the Republic of France, Telopea Park became a French-Australian bilingual school.
Telopea Park School has some notable alumni, including former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, mountain climber Lincoln Hall OAM, and internationally acclaimed pianist Lisa Moore.

Happy birthday Telopea Park School!