Our History

There is a book celebrating the history of Munglinup Primary School, called "From small beginnings...big things grow" which covers 1960-2010 (50 years). The school has a copy in the library.

Please contact the school if you would like to purchase "From small beginnings...big things grow".

It was late in the 1950s and the state government was looking to expand its agricultural area, and the Esperance sand plains was showing a lot of promise, so a delegation of politicians including the deputy premier, who was also the minister for education, a Mr. Watts, drove to Esperance to take a look. After leaving Ravensthorpe the first sign of life they saw was a lonely house on top of a hill on a recently developed farm called Newleigh. So, they called in to check it out, where they found Mrs. Compagnoni trying to educate her three children. After feeding them a delicious meal she seized on the opportunity to pester Mr. Watts to provide a school in the area.  He agreed a school was needed but couldn’t provide one for just three children, so when the Jenkins and Pettigrew’s families settled in the area the number of children grew to 7. That is when Mr. and Mrs. Compagnoni drove to Perth and again pestered Mr. Watts about providing a school, even though the required number of students for the government to provide a school was 12. He immediately agreed to provide a teacher, with three conditions:

1)  A building must be supplied to house 12 children.

2)     They must find somewhere to board a teacher.

3)     When a permanent school was provided the temporary school be removed.

The White family from Young River supplied the timber. The Compagnoni’s supplied all other materials, a working bee was organised, and the school was built ready for school to start 2nd term in 1960, with the teacher Mr. Robertson living at Newleigh with the Compagnoni family.

The 7 children that attended that 1st day were Joan, Tom and Tim Compagnoni, Kelvin, Jenny and Ian Jenkins and Julie Pettigrew.