From the period 1978 to 1990 Greensville School had four principals. Mr. Howard Rhodes completed his principalship in 1979 and was replaced by Mr. George Gould who had remained with the school until 1985. The next principal was Mr. Bernie Custis and he was followed by Mr. Carl Eden.
In the spring of 1978, the junior division produced the musical Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. At that time, the musical was unknown outside of Britain and New York. The show was presented on two nights, with two different casts. It involved about 150 students and was quite an accomplishment. The staging was different, in that the students used the climbing apparatus at the south end of the gymnasium. The choir sat on planks which ran across the climber supports. The climbing apparatus disappeared in the mid-eighties, as it was felt to be unsafe. The fashion that year was red and white or blue and white checkered shirts and this, along with blue jeans, became costumes for the choir. The main cast members were on the floor. For Joseph’s jail scene, Joseph stood behind the rope ladder and sang his solo with only one spotlight on him and everything else blacked out.
Greensville became quite noted for its musicals in the eighties. Productions, such as the Canada Goose in 1982 and Captain Noah the following year, brought in capacity audiences. Mrs. Moncur produced Mary Poppins in the following year. Christmas concerts were alternated with the Spring concert. Christmas 1980 saw the presentation of the Snow Queen and the Nutcracker.
In the early years of the P.T.O., the organization set up an after school program which allowed the students to participate in activities, such as cooking, book and movie appreciation, model building and photography. This was run with the assistance of the staff of the school and parent volunteers. In order to get more students involved, the program was changed to a lunchtime event, but, eventually due to a lack of volunteers and a lack of student interest, it was cancelled.
One event which the students used to look forward to was an annual visit by a group from the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. The most popular group was the Canadian Brass who could keep the students totally involved with their music. The singing of O Canada to the accompaniment of the Canadian Brass was something to experience. It literally sent shivers up your backbone.
Sports were always popular during the school year. Much thanks go to Patti McLaren who organized all the school’s sports programs which included soccer, volleyball, newcomb ball, three pitch softball, cross country running and track and field.
During the 1980/81 school year two of the staff went on teacher exchange to Great Britain. Frances Bull exchanged with Jean McGough from Sutherland, Eric McNair went to St. Day School just outside of Truro in Cornwall and Mr. Maurice Trembath came to Greensville. The English teachers received a warm welcome at the school. Their general impression was that we were much more structured as far as curriculum was concerned.
In 1982, the P.T.O. decided to build a creative playground at the back of the school. The plans were obtained from the Home and School at Mary Hopkins School in Waterdown and fund raising was organized. This included a fashion show and a cookbook. In the spring of 1983, work was begun on the playground by parents, volunteers and staff. It took about five weekends to complete the project and it was officially opened at the annual fun fair.
The province of Ontario decided to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the Loyalists coming to this province in 1784. The students were involved in various activities, but the most significant one was the planting of examples of native Ontario trees. The students planted the trees around the school yard under the supervision of Mr. McNair. Thirteen years later a large number of them are still providing shade on the edges of the playing field.
The late eighties saw the retirement of Mr. Bob Shurvin as school custodian, as well as three primary teachers. Mrs. Christina House retired in 1986 with a tea being held in her honor in the gymnasium. The next year a tea was held to celebrate Mrs. Lorna Thompson’s retirement. In 1988, Lois Jamieson retired in June.
The first word about computers came in the spring of 1982 when George Gould decided that the school should invest in a Commodore Pet computer at a price of about $1,000. The staff went into shock. What would we do with a computer? Mr. Crozier took a course from York University that summer so at least one person on staff would have an idea of what to do with the new piece of technology.
The computer arrived in October and was immediately dubbed Max. Max had a black screen with green lettering. It came without any software, so the first exercise the students accomplished was to type their names into the computer and have it appear on the screen. It was very exciting!
All the programs which we obtained for the computer were loaded off ten minute recording tapes. It was very slow and most of the programs, which were shared among different schools, were of poor quality, but we did manage to build up a small library of good computer programs.
In 1982, the Wentworth County Board of Education decided to purchase three Commodore 64’s for each school. Greensville’s P.T.O. matched this with three more machines. The three board machines worked with five and a quarter inch disks and the other three with data sets which were basically tape recorders. The tape drives were always losing material and it was very frustrating. Fortunately, they were replaced by more disk drives the following year.
In June 1982, the first computer lab was set up in the old principal’s office. This entailed putting in a wall and extra electric wiring. During September and October, the computer room was out of bounds until everything was checked. This meant the computers had to be disassembled each night and stored in the computer room and then reassembled the next morning in the classroom next to the computer room. Once approval was given, students from the primary end came down to use the computers with the assistance of the older junior students.
In 1987, Greensville was given its first IBM fileserver. The fileserver was to be the computer which would store all the programs in its memory and then feed them out to other computers on a network of wires through the school. The first year saw the fileserver being used for staff training and as a stand alone. It had an operating system which was very awkward and this was later changed to the Novelle system.
In 1988, the school received its first three work stations. These were wired to the fileserver and the students could get their work from the main computer. Each student had his or her own electronic office. The students typed in their name, a personalized message came on the screen and the students then worked on a selected list of software. From that point on, it was a matter of adding new computers to the system so that all rooms could have at least one computer.
The idea of a creative playground first came under discussion during Howard Rhodes’ last years at Greensville School. George Gould began the process of finding a design that would be acceptable to W.C.B.E., be economical, and be easily built by volunteers.
The design came from Mary Hopkins School in Waterdown, which had designed and built its own creative playground. The basic design of the structure included swings, which Greensville decided were not necessary at that time because we already had a set of swings on the playground. The parents’ group at Mary Hopkins agreed to allow us to use their plans and we were on our way.
Pat Turner, president of the P.T.O., set about establishing a preliminary budget and a fundraising programme was set up. This included a cookbook, fashion show, fruit juice sales and a spring concert. I believe about $5,000 was raised through these efforts, enough to get the project underway.
Construction began in early May under the supervision of Ralph Vinns and it took four or five Saturdays to get the project completed. A large number of volunteers showed up each Saturday morning. The school staff provided lunches for the workers but it seemed that our most dedicated construction workers came from the executive of the P.T.O.
The creative playground was completed in time for the official opening at the 1983 Fun Fair. The P.T.O. presented George Gould with a model of the structure in appreciation for all his efforts.
In order to keep peace on the playground, the students of certain grades were designated specific recesses in which they could use the creative playground. It worked well and the students are still enjoying the benefits of the 1983 project.
When Mr. Gould moved on to Beverly Central School, he and the parents constructed a creative playground for that school. The creative playground at Mary Hopkins School was later demolished in order to make room for the construction of a new gymnasium.
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