Teachers Office

The teachers' office at Macquarie Boys Technology High School was photographed in 2015, six years after the school closed and three years before the campus was demolished entirely. Desks and chairs still occupy the room, coated in dust. Papers and scattered items lie on the floor, left where they fell or were dropped at the end of the school's last year of operation. The school itself had a long history before arriving at this campus. It began as post-primary boys' classes on Macquarie Street, Parramatta, operating under successive names from 1920. By 1955 it was known as Macquarie Boys' High School. The campus at the corner of Kissing Point Road and James Ruse Drive, in what is now described as North Parramatta, was occupied at the end of 1957. The buildings were constructed under the NSW Government Architect's Branch during the tenure of Cobden Parkes, who served as Government Architect from 4 October 1935 to 1 August 1958, though no specific architect attribution for this school has been confirmed. In 1989 the word 'Technology' was added to the school's name, reflecting a shift in curriculum emphasis. By 2007, enrolments had fallen to 220 students, with projections of 180 for the following year. On 23 August 2007, NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca announced the school would close. Years 7 to 10 were discontinued from the beginning of 2008, with remaining Year 11 and 12 students permitted to complete their HSC. The school closed permanently at the end of 2009. What followed was nearly a decade of vacancy. A proposal for Lachlan Macquarie College to operate from the site did not proceed, with the University of Western Sydney confirming by 2015 it would not take up the lease. Three separate fires struck the campus between 2016 and 2018. All structures were demolished between late August and November 2018. The photograph records the teachers' office as it stood in 2015, intact but abandoned, still holding the furniture and papers of a school that had already been gone for six years.