Lessons in this class evoke the early days of school, reports Kristie Kellahan.

Dressed as a school teacher from the 1880s, in a long skirt and high-necked blouse, Gaye Braiding toasts bread over an open fire to the delight of a classroom of year 1 students. For Braiding, the education officer at the New South Wales Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education, it's all part of a typical day of bringing history to life.

Officially opened in November 1992, the museum comprises the first classrooms of North Ryde Public School, built in 1877, 1893 and 1910, plus a collection of objects and artefacts relating to schooling from the past 140 years.

In the late 1980s, school and community members lobbied to establish a museum in the unused school buildings. The vision, Braiding says, was to establish a living museum students could visit to relive early school days. The collection was acquired from the
Department of Education, schools that had closed and personal donations. Volunteers restored and furnished the buildings.

Managing the Schoolhouse Museum's education program for visiting school groups means stepping back in time to when lessons were written on slates, exercise was taken by dancing around a maypole and misbehaving students were disciplined with a lash of the cane.

The education program at the museum was developed in 1999 and operates two or three days a week. Students participate in re-enactment lessons from different times throughout history.

The focus of the program is for students to interact with objects as much as possible. "By touching and doing, students remember and understand," Braiding says.

"Our day always starts with a quick dusting and sweep, as it is an old building with cracks at the seams. When the students and teachers arrive at 10am, we are wearing our 1880s school-teacher outfits, complete with cameo."

Braiding teaches the 1880s re-enactment lesson, slipping in and out of character as a teacher from the era. "I repeat the lesson two or three times, depending on the number of students," she says. "I always like to have a laugh with the students as children
learn better if they're enjoying themselves, so I can be a bit scary one moment with the cane in my hand and smiling the next."

After the school groups leave, Braiding and her colleagues clean up, then field inquiries from other visitors interested in the museum for research purposes or for hiring furniture and items. "We squeeze in lunch and then I do bookings and visit plans and other admin work," Braiding says.

Braiding, a trained primary-school teacher, has worked in various roles delivering programs to students in excursion settings. "I have worked in zoo education, field studies and environmental education centres," she says.

"The moment I walked into the Schoolhouse Museum I fell in love with it - the building, the objects, the smells and the challenge.

"I still love it. I feel very proud of the education program that myself and my colleague, Kathryn Watkins, curator, have built from scratch.

"We are often sought out for advice and assistance by those hoping to establish museum education programs and have become a 'hub' of all things to do with early schooling."

Braiding says the feedback from students, teachers and parents is overwhelmingly positive. "Parents often email us asking if they can bring their other children in the holidays as their child who visited went home raving about it."

Teachers can book their class's visit to the museum via an availability calendar on the website, schoolhousemuseum.org.au. The fee is $12 a student, free for accompanying adults. Up to 90 students can be accommodated in one session.