Hasbeen, you always manage to introduce a racial slur into the conversation. Girlfriend, 1960's, roof top, bricks, black kids. Any possibility your "girlfriend" was a pathological liar who hated Aboriginals? Maybe she was sacked by the Education Department for that very reason! We'll never know.

Watch it Paul, your own racism is showing.

At no point did I mention aboriginals in my post. While there may have been a few mixed race with a little aboriginal blood, the area had not become an aboriginal ghetto at that time, to the best of my limited knowledge of the area.

It was more immigrants with swarthy skin colour I was mentioning, not race.

It is not unusual for kids of failed parents in failed social experiments to become antisocial. As it was never an area I frequented, I have no ideas of the ethnicity of the little horrors at the time.

Hasbeen, I started school in 1959, in yes, inner Sydney. The public schools in that era 1960's had 95% head masters, and inner city schools more like 99%, so your "girlfriend" was a rare exception, being female and put in charge of what was considered a rough school, no such thing as a disadvantaged school in those days, just rough schools. The Department thought female Head Mistresses, the few there were, were better place in smaller more genteel schools. The migrant children at school in those day were a mix of Southern European, Greek, Yugoslavs, Italians, Maltese and Poms, plenty of Poms. In the late 60's a few well off Egyptians arrived and surprise surprise they were Christian not Muslim have fled Egypt on British passports, they paid big bucks for passports. The Greeks settled in Marrickville, with the Italians tacking up residence in Leichhardt, Poms could be found ever where and Maltese in Surry Hills and Darlinghurst. Sure you girlfriend wasn't at Erko Public School in Erskineville Rd, it had a big red brick building facing the main road and lots of suntanned kids went there.

Could be Paul, I never had much knowledge of the area. I saw the school a couple of times, when I dropped her off or picked her up, & shuddered. It looked more like a prison than school to me. My schools had been dilapidated old things, or portables, but had a better feel.

I think she was supposed to be applying some new idea to improve the environment of the place, but obviously wasn't successful.

Yep she was a bit of a high flyer. I was amazed she was asked to go back after quitting.

She had been a bit of a bleeding heart, but a couple of terms at that school did harden her attitude somewhat.

Hasbeen, in those days there were many disadvantaged kids, through poverty and family problems caused by alcoholism. Schools did not cater for children's special needs. For those that couldn't or wouldn't learn they simply fell through the cracks. Fortunately, and I use that term loosely, there were enough unskilled jobs around to help keep up full employment.
You may not agree, but I believe people are very much products of their environment, whether they be an Aussie kid growing up in Newtown or a Arab kid growing up in Baghdad. Society reaps what it sows.

My first wife was an infants teacher in the late 1960s early 70s in an inner Sydney suburb and had very mixed classes.
Not widely known is the fact that teachers in those days were forbidden to teach in other than English and also forbidden to have children translate for other children.
Migrant children who had no English were expected to learn the new language quickly.
She was very successful with teaching the new arrivals as she absolutely refused to not use translators, this brought ire down upon her head but it was water off a duck's back as she had no desire to rise in the department and saw her vocation as an Infants Teacher.