Exclusive NSW girls’ school embroiled in ugly dispute

Students at Mittagong’s exclusive Frensham girls’ school learn about robotics, debate the use of artificial intelligence and use cutting-edge 3D printers. Until recently, across the road inside its neighbouring sister campus, the Sturt School, adult weavers, potters, and woodworkers gently tinkered away at their time-honoured crafts.

However, two months after Frensham was victorious in a court battle over a wisdom of wombats that threatened its multimillion-dollar bush cabin expansion, the fate of Australia’s oldest and most respected “creative community” within the school’s grounds now looks uncertain.

Frensham School is set on 178 hectares in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Artisans have been left reeling by a shock decision to “pause” operations of the Sturt School and terminate up to 10 long-term staff as part of a review.

Artist Ben Quilty declared his support for the venue a fortnight ago at Sturt’s final public exhibition opening. One of the world’s leading female masters in wood-fired pottery and Sturt alumni, Jann Kesby, described Sturt’s closure as “an unfathomable decision”.

Local supporter and former television personality Noeline Brown criticised “the bean counters in control” while internationally acclaimed architect Glenn Murcutt, AO, who has been visiting Sturt since the 1960s, called it “a national cultural icon” which “must remain a learning centre for excellence in the arts, design and realisation through making ... fabrication”.

“There will likely be necessary developments made in many areas of the present courses that hold potentially wonderful developments in this digital age,” Murcutt said. “But never to be forgotten is the importance of eye, hand thinking.”

Master potter Jann Kesby at the Sturt kiln in 2023.Credit: Steven Foster

One longstanding patron, who asked to remain anonymous after donating a non-tax-deductable $50,000 gift to Sturt a year ago, said she was appalled by the latest decision.

Tucked away in the bucolic Southern Highlands, Sturt was set up by trailblazing educationalist and Frensham founder Winifred West in 1941 following her retirement as headmistress. It was intended as a place where people of all ages could learn how to craft things by hand.

Frensham founder and Sturt pioneer Winnifred West.

For decades, it thrived. Sturt’s retail and coffee shop, gallery, workshop spaces and rambling gardens were a creative beacon for like-minded artisans, a reprieve from mass production and modern technology at a time when fewer TAFE colleges and universities are teaching such disciplines.

In February, head of Frensham Geoff Marsh wrote to staff informing them the Board of Governors had initiated a “review” of operations at Sturt as its “current operating model has seen it face some operational and financial challenges” and it would be “neither responsible nor feasible” for it to continue as is.

Disgruntled staff have questioned why their positions were terminated if the intent was for Sturt to eventually continue. The review, chaired by former Australian Museum Trustee and NIDA CEO and chair Jennifer Bott AO, is due to be completed by the end of June.

A Frensham spokesperson said the review would “determine the best and most sustainable way forward for Sturt” but did not respond to speculation it was a response to the NSW government’s recent tightening of rules around independent schools’ not-for-profit classifications and whether Sturt’s commercial activities jeopardised public funding.

In 2022 Frensham, which is about to open a multimillion-dollar indoor sports complex, received $3.9 million in federal funding and $953,671 from NSW, along with $10.8 million in student fees.

By comparison, Sturt’s activities were far more modest. Each year, hundreds of people undertook courses and attended intensive summer and winter schools, paying up to $2000 each and sleeping in vacant dormitories during school holidays.

After 83 years, the Weaving Room at Sturt stands silent.

After nearly a century, Sturt boasts one of the most prized archives of contemporary craft pieces in the world, featuring the works of Ivan McMeekin, AO, Les Blakebrough, AO, and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, OAM.

Today, the weaving rooms, pottery kilns, ceramic and screen printing studios have fallen silent, and by November, the woodwork school will also come to an end, as the future of the quaint, village-like setting, including West’s former home along with a dormitory designed in 1963 by architect Don Gazzard, is determined.

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