Beaconhills College’s Junior School at Pakenham has unearthed a time capsule buried a quarter of a century ago in the walls of the school.
The dusty capsule was removed from behind a wall of clay tiles in one of the college’s classrooms.
Its contents were revealed at a special ceremony recently in front of current and former students and staff.
The treasure trove of items, from students’ messages and drawings to old family photos and College mementos will be a rich addition to the Beaconhills archives collection.
Even a 1998 College canteen list was there; in that year sausage rolls were a mere $1 and Sunny Boys 50 cents.
One of the students who added her work to the capsule as a Year 4 student, Kym Cleal (formerly Feore), was excited to attend the ceremony.
She was amused to read her own predictions in 1998 about her future life, although not quite so accurate.
“I think I’ll be married to millionaire and I’d like to have five children, 150 cats, three budgerigars, 30 fish and no dogs,” she wrote at the time.
Ms Cleal was also delighted to reconnect with her Year 4 teacher Emma Smith who attended the event.
Current junior school head Katie Bodsworth said livestreaming the moment the capsule was removed from the wall was an important part of involving all of the junior school students in the event.
“It was really exciting to the see the joy on the faces of all of the guests who attended,” she said.
Ms Bodsworth said the College would work on preparing a display featuring the contents of the capsule.
Students will now prepare another time capsule which will be placed back into the wall.
Voices from the past – future predictions from Year 6 students in 1998.
“In the year 2023 I hope the world is not all buildings. I think there will be people living on Mars.”
Cathy Llewelyn
“I hope we will find a cure for skin cancer because the hole in the ozone layer will have gotten bigger.”
Kyal Sheumack
“I think schooling will be really advanced and kids will be working on computers all the time.”
Dannie Dowman
“I think that we might have to build domes around different parts of the world because of all the pollution. DVDs should be in every house because they’re going to cut off the signal for television.”
Marc Rimanich
“I think in 25 years time the world will be a better place and there won’t be any more wars and everyone will have enough food and money.”
Brian Burns
“In the year 2023 you would have a computer on your desk and do all your work on it.”
Stephen Coniglione
“Telephones will be screens with all of the numbers we have now, on the screen, except you can see the person. This could probably be optional.”
Connie Parkes
“We’ll have machines everywhere, also at the bank, and people will be very lazy. We will be saying to our grandchildren how lucky they are having all that stuff and they will just shrug their shoulders and say it’s not that much.”
Anonymous
