Avenel Common School No. 8

A historic Common School that Ned Kelly attended as a student.

Annie, Ned and Maggie went to Avenel Common School and Ned was said to be an above-average student.

Ned Kelly was eight when his formal schooling – and that of his sisters Annie and Maggie – began in mid-1863 at the Beveridge Common (Catholic) School. His teachers, husband-and-wife team Thomas and Sarah Wall, delivered the Irish National Schools Curriculum, which was then regarded as the best in the Western world. Ned spent only six months at the school, but he demonstrated that he could read and write to a standard equivalent to a modern-day grade four.