At its height in the 20th century, Capertee, a village on the peak of the Great Dividing Range north-west of Sydney, had a population of about 2,500.

The town had grown steadily since the 1820s, when the first Europeans moved onto the Wiradjuri land, buoyed by the wealth from the area’s natural mineral resources – gold, limestone and oil shale.

In 1920, its school population was at an all-time high with 82 students.

These days Capertee Public School – which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year – has 15 students and the town’s population averages about 180.

The butcher, bank, haberdasher and hairdresser that once serviced the town are long gone – now there’s the school, the pub, police station, service station and the shop-cum-post office.

But what Capertee lacks in size it makes up for in history, as demonstrated by its successful application for a Community Heritage Grant.

The grant, which Capertee applied for on behalf of itself and four other schools – is the first awarded to a public primary school.

Capertee principal Michelle Simkin said the school’s anniversary had made her think about what knowledge of the community the school held in its files and archives.

“You’re talking about resources that go across a number of generations,” she said.

“Having them sit in a box is not the best way of storing them.

I had all this in my mind when the information about the grant came across my desk.” The grant provided Mrs Simkin with three days’ conservation training at the National Library in Canberra as well as funds to hire a conservator to train staff in caring for the archival collections.

Mrs Simkin said her school’s collection included signs, banners, photographs, oral histories, video tapes, books and information booklets the school had developed over the years.

There is even correspondence from principals dating back to the school’s early days in the 1880s.

There are also community records given to the school because there was nowhere else for them to go.

“These artefacts, we don’t even know how significant they are,” Mrs Simkin said.

The other schools involved with the grant are Portland Central School, Carenne and Wattle Flat public schools and Denison College Bathurst Campus.

“But in our school we have fifth-generation students, so you’ve got that community still,” Mrs Simkin said.