Teachers were constantly asking for transfers. The average length of appointment was fifteen months, the shortest being seven weeks and the longest slightly less than three years, by Clifford Stanford (1910-1912) and Charles Branditt (1919-1922).³² The range of excuses employed by teachers as grounds for transfer provide further insight into their responses to the social and geographical environment of the mill community. Teachers nearly always requested removal from the school, rather than pay rises or allowances to compensate for the isolation. In several cases teachers appear simply to have ceased duty without permission or explanation, possibly unable to tolerate the delay in appointing a replacement. Several were unhappy with the board and accommodation available at Henry's Mill, which involved either a hut in the school yard or boarding privately with one of the mill families. William Morris, for example, head teacher for a short stint in 1912 and 1913, was reduced to sleeping in a bed with one of his students.³³ Morris later blamed the damp climate for his contracting influenza and neuralgia, and used this as grounds for transfer to a warmer, inland place such as Ballarat or the Western District.³⁴

Bernard Flood was prompted in 1914 to apply for transfer on account of the extreme isolation of the mill settlement and the impossibility of doing further study, along with the poor accommodation, damp climate and its effect on his health.³⁵ Several teachers were also intent on marriage and were reluctant to bring their brides to a school without a proper dwelling. This was a concern shared by soldier settlers on isolated blocks between the wars, conscious that a tent or humpy was not a fit home for a woman.³⁶ Cecil Wallis complained of the financial burden imposed by providing separately for his wife and child at Geelong, and himself at the mill.³⁷ The pursuit or successful attainment of further teaching qualifications, especially the 'Second Class Certificate', was also cited as a reason for transfer to another teaching post.³⁸

Charles F Branditt taught at Otway Saw Mills School between December 1919 and October 1922. Alone among teachers at the mill, Branditt appears to have felt some sympathy for the community in which he worked. There is no evidence of him complaining to the Education Department concerning living or working conditions, and he submitted no requests for transfer. The reasons for his departure are not recorded. His portrayal of the mill in two articles contributed to the regional school magazine Forest, lake, and plain, while romanticised, is nevertheless sympathetic to the trials and difficulties of life at the remote site.³⁹ His positive response undoubtedly owed much to the presence of his wife, Nina, and perhaps to the fact that, fresh from the Rural School Training College, he had no previous teaching experience to compare with his first posting. Although their residential arrangements are not known, Nina's annual income of £40 as the school sewing mistress meant that the couple also enjoyed a higher household income than teachers before or after them.

Branditt describes a number of social events at the mill which utilised the schoolroom. One of these was a project to purchase books. This may well have been a common occurrence in this era, when hundreds of rural schools were established across the state to provide education for Victorian children. The Rubicon mill school in the Central Highlands, for example, was supported in 1925 by a donation of 200 books from the Children's Library League of Victoria.⁴⁰ Correspondence indicates that the Education Department was generally willing to meet requests for desks and blackboards, but unwilling to provide books for school children. It is unclear whether this was a response to financial stringency, or a reflection of a teaching philosophy which promoted pedagogy over independent reading and learning. Otway Saw Mills had to rely upon social evenings on alternate Saturdays, and a school bazaar at Christmas, to acquire books for its pupils.