Preparations for the Christmas bazaar were under way months before the event. The girls, taught by Nina Branditt, sewed prizes for the occasion. The boys raised young plants to sell to mill residents and made dolls' cradles from lolly boxes. They also erected an 'Aunt Sally', a painted figure of a woman smoking a pipe, and on the day offered small prizes for a knock-down at four shots for threepence. Mothers baked cakes and toffee, and made up jars of lollies and peanuts. The needlework pieces made by the sewing class were auctioned, before the schoolroom was cleared for the dance. Almost £30 was raised to buy books.

Charles and Nina Branditt stand out for the leadership and energy they provided in promoting a sense of common purpose at the mill settlement. None of the other teachers ever made such an investment in community life at Henry's Mill. Edward O'Connor was unusual in being the only teacher at the site ever to request transfer to an even remoter school, apparently because the location of the Old Federal Mill, beyond Warburton at Starvation Creek, was an area with which he was already familiar.⁴¹ It is doubtful, however, whether many of the other teachers at Henry's Mill appreciated the admiration felt for them by the Secretary of Education, Frank Tate. Secure in his Melbourne office, Tate clearly idealised their toils and struggle in remote places. Enduring the 'hardships and lonely life of the pioneers' was probably a fate most teachers hoped to escape as quickly as possible.⁴²

Several incidents reveal that the school sometimes attracted less able teachers. Edward Prendergast, for example, accidentally locked seven-year-old William Wilkinson in the schoolhouse after hours. With the river swollen by winter rains, concern over the boy's disappearance abated only when he appeared hours later, injured, having crawled from a window. Prendergast was severely reprimanded by the Department for his 'gross carelessness' and negligence.⁴³ Clifford Stanford was required to remedy defects identified in his teaching, while Francis Shine was judged by the District Inspector as 'inexperienced and ... doing fair work only'.⁴⁴ Bernard Flood was rebuked for his extreme action in suspending Gladys Butcher for disobedience, and warned to 'use sounder judgment in future in the maintenance of [school] discipline'.⁴⁵ Frequent delays in the appointment of replacement teachers for the Otway Saw Mills School also indicate that it was not a highly sought-after appointment, and that most teachers avoided it if possible.

Although complaints by teachers about the isolation of the mill had lessened by the 1920s, the Education Department found it increasingly difficult to attract applicants when the teaching post at Otway Saw Mills fell vacant. It acknowledged the difficulty in keeping a teacher at the school during the winter months, and there were several periods when the school was closed mid-year for weeks at a time while a replacement teacher was sought.⁴⁶ In mid-1926 no schooling was provided for more than two months until a temporary teacher could be found to fill the vacancy. The position was advertised at least eleven times before attracting any applicant.⁴⁷ A similar situation prevailed early the following year, prompting the school committee to criticise the reluctance of young teachers to leave the city, and thereby depriving 'Country Children of their right to a decent schooling'.⁴⁸

In many respects Otway Saw Mills 3601 was typical of the thousands of one-teacher bush schools dotted around Australia by the early twentieth century. The letters of excuse penned by its teachers have much in common with the fears and anguish expressed by numerous other teachers appointed to similarly remote settlements.⁴⁹ The 'bush schoolies' trod a common path in leaving home to attend a training institution before venturing to another community, entrusted with the task of training the young. Many felt trapped in the isolated districts to which they were appointed, cut off from family, friends and colleagues, unable to cash a cheque or visit a shop for weeks at a time. In struggling to adapt to life in tiny, remote settlements and teach a highly regulated curriculum, their efforts provided the basis of an education for many thousands of young Australians in this period.