Alan Johnson and the story of English education over the last 140 years ……. today and all this week on Radio 4

Now I belong to that generation that experienced the eleven plus, and didn’t come through with a place to a grammar school and a passport to the “glittering prizes”.

Manchester student, circa 1910

Instead for me and most of my friends, we left Edmund Waller Junior School in the summer of 1961, and met up again in the playground of Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School a month and a bit later.

On the surface not much had changed, and while we now had a uniform and there were no girls, it was little different from what had gone before, save that now we were joined by 120 other “also runs”.

The experience of my parents was little different, and in the case of my mother, she attended the same elementary school as her father and grandmother on Traffic Street in Derby which went under the imaginative name of Traffic Street School.

Edmund Waller School, opened in 1887

Together that amounts to 94 years of State education over two centuries, and encompasses some pretty basic provision, mixed with some fine examples of good teaching set against  comparatively poor resources.

All of which is a lead in to an excellent new series on Radio 4, presented by “Alan Johnson, the former Education Secretary, who tells the story of English education over the last 140 years through the prism of one school - St Michael and All Angels in Camberwell.

Over the decades, the school has undergone many transformations, including names, in response to changes in policy, but its purpose has remained constant - to provide decent and free education to local children.

The story is told through original documents – from headmasters’ logs and inspection reports – and the testimony of the children and teachers who went there. It is as much a social history of inner-city life down the ages as it is a study of our attempts to educate the children of poor families”.*

The school opened in 1884, three years before Edmund Waller which was just down the road in Peckham, and post dated Traffic Street by twelve years.

Traffic Street School, 1872-1990

Episode one, opened with "the Headmasters log book entry November 17, 1884 which documented the opening of the school: 'J Alfred Thomas Cox opened the above school and took charge. 74 boys were admitted.' 

Founded as a church school, St Michael and All Angels is set up under auspices of the The National Society for the Promotion of the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. The aim is clear: 'the proposed schools are for the poorest of the poor children, quite ragged and destitute. Many of whom are at present spending most of their time in the street.'"

Episode 2, began with a visit to “one of the few remaining hop gardens at the Museum of Kent Life to discover how, during September each year, generation after generation of St Michael and All Angels School pupils used to truant - or 'hop the wag' as they called it - to pick hops and earn money for their school uniform. 

Alan Johnson  talks to some of the last of those who went hop picking. He considers how, with changes in legislation and the end of child labour in mines and mills, schools became even more important – not just for education, but to meet society’s concerns about children 'running wild on the streets'.

The series goes on to look at the impact of The Great War, the awful poverty of the area, and moves into the 21st century.

Each episode lasts just 14 minutes, is repeated and is well worth a listen, as an informative and thoughtful look at our educational system before today.

Leaving me just to say that many of us "also runs" did achieve with the help of dedicated teachers who weren't prepared to allow the mark of the eleven plus to shunt us into a side street, bereft of what our grammar school contemporaries were privy to.


Pictures; one Manchester Child, happy child, m68208, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Edmund Waller School, Peckham, 2009, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick and Traffic School, Derby, 1990, courtesy of Cynthia Wigley


*The Secret History of a School, Presenter: Alan Johnson, Producer: Sara Parker, Executive Producer: Samir Shah, A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002r49

The Board School .......... still going strong almost 140 years later

I remain a fan of those old Board Schools built in the late 19th and early 20 centuries.

They were, and still are solid beautiful buildings which are warm in winter and cool in summer.

By contrast the new wave of schools built in the 1950s onwards, were bold modern statements about what schools should be like, but  were all glass and metal with a fflat roof.

All of which meant that these new builds leaked heat in the winter, and were furnaces in the summer.

Added to which the metal frames were not always a good fit, and over the years began to rust and buckle allowing the wind to whip through.

And while all that glass looked good it proved an irresistible temptation to stare out at everything from the games lessons taking place or the traffic whizzing past.

Their Victorian and Edwardian predecessors had high windows which were good for letting in the light but were often just that bit too high to afford a distraction.

And of course these schools have lasted much better than those thrown up in the 1950s, which means many of us will have been to a Board School and seen our children go through similar ones and no doubt will see our grandchildren do the same.

Some are now too small and have had modern additions grafted on.

Andy Robertson was drawn to Springfield School on his travels through Sale and sent over a selection of pictures with the comment "this was on the way to Bulls Head, which was only a necessary watering stop you understand for an evening of culture with Cathy at the Waterside centre... John Bramwell of I am Kloot fame.

I was drawn in by the ‘Cookery Instruction’, sign and also by the way the 'Infant Boys' has been incorporated into the new build”.

Now I had to agree, but I wonder which of the two bits of building will still look good and be fit for purpose a century on.

Location; Sale

Pictures; Springfield School, Sale, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson