Seend Church of England VA Primary School

Seend had a charity school in1724 with 24 pupils. There was a Sunday school by 1797, but the day school had gone by 1818. A building was built by Thomas Bruges in the north east corner of the churchyard in 1832, the land having been bought by the vicar of Melksham and the Seend churchwardens. Wadham Locke (warden and the owner of Cleeve House) paid for the majority of the move. In 1848 it was described as ‘a neat school-house for the instruction of poor children’. Other small private ‘dame’ schools in the village were used by parents who could afford to send them. For example in 1858 Warburton’s Census of Schools records ‘another five to ten children were taught by a dame in her cottage’. By 1867 Seend School became the National School. New school desks were bought and there was a stepped gallery up to the infant’s room. In 1863 the school moved to its present site in School Road when it consisted of two rooms. A third room was added in 1894. A new infant’s department was created in 1904 but there was not enough desk room. It was enlarged in 1905 and the school was extended and modernised in 1967 to house ‘two single teaching areas and a large double teaching space’. A heated swimming pool was built in 1978. Numbers attending the school at the end of the twentieth century were around 100 and it is now called the Seend Church of England Aided Primary School.

In the nineteenth century girls and boys were taught separately at the school, the girls in a room above the boys. In Warburton’s Census of 1858 there were 30 to 40 boys at the school, taught by an uncertified master in a room with a damp stone floor which was ‘not satisfactory’. The 40 to 50 girls were taught by an uncertified mistress. There were wall desks and the room was also unsatisfactory. Steps were being taken to improve the school. In 1903 the school had a head teacher and two assistants, and the children were taught in mixed classes. The Reverend and Lady Manager (Miss Schomberg) helped out by taking ‘roll call’ and making up a list if absentees for the school attendance inspector.

Subjects taught in the nineteenth century were very similar to those mentioned in the surviving logbooks of the early 20th century; these being the main subjects of scripture, reading, writing and arithmetic. Other subjects included drawing for boys, needlework for girls and history. Physical education was undertaken in the form of ‘drill’, but in the school it was restricted indoors due to lack of space. In 1921 teachers attended a demonstration of Physical Exercises at Devizes Secondary School so the children got a day off! There was also a school football team.

The older girls in the ‘Upper Standard’ group had domestic economy at the Pelch Room, which was originally a school for children of other religious denominations at Pelch Farm. The older boys could learn thatching under a county council instructor in 1904. Land was acquired for the school in 1914 to use as horticulture gardens. The gardening tools arrived but the teacher said that both theory and practical work was required. There were trips to Church and on Armistice Day there was a ‘two minute silence, a prayer, singing of the National Anthem and a talk on the past, present and future’.

The kindergarten children had plasticine, drawing boards, alphabet cards and board, and giant letters. The infants had a model of a sheep pen.

Attendance at the school was good as it could be and in the early twentieth century there were around 180 pupils at the school. The main reason for absence was ill health and the weather, although there was one case in 1923 of a boy admitted to school at six years old instead of the usual four years. He was the eldest child in the family and lived two and a half miles away. There were no other older children who could walk to school with him so he had to wait until he was old enough to walk on his own.

Illness does seem to have been very common at the school, and at times half the number of children in a class could be missing through illness, especially in the infant’s class. There seem to have been many outbreaks over the years, for example the early twentieth century saw mumps in 1911 (school was closed for 3 weeks), whooping cough in the infants in 1911 and 1918, chicken pox 1905, 1914 and 1918, scarlet fever 1918, contagious sores 1911, diphtheria 1912 (school closed for disinfection and one child died), measles 1905, 1912, 1913 (school closed), German measles 1917, contagious catarrh 1916 (school closed again). There was also an influenza epidemic in 1918-19 which affected the children in Seend; over half were not strong enough to attend school in November and December 1918. Constant colds and coughs were apparent which at one point the teacher noted were so bad ‘all the class were at it’! Other problems included impetigo, and the children being ‘unclean’. Children had eye trouble; one boy was sent to an eye clinic and another was classed as ‘retarded’ because of it. Unfortunately there were more deaths among the children. One girl died after being operated on for appendicitis and another died of meningitis and sceptic poisoning. In the 1920’s the school was given cod liver oil to give to the children, presumably to try to improve their health. The school seems to have suffered more from infectious diseases than other local schools. School inspectors had been criticising the lack of space and cramped conditions in the school from when it first opened, and this may have helped contribute to the ill health of the children. It was noted by the teacher in 1919 that the stove in the school room often made it smoky, this may have contributed to the constant coughs too!

Medical Inspectors and nurses visited the school to weigh and assess the children, and also to check for head lice and cleanliness.

The teachers also seemed to feel that the conditions of the classroom lead to poor behaviour amongst the children. In 1920 one boy in particular was ‘dangerous and a nuisance to his fellows’. It was noted in the log book that the school had dirty depressing rooms before August and was very hot during the summer and cold during the winter. This, together with a lack of control at home and malnutrition, contributed to the boy’s bad behaviour.

Children found it hardest to get into school in the wet and snow, and in 1912 and 1914 the school was closed due to snow. In February 1917 the classrooms were so cold that the infants had marching exercises all morning to keep warm and lessons were switched to the afternoon – it was so cold they couldn’t hold their pens! There were floods which affected attendance in 1917.

Other absences occurred when children took days off to go to the Devizes Fair on October 21st, or the Red Cross Fete in 1916. The infants were regularly taken out of school during the hay making season to help take teas to their parents in the fields.
Annual holidays were similar to those nowadays: 1 week at Christmas, 1 week at Easter, 1 Week at Whitsun and 4 weeks for the summer holidays, but there were special days off such as for Ascension Day on March 22nd. The school was also closed when it was used as a Polling Station, or if the school room was needed for a concert. There was an annual choir trip and the choir also took part in the Wiltshire Music Festival in Trowbridge. There was also time off for a school treat by the ‘managers’ who helped run the school, for example an excursion to Weymouth. In 1911 the school was closed for a week for the coronation and in 1924 some of the girls went on a trip to the Wembley Exhibition with the Girl Guides and stayed overnight. At Christmas the school held a concert in which they sang songs, played the piano, did readings and took part in a play. In 1919 the receipts came to £9.11.11, some of which was to be used for school prizes such as good attendance, reading skills etc.

HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectors) Reports for the school in 1904 stated ‘considerable improvement in the work since my last visit, the books are now quite satisfactory’. In 1905 the infant’s class - ‘the school is overcrowded but the infants are making good progress, and likely to do well under the present teacher’. In 1906 ‘the classroom has been enlarged and they are now making good progress. The needlework of the first class is excellent’. The Diocesan Report of 1904 stated ‘Seend Infants’ school is a newly formed department… small amounts of subjects known and limited knowledge, but the school was in good order and the children attentive’. In 1922 four girls were assessed for county scholarships so that they could attend secondary school after leaving school in Seend. Even into the 21st century the school teaches around 100 pupils and continues to provide them with a good quality education.