Stapleford School

There was a Methodist Sunday School in 1824. Around 1833, 10 pupils attended an infants’ school, most children from the parish attended Great Wishford. In 1847 the National School had 20 pupils, by 1859 there were 30-40. This was a mixed school, located in Over St. The H.M Inspector’s report dated 1859 stated that the school room measured 30 feet by 14 feet, had a boarded floor and wall desks. The children were taught by an uncertificated mistress. The discipline was reported to be fair and the instruction moderate. This school was presumably closed when a new school with a teacher’s house was built in 1874, on land provided by the lords of the manor.

Unfortunately, no logbooks from the Victorian period survive in the public domain but we know in general terms what school life would have entailed. By 1880 children were educated up to the age of ten, although they could stay longer. The learning age was raised to eleven in 1893, when children normally started as infants, aged four or five. School fees, one penny or twopence a week, had been removed in 1891. The school day was likely to have been from 9.00 to 12.00 noon and from 2.00pm to 4.00pm. Children either brought their lunch and ate it in the schoolroom or went home to eat.

The teacher was assisted by paid monitors in their mid teens or by a pupil teacher, who was training to become a certified teacher.

Lessons were the elementary ones of reading, writing and arithmetic with scripture; some lessons in the latter subject were often taken by the vicar. The girls learned sewing and all had singing and recitation. Some geography and history would have been taught. School holidays were about a week or 10 days at Christmas and Easter, a week at Whitsun and five weeks Harvest Holiday in the summer. Full day and half day holidays were given for various reasons such as church or chapel teas or Sunday school outings, Royal and national occasions and the afternoon after the H.M.I. examinations. Unauthorised absences included seasonal work on the farm and in the garden for the older children and visits to local fairs, military events and other local happenings.

The entries in the Kelly’s Directories for Wiltshire suggest that the teachers did not stay at the school for long. Between 1875 and 1904 there were six different teachers. Both the earliest surviving logbook and the school managers’ minute book start in the autumn of 1903. In January 1904 Charlotte Clarke took charge of the school. The average attendance was 30 and she had a monitress to help her. Charlotte resigned in September and was replaced by Isabella Coles.

The Inspector’s Report written in November noted that the school had changed its mistress twice in the year. ‘The work is indifferent but in the circumstances may be regarded as satisfactory.’ The infants were ‘in a backward condition’ but the inspector noted the difference since the new teacher’s arrival. Isabella had two probationers to help her.

Isabella resigned in February 1905, following a disagreement with the managers regarding school discipline. The school had supply teachers until the arrival of Jane Garland in June. Jane stayed until 1914, providing the school with some stability at last. However, she appears not to have had the support she needed, as the inspector again commented on the weakness of the infant class in his 1909 report. They had been left in the care of a monitress for two years. The managers’ minutes for the same year noted that the monitress must not be allowed to teach, suggesting she only had a supervisory role, which must have been of limited value to the mistress. Pupil numbers had dropped to 20 and by 1913 there were just 14 children on the roll; some children were attending the schools at Berwick St James and Great Wishford. Jane resigned in December 1914; the logbook stops abruptly at this point and the school closed.

In September 1918 the Director of Education wrote to the vicar at Stapleford regarding reopening the school.

In 1915 the council stated that would not oppose the reopening of the school if the number of children in the village of school age rose to 20. This number was reached in 1918, but the council were still opposed to reopening. Their argument was that it would be difficult to find a teacher for such a small school; they were also of the opinion that the children would receive a better education in a larger school. Local opinion was understandably in favour of keeping their own school, and in April 1920 Miss Ellis was appointed as mistress with 20 children on the roll. She lasted less than a year, which proved to be the beginning of the end for this school. A succession of different teachers, including one who was ill for many months, looked after the school and its small number of pupils until the school closed for the last time in 1925, with just 10 pupils.

In 1939-40 the building was used for 24 boys who had been evacuated to the area and later the building became the village hall.