British Infant School, Mere

This was in the same building as the British school but remained a separate department from the boys' and girls' schools, and later the mixed school. Children were taken at the age of 4 or 5 and moved up the the older children's school at around 7 or 8 years of age. In the 1870s it was said that many infants were moving up without being able to read and that some did not even know their letters. In 1907 a report condemned the school as the infants were being taught in a basement classroom. This situation improved later in the century and in 1910 a new British Infant School was built so the the infants were completely separate from the other children. In 1922 the British and the Church of England schools merged and the school became the combined Mere Infant School.