Forever Churchfields: The Journey of a Well Loved School

By Sandra Meredith Booty and Frank Batchelor

Churchfields Compehensive School - One of the first comprehensive schools to be opened in the United Kingdom. Officially opened in 1958 to pupils of all abilities and aspirations. During the 46 years of its lifespan, the school produced many high achievers who went on to world acclaim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Meredith Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9780957127951

Book preview

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Dedicated to my wonderful partner Frank Batchelor, who shared some of my special memories during our Churchfields years, and has since provided many more.

Forever Churchfields

Sandra Meredith Booty

"I’ll always hold my head up high and say I’m a Churchfields kid

Ranveer Kaur 2001

Taken from her poem in the last assembly programme

First Edition

Published by Sandra Meredith Publishing 2011

Copyright Sandra Meredith 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reporduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the publisher.

Book Design and Publishing: Lisa Simone Jones

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Contents

History of Education in West Bromwich

The Land Where Churchfields Stood

Architects of Churchfields School

The Official Opening of Churchfields

Churchfields - The Concept

Churchfields Heads

Teachers at Churchfields

The First Intakes

Churchfields as we will always remember it!

Drama Productions at Churchfields

School Trips

Extra Curricula

Sports at Churchfields

Churchfields in Decline

The Closure of Churchfields School

Demolition of Churchfields school

Signs of Regeneration

Churchfields Achievers

Churchies Kids Conquer the World

Acknowledgements

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Introduction

Sometime in the spring of 2010, after browsing the ‘Friends Reunited’ website as I sometimes did, and catching up with one or two old friends, I had the idea of organising a school reunion. There had been many changes in recent years surrounding the demise (and disappearance) of Churchfields in West Bromwich, and houses were growing at an alarming rate on the land where the school once stood. I began in earnest and selected the date, venue, DJ and caterer and set about announcing it on the Friends Reunited site. Members were enthusiastic and after receiving requests from slightly younger and older ex-pupils, I extended the invitation to extra years.

However, although Friends Reunited proved a very useful tool for organising a reunion, interaction was slow and sometimes non-existent. I needed something instant in order to make conversation – like Facebook. So the solution was simple; I created a Facebook site called ‘Churchfields Reunion’. Not only could I enjoy ‘live’ chat, I could post some of the fantastic pictures I had of life at school. It wasn’t long before everyone else was doing the same and the photos, stories and almost audible shrieks of ‘OMG, how are you – are you going to the reunion’, sprang up all over the place. Present numbers are well over 1700, but someone joins every day so the number is always rising. In fact, I had remarked that the site had taken on a life of its own!

The reunion night was fantastic as everyone mingled, happy to meet up with old friends and enjoy the six display boards I’d erected. I had received many messages from pupils and teachers who couldn’t make it to the reunion, but wanted to be remembered, so I displayed them all on the boards. I also reproduced some wonderful old photos of our school days and displayed mementos I had collected from the rubble following demolition of the school. Items included a list for people to add their name to, with the title: ‘if you were the target of this board rubber, add your name here’! (The list was rather long!).

So too, sadly, was the list of our friends who were no longer with us. I felt it important to make sure we talked, laughed and remembered them for the contribution they made to our happy school life. They will always be with us in our collective memory.

There was also a table of raffle prizes with books, artwork, perfume (Aqua Manda and Brut) and a lava lamp – all of which were evocative of the late 1960s.

Each of the tables had balloons in the school colours, which looked really effective and on another table was a Guest Book for everyone to sign.

Following the event, I was again enjoying the feedback, chat and photographs from my friends on the Facebook site, when I noticed one topic of conversation appeared to dominate others; we should do something to make sure Churchfields wasn’t forgotten. And so the ‘Friends of Churchfields’ action group was born. In order to add some weight to our little group, I approached some ex-pupils that might be interested and asked if they would like to join our ‘gang’. Once again, the mention of the old school spread a smile across their face and they agreed. Our illustrious members are as follows:

Patrick Salt(Consultant Anaesthetist)

John Highfield(Head of Mathematics(Retired))

Prof Tom Burns(CBE Professor of Psychiatry as University Oxford

Trevor Constable(Consultant at Walsall Manor Hospital)

Keith Mallet(Teacher(Retired) & Entrepreneur

Jannette Drury(GP Practice Nurse, NHS)

Sandra Meredith(nee Booty)(Secretary PA with NHS)

Frank Batchelor(Metallurgist)

Diane O’Driscoll(Administrator with Sandwell MBC

Beatrice Whitehouse(nee Drury)(Administrator with NHS)

Pat Pincher(nee Luffman)(Administrator with NHS)

Karen Bonehill(nee Nock)(Administrator with NHS)

Richard Berry(Electrical Engineer(Retired))

Gwyneth Hull(Payroll Administrator(Retired))

Chris Werhun(nee Finch)(Administrator(Retired))

Yvonne Powell(nee Parkes)(Australia)

Danny Phillips(Australia)

Their contribution has been immeasurable – even if only to provide encouragement, they all kept the momentum and enthusiasm going; I was only the vehicle!

Between us we decided to approach the development company (David Wilson Homes) and ask them if they would provide a commemoration to the school within the housing complex that was built on the land where our school once stood. After meeting with their representative, Mr Chris Jones, it was agreed with no hesitation, and thanks to Mr John Dadd, from Sandwell MBC, also at the meeting, agreed and approved in principle. Chris Jones walked us around the building site and helped us choose the best spot and even provided designs for our approval. The Group can only express their gratitude to them for providing the commemorative plaque, placed right on the entrance in a specially designed feature wall – as well as pleasing thousands of ex-pupils (and teachers) who once enjoyed their time at Churchfields.

Once again a reunion was in the air! Having said goodbye to our school with the official unveiling of the plaque, it was time for everyone to celebrate the success of the school. And so a huge one, incorporating all years, (and teachers) was planned for 29th October 2011. It was extremely exciting to see all decades joining in and clamouring for tickets! Almost as if we could, at last, celebrate and be proud of our old school.

From the 1965 Churchfields Magazine, Mr JJ Bassett wrote the following letter for inclusion:

This issue of the School Magazine is number ten in a series which began, with Churchfields, in 1955. It will have served its purpose if, on the day it is sold, it is read from cover to cover – and then thrown away. I think this issue, the biggest yet, will amuse, interest and stimulate all its readers. So much the better if at the same time it eggs on some of those pupils who, perhaps out of modesty, have never dreamt of contributing to its pages.

It always slightly terrifies me to think that, as the years go by, there should be a growing stock of back numbers of this magazine, one copy of each, solemnly added to the unbelievably vast repository of print in the British Museum. Short of a national calamity, there seems to be no way for anybody committing himself to print of avoiding a dusty sort of immortality this side of heaven! The written word is however only one of the many trails, some feint, some bright, we each of us leave behind, quite inescapably. The hole in the piece of timber where the screw went in the wrong place, the finger prints on the glass, the footmarks worn into the stair treads, the rusted galvanised tank flung into a farmer’s ditch – these things are the physical evidence of human activity and of wear and tear. On the grand scale, there is Schweitzer’s recording of Bach, played in Assembly one morning weeks ago, and indeed the whole range of achievement of the ten distinguished men after whom our Houses are named.

On the homely scale, there is the metal sculpture (‘rusting nicely’, says Mr Armstrong) planted in E Block courtyard, there are the beehives down on the plot, the garden seats constructed in the woodwork rooms, and the umpteen bits of carpentry and pottery carted home with justifiable pride.

There was the Churchfields boy, ill recently in a hospital ward, whose cheerfulness so brightened up a grown up patient that the latter felt impelled to write to me and say so. There are the employers who take the trouble to send us news of the success of ex-pupils, and there is the influence for better or worse which every school leaver exerts upon his fellows, upon us all, and so upon those who follow after.

Not everybody can write, or even wants to write, but everybody can in some sense and through effort achieve that satisfaction of leaving some sort of trail, of creating something better, be it through service, artistic gift or through a sheer expression of personality.

I congratulate the contributors to this magazine, and those whose names have found mention in its pages. At the same time, I know full well that there are many boys and girls at Churchfields whose hobbies and enterprising activities deserve just as much encouragement and attention – if only they would talk about them!

Suddenly the message got through – the seed planted. I remember thinking, I get it now….thanks Jelly Bassett! It wasn’t long before the idea began to grow; someone should document the journey of Churchfields and set it out in a book……..…..

Sandra Meredith (nee Booty), Churchfields 1964-70

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History of Education in West Bromwich

As far back as the Norman Conquest there was education in West Bromwich, where the first teaching institution recorded was Sandwell Priory, founded in 1180. Monasteries were abolished when Henry VIII was made Supreme Head of the Church by an Act of Parliament in 1534 and with them went their teaching academies. In some parishes another class of school was initiated. These were endowed by wealthy citizens, or in some cases, property was transferred from some religious establishment suppressed by the reformation. Unfortunately, neither of these things happened in West Bromwich and it became a seat of many small private schools.

Extracts from an account taken from ‘West Bromwich: Education’, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 17: Offlow hundred (part) (1976), pp. 74-83, show West Bromwich is chronicled in detail.

There was a school in West Bromwich by 1686, apparently a private academy, and by then the parish was entitled to send two boys to Old Swinford Hospital School (Worcestershire), established in 1670. By the later 18th century there were schools for the poor and several private academies, and the first Sunday schools were opened in 1786 and 1788.

The Dartmouths, the Clarkes, and others paid for the education of many poor children. In 1819 the minister of All Saints’ stated that there were enough schools for most of the poor and that parents were normally eager to take advantage of them.

An unofficial house-to-house survey of working class education was undertaken in 1837. It revealed that there were 7,803 working-class children living at home: 1,428 over the age of 14, 5,805 of school age (considered by the investigators to be from 2 to 14), and 570 who were under two. Of the first group some 27 per cent could read and write and almost 40 per cent could read but not write. Almost 46 per cent of the second group went to school; only 11 per cent could both read and write, although a further 71 per cent could read but could not write.(1)

However, from about 1725 West Bromwich became more involved with the education of its children, due mostly to the ministers at ‘Old Meeting House’.

As records of these schools are examined, it becomes clear that the standards of education taught were very high and the discipline though severe, was humane. There was no likeness between these schools and those (in some parts of the country at a later date) that were exposed by Dickens in ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.

It was the practice of the nonconformist ministers to devote themselves to the education of children. The Rev Richard Witton’s School was the first, which he started in his house in Witton Lane near Rydding Square. On Richard Witton’s death in 1765, Philomen Parkes appears to have taken over the school. It became known as West Bromwich Academy, and afterwards Summerfield Academy. In 1803 it passed to Mr John Marshall, then known as Marshall’s School. In 1852 the school was removed to a house near to the present Hill Top Park. Joseph Jacques had been an assistant at Marshall’s School and later on founded one of his own at Hateley Heath, then at Coles Lane, and eventually, in about 1820, built a house and school at Black Lake. The Rev W Howell of Old Meeting,had a school at the ‘Large House’ at Lyne, in 1760. At the opposite side of the heath, Messrs Lea and Braybrook started a Boarding School at ‘Ling House’ in 1770, though the house was demolished in 1851. There was also the ‘Field House’ near Churchfields, started in 1786 by Mr E Harold, who was succeeded by a Mr Skally in 1812. Later on there was the ‘Bromwich Heath Academy’ facing what is now Heath Terrace, Lower High Street. It was a very successful school for seventy years, ending about 1860. Following this there were the schools of Rev Robert Bonner Feast, at Sandwell House, Mr Jackson in Edward Street, and the small private Grammar School in New Street, ruled over in succession by James Hall, Henry Silvester and a gentleman called Gardiner.

The increased population required new educational opportunities. It began to be possible and necessary to develop schools beyond those opened by various manufacturers and others in the 1850s. Surviving plans included a new Christ Church School from 1862.

But it wasn’t until the Education Act of 1870 that educational needs across the whole of West Bromwich were considered statistically or methodically.

Following the Elementary Education Act 1870, (commonly known as Forster’s Education Act), the School Board was established in 1871. It set the framework for the schooling of all children between ages 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It was drafted by William Forster, a Liberal MP, and was introduced on 17 February 1870 after campaigning by the National Education League, although not entirely to the requirements they recommended.

The following are the six Standards of Education contained in the Revised code of Regulations, 1872:

STANDARD I

Reading

One of the narratives next in order after monosyllables in an elementary reading book used in the school.

Writing

Copy in manuscript character a line of print, and write from dictation a few common.

Arithmetic

Simple addition and subtraction of numbers of not more than four figures, and the multiplication table to multiplication by six.

STANDARD II

Reading

A short paragraph from an elementary reading book.

Writing

A sentence from the same book, slowly read once, and then dictated in single words.

Arithmetic

The multiplication table and any simple rule as far as short division (inclusive).

STANDARD III

Reading

A short paragraph from a more advanced reading book.

Writing

A sentence slowly dictated once by a few words at a time, from the same book.

Arithmetic

Long division and compound rules (money).

STANDARD IV

Reading

A few lines of poetry or prose, at the choice of the inspector.

Writing

A sentence slowly dictated once, by a few words at a time, from a reading book, such as is used in the first class of the school.

Arithmetic

Compound rules (common weights and measures).

STANDARD V

Reading

A short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative.

Writing

Another short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative, slowly dictated once by a few words at a time.

Arithmetic

Practice and bills of parcels.

STANDARD VI

Reading

To read with fluency and expression.

Writing

A short theme or letter, or an easy paraphrase.

Arithmetic

Proportion and fractions (vulgar and decimals).

The Sunday School Movement

The first Sunday School to be opened in the parish was connected with ‘Old Meeting’ and was held at the ‘Old Barn’, which was situated in Old Meeting Street, near Chappel Street in 1786. The parish opened a second Sunday School the following year. The third was opened at the Methodist ‘Room’, Paradise Street, 1803 and the fourth was opened at Mayers Green by Benjamin Messenger, whose name was given to Messenger Lane.

Bishop Asbury, at one time connected with West Bromwich Methodism, founded the first Sunday School in America. He may also be remembered as a West Bromwich man, and the constant interchange of communications between his West Bromwich friends probably led to his starting his Sunday Schools in America, the first one being for some slave children around 1786-87. (3)

Parents relied overwhelmingly on Sunday schools and dame schools (which was an early form of a private elementary school in English-speaking countries. They were usually taught by women and were often located in the home of the teacher). Of the children at school over 42 per cent attended Sunday schools and just under 42 per cent went to dame schools to learn the alphabet or to the cheapest private schools to be taught reading and sewing. The two National schools accounted for only about 9 per cent of the total, while 7 per cent were at infants’ schools.

When the School Board was formed in 1871, it undertook an educational census, which revealed that there were 14 schools in receipt of government aid, with room for 6,414 children, and 6 more schools not under government, with room for 1,850 children. A further 421 children were at schools where fees were more than nine-pence a week, and there were 5 cheaper private-adventure schools with accommodation for 429 children. But seven hundred extra school places were needed.(1)

A by-law making school attendance compulsory was passed in 1871, and after some early difficulties West Bromwich established one of the best records of school attendance among the Black Country boroughs. Between 1882 and 1886 the Board organised weekly classes for pupil teachers and uncertificated assistant teachers, and in 1896 it established a pupil-teachers’ centre.

Since the later 19th century several trusts had been established to provide scholarships and prizes. They include the George and Thomas Henry Salter Trust, the Akrill, Wilson, and Kenrick Foundations, and the West Bromwich Educational Foundation. In 1903 West Bromwich county borough became responsible for all stages of public education. During WW1 school construction stopped, and afterwards, up to the 1920s, it resumed. The standard school design was the ‘central-hall’ school, a large hall surrounded by smaller classrooms, which usually had more than one storey to cater for the rising pupil numbers. Some private schools built in the 1920s and 1930s were beginning to consider the needs of progressive or ‘child-centred’ education in their designs. Schools were reorganised in 1930-3 on the lines laid down in the Hadow Report.(1)

The reports are invaluable documents. They not only paint a vivid picture of schools and society in the early twentieth century, but as each one begins with a historical chapter, they also provide a wealth of information about life and schooling in the nineteenth century.

The 1931 report suggests that a good school ‘is not a place of compulsory instruction, but a community of old and young, engaged in learning by cooperative experiment’. (1931: Introduction). It goes on to argue that ‘the curriculum of the primary school is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored’. (1931: Section 75).

Resurgence in school building continued in the late 1930s, later hampered by the onset of WW2. But after the war, the rising birth rate and the extension of the school leaving age to 15, led to the greatest expansion of school building since 1870. The development of new building techniques, overhaul of the building procedures, and close co-operation between architects, the Local Education Authorities and educationalist helped modernise and add innovation to school architecture.

The Ministry of Education administered cost limits and building regulations, leading to the widespread use of prefabricated material and smaller scale buildings with less circulation space.

The 1944 Education Act

It was the 1944 Education Act (White Paper) that radically changed the provision of education for all children in England and Wales.(1) A brief summary of the Act :

Part I Central Administration:

The Act provided for the appointment of a Minister of Education and the establishment of the Ministry of Education. The Minister’s duty was:

To promote the education of the people of England and Wales and the progressive development of institutions devoted to that purpose, and to secure the effective execution by local authorities, under his control and direction, of the national policy for providing a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area (Section 1(1)).

Provision was made for the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary and other staff (1(3) and for the transfer of Board of Education property to the new Ministry (2(1)).

Two Central Advisory Councils for Education (one for England, one for Wales) were to be established ‘to advise the Minister upon such matters connected with educational theory and practice History of Education in West Bromwich as they think fit, and upon any questions referred to them by him’ (4(1)).

The Minister was required to make an annual report to Parliament on ‘the exercise and performance and the powers and duties conferred and imposed upon him’ (5).

Part II The Statutory System of Education:

Every county and county borough would be the local education authority (LEA) for its area (6(1). Property and staff previously owned and employed for educational purposes would be transferred to the LEAs (6(3 and 4).

The statutory system of education shall be organised in three progressive stages to be known as primary education, secondary education, and further education; and it shall be the duty of the local education authority for every area, so far as their powers extend, to contribute towards the spiritual, moral, mental, and physical development of the community by securing that efficient education throughout those stages shall be available to meet the needs of the population of their area (7).

Local authorities were charged with providing primary and secondary schools sufficient in number, character, and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities, and aptitudes (8(1). LEAs were to ensure that there were separate schools for primary and secondary education; that nursery education was available for under-fives; that provision was made for ‘pupils who suffer from any disability of mind or body’; and that boarding accommodation was offered where appropriate (8(2)).

The concept of comprehensive education (in which all children attend a common school rather than being divided by selection between secondary modern, grammar, specialist schools etc) came late to Britain. Many in the Labour Party hoped that the new government would get rid of elitism and pursue a common education for all children, something the 1944 Act would have allowed. Regrettably, the Attlee government’s radicalism did not extend to tackling the class-ridden divisiveness of Britain’s secondary school provision. It was Attlee’s government that promoted the tripartite system of grammar, technical and secondary modern schools. In circular No. 73 (12 December 1945), the government told local authorities to ‘think in terms of three types’ of state school for the new secondary education. An accompanying booklet, The Nation’s Schools, explained that the new ‘modern’ schools would be for working-class children ‘whose future employment will not demand any measure of technical skill or knowledge’ (MoE 1945, quoted in Benn and Chitty 1996:5). Labour Party members were furious and Wilkinson withdrew the document. But as a result of intense pressure from education officials, the policy remained the same and was restated in The New Secondary Education (1947).(2)

For West Bromwich and Smethwick, which were then discussing amalgamation, a joint development plan for education was published in 1946. Although amalgamation did not take place, the report’s proposals were adopted by each borough individually.

West Bromwich decided to build more primary schools and to provide its first nursery schools, the tripartite system of secondary education was adopted. Comprehensive