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Records kept by old schools form a rich source of information for
all family historians. Correspondence, Registers, Punishment Books (although
these are usually closed for 100 years after the last recorded punishment), Minute Books
of Governors Meetings, building plans, Inspector's Reports and most valuable of
all, School Log Books, each had to be retained, although not every school kept a complete set of records. Over the years, many of these
documents have found their way via the County Education Office to County Record
Departments where they are available to the public. |
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The
Schoolmaster's house and adjoining schoolroom, Coldridge
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Until the early 1820s, each parish was expected to provide a
token amount of
education for the children of working families. This may have been paid for by the
parishioners or endowed by a local squire or other landowner. Children were
taught little besides the Catechism and the letters of the alphabet; certainly
the majority could not read or write. For fifty
years after this time, many voluntary church schools came into being with the
assistance of the so-called National Society (which catered only for England and
was also known as the British Society). The Education Act of 1870 set up School
Boards to expand the voluntary schools into all areas of the country and
to bring each school into the standardised system for testing attainment which had been
started in 1862. Government Grants for running the schools were linked to
success in these tests. One of the tests related to attendance and in
agricultural areas children were often called out of the classroom to
work in the fields. It was not until 1890 that a fairer system of
funding was applied to all schools regardless of attendance or the progress pupils made. |
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Not until 1902
was there any real legal compulsion on parents to send their children to school each day. An Act
of 1876 had said that children aged 5 to 10 must attend for all of each day, and
that children aged 10 to 13 must attend for a part of each day but everyone knew
that the rural economy would collapse without the use of child labour so
this Act was unenforceable.
At
Ermington, the School Board's Clerk who was supposed to keep a check on truancy also
kept the village shop. He told his Board plainly that he wasn't prepared to do
anything about truancy because it might injure his trade! The truth is that children were needed to supplement the family income by working - an average
wage for a farm labourer at the time was 11s a week. With
so many children absent for so much of the time, attaining the so-called National
Standards
was almost impossible in rural schools, who were then punished by the Government
by grant cuts, making their pupils even more
disadvantaged. |
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The
turning point came with the adaptation of steam to power new farm machinery,
significantly reducing the amount of labour required in the fields. Only
then, as adult workers realised the potential threat to their jobs, was
cheap child labour banished from the fields to the schoolroom throughout
the year.
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