A CHAPTER closes in the history of a popular York primary school today.

When children set off home following afternoon assembly at Lord Deramore’s School in Heslington, they’ll be saying goodbye to their old school for good.

The school will be locked up - and when children return after an extended half term on March 1, they’ll be going to the new school, which over the last few months has been taking shape in the school grounds.

It marks the end of160 years of history for the ‘old’ school - or for parts of it, at least.

The Victorian school building was originally built in 1856, in the days before the 1870 Education Act set up school boards and education for all. New buildings were added in the 1950s and an extension in the 1970s, as the school expanded.

The new school has been built as part of the Government’s Priority School Building Programme.

It will, like the old school, have room for 210 children. there are seven classrooms, a group room and a main hall with a pitched roof.

Head teacher Sheena Powley will spend much of next week on site with builders Kier Construction, making sure the new school is ready. She and her staff will then have the weekend of February 25 and 26, plus the following Monday and Tuesday, to ensure everything is ready for the children to return. “And then at 8.50 am on Wednesday March 1 we open!” Mrs Powley said.

York Press:

Lord Deramore's head Sheena Powley gets ready for the move ahead of today's final assembly at the old school

Today is all about saying goodbye to the old school, however. Mrs Powney has designated today a non-uniform ‘maths day’. Children will be wearing maths-themed clothes, and will spend the day doing lots of maths-related activities.

But at 2.30 pm they’ll gather for a final assembly. Memories of the school will be shared. “Then when children leave at 3.15 they’ll be leaving the old school for the last time,” Mrs Powley said.

It will be a particularly emotional moment for her. She’ll be there on March 1 to welcome children to the new school, and will remain as head teacher for a few more weeks.

But at the end of term, on April 7, she’ll be retiring after 21 years in charge, to spend more time with her family, and help her husband Mike run the family farm. Being a head teacher is a ‘fabulous job’, she said. “But it’s not a job for the faint hearted!”

The new head from the start of the summer term will be James Rourke, who is moving from Rufforth.

160 YEARS OF HISTORY AT LORD DERAMORE'S

THEY did things differently in the 1860s.

“Flogged Richard Shaw,” reads an entry in the Lord Deramore’s School log for April 27, 1865 made by the then headmaster, Mr J Hill. “His mother came in the evening to complain. I said if she had any complaints to take them to the school managers.

"Next morning she came in again and was very abusive in front of the scholars. I had to have her put out.” Mr Hill might not have been in his job very long if he’d tried that these days...

York Press:

Staff and children outside the school in the 1880s, when Mr Wilman was headmaster

Another strict disciplinarian was Mr F Wilman, who was the school’s head teacher from 1878-1904. He seems to have seen himself as a ‘new broom’ when he took over. He comments on poor standards – and sees fit to dish out punishments on several occasions. It seems to have worked: a school inspection report for March 5, 1879, reports that discipline was ‘much improved’.

There was one dreadful lapse, though, the inspectors reported. “The boys and girls going in and out of the same door is most objectionable.”

Mr Wilman was as strict about what the school should teach as about discipline. Sheena Powley, the school’s current head, has a copy of the school’s timetable from Mr Wilman’s days. It was the same every day, she says: Religious Instruction at 9am, followed by arithmetic, history and composition. There would then be a “recess” (what we’d call break) followed by drawing for boys and sewing for girls. In the afternoon it was physical training then silent reading, before the children went home at 4pm.

York Press:

A domestic science class in 1900

There has been a school in Heslington since 1795, when one was built in the back lane (now School lane) on ground donated by Henry Yarburgh, the Lord of the Manor of Heslington.

The school now known as Lord Deramore’s dates from 1856, when a new Victorian school building was built by descendants of Henry Yarburgh. In 1876 another Yarburgh heir, Mary, married George Bateson. Bateson later became the second Baron Deramore – hence the school’s name today.

At the time the school was built, schools were either run by religious or philanthropic organisations. This all changed as a result of the 1870 Education Act, which set up school boards funded by rates, which had a duty to ensure all children received some schooling.

Teaching remained a poorly-paid occupation, however. Mr Wilman, the head of Lord Deramore’s from 1878-1904, also doubled as the school caretaker, for which he received an extra £6 a year. He was “glad of the extra money as teaching was so poorly paid”, an entry in the school’s log says.

Mrs Powley has another favourite story which reveals how poorly paid teachers were. It’s about a Miss Bateson, who was a teacher at the school in the 1920s.

One of her jobs was to stoke the fire each day – and one day she had to rush home after a spark flew out and burned her dress. It was some time before Miss Bateson could return to teaching duty, Mrs Powley says, because she was so poor she couldn’t afford to replace the burned dress. “She couldn’t come back to school until her mother had made her a new skirt.”

York Press:

Miss Skinner and her class in 1928

The school has seen two world wars in its long history. The first was marked by regular low attendance, for a variety of reasons which ranged from illness (everything from chicken pox and flu to scarlet fever) to the need to bring in the harvests: on September 10, 1917, the school log notes that “a further week’s holiday was given in consequence of the incomplete state of harvesting operations”. That may not happen these days...

The Second World War also saw disruption to the school’s routine, though for different reasons. In 1939 it took in 55 “refugee children” from Hull and Sunderland, virtually doubling the school population.

Alf Colley became head teacher in 1961, and remained in post until 1979 (apart from a year out to study at the University of York). He maintained his links with the school right up until his death in 2015 at the age of 98. He became a friend of Mrs Powley and it was he who helped her decide on the school’s uniform.  “He said, ‘I’m a Yorkshireman and you’re a Yorkshirewoman. What about having something with the Yorkshire Rose?’ ” Mrs Powley recalls. So they did ...  and the rose is still there on the school uniform to this day.