Don't know how useful this will be Aidan but this is my experience:
When I worked at Wigan Record Office there was a big secondary school
closure programme during the late 80s and early 90s. These were a mixture of
former grammar, secondary modern and secondary technical schools that had
become comprehensive during the 70s. Through links I had with the Education
Dept. I developed a programme for visiting these schools before they closed,
talking to the Heads or acting Heads about what was available and what
should be saved. With one exception we got what we wanted (the fellow took
the records home with him and they never came back !) and this led to
substantial quantities of admissions records being taken in. For the
grammars these began as card indexes and developed into pupil files during
the 60s. For the larger secondaries we had to sample the pupil files because
they were so bulky (there were proper registers too), but the end result was
a fine archive that will in time shed much light on the dramatic changes
that overtook these schools when they became comprehensives in the 70s.
Likwise we sampled attendance registers to record changes over the years.
In addition we were able to select administrative files, material on
syllabus development and exams, sets of magazines, sports and social
records, photographs and plans. The logs books did survive but my
recollection is that in one grammar school they fell out of use by the 70s,
in favour of weekly diaries. In others the entries became very terse, due I
think to the Heads being increasingly overwhelmed by other work. Some
punishment books did survive though I think during the campaign to do away
with caning and slippering some books had been destroyed.
Also I recall that we found a lot of pre-1914 stuff that had been stashed
away in boxes and cupboards, especially at the former Wigan Grammar School
where there was a large store room above the stage accessible only by
ladder, safe from meddling hands of the modernisers !
Nicholas Webb
Archivist
Barclays Group Archives
Dallimore Road
Wythenshawe
Manchester
M23 9JA
tel: 0161 946 3037
fax: 0161 946 0226
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aidan Jones [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 10:56 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Why so few records from secondary schools?
>
> A typical deposit from a village primary school will probably include
> headteachers' log books, some admissions registers and maybe the
> occasional
> punishment book. As far as I can recall, none of the three record offices
> where I've been employed has ever held much in the way of equivalent
> records
> from grammar, secondary modern, or comprehensive schools. My present
> office
> holds no admissions records from the local Higher Grade School (the
> forerunner of the Boys' Grammar School) and just one single log book,
> ending
> in 1916. After that date - nothing at all of this nature.
>
> On visiting other record offices as a searcher I have occasionally asked
> about comparable records from other former secondary schools, only to be
> told that they have "disappeared".
>
> Is all of this mere chance on my part, or were there actually
> administrative
> reasons why such records were rarely created in secondary schools? Has
> anything ever been published or written on this particular topic?
>
> I ask partly out of curiosity, but also because I'm never quite sure how
> to
> respond when I receive similar enquiries in the search room. Are there
> any
> record offices out there which have actually received substantial deposits
> of 19th and 20th century log books, admissions registers, or punishment
> books, from their local grammar schools and secondary schools?
>
> Aidan Jones,
> Cumbria Record Office & Local Studies Library, Barrow-in-Furness.
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