Education and Evacuation in the Second World War Meg Oliver (with particular reference to London) This is my history of evacuation, which illustrated most aspects of children in London in the Second World War. I was seven when war broke out and I lived in SE London. As early as May 1938, in the shadow of the Munich crisis, the London County Council was already discussing evacuation as a means of saving people from the horrors of aerial bombing as seen in the Spanish Civil War, should war break out with Germany. After the Munich Crisis when war was averted, although Chamberlain promised “Peace in our time,” by the summer of 1939 war seemed likely to break out and people were making arrangements to leave London. My parents, like most, wanted to stay with us if possible, hence they sought to make alternative arrangements. By 1st September my mother and sister and I were staying with friends in Lenham, near Maidstone in Kent, and it was there that we heard war declared. Our evacuation had taken place as the same time as 600,000 children were evacuated by the LCC. Our host was chauffeur to the ‘Big House’, which itself had become the home of a London boys’ school. It was a fairly temporary arrangement and then a relative arranged for us to stay in a farm in Limpsfield in Surrey. I did not go to school during this period. However this was the time of the ‘phoney war’ while Hitler gathered his strength for the onslaught on Britain, and also waiting to see if those, like Lord Halifax, could get support for a deal. No bombs fell, and apart from rationing and people going into the forces, it was quiet. So we returned to London in late November. My education continued. When I first returned, neighbour who had had to give up teaching gave lessons in her living room as a way of war effort. Schools were disorganised; although many pupils had returned, their teachers were still evacuated. l, was in my first year of junior school and eventually I was plugged into the system. I had to go to school in the mornings, in what had been the Secondary school to collect work to do, and to return it when completed. I trudged through the heavy snow to deal with this. As the situation grew more threatening and making a deal disappeared, plans to re- evacuate children were resurrected. The bombing of Rotterdam reinforced the message of Warsaw, destroyed in 1939. Over the period May to July 120,000 children were evacuated many from the South-east areas to Wales, the Midlands Surrey and Hertfordshire. My mother and my sister and 1 were evacuated as my mother had obtained employment as a ‘helper’. These helpers were assigned to schools, in my mother’s case, Brixton Central School for Girls. Their duties were various, to help the teachers as they supervised the pupils under their care. In June 1940 we arrived in the village of Kennington, near Oxford, where the junior years were billeted. I was enrolled in the local village school, which consisted of three classes, divided into standards. The desks were old-fashioned, very different from the tables where I had worked in London. I don’t remember learning a great deal. The teachers were overwhelmed with the sudden influx of evacuees and refugees (My best friend was a Czech Jew). When I reached the top standard the staff suggested that I joined the girls from the Central school and this was arranged. I spent about eighteen months as a pupil at the Central school, presumably sorted out with the LCC. British Schools Museum sent in by Sheila Tickner British Schools Museum The British Schools Museum in Hitchin. The British Schools Museum is an educational museum based in original Edwardian and Victorian school buildings in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England.[1] The museum complex is made up of Grade II listed school buildings housing infants, girls and boys schools with houses for Master and Mistress.[2] It includes a monitorial schoolroom based on the educational theories of Joseph Lancaster for 300 boys, which opened in 1837, and a rare galleried classroom, dating from 1853. History of the school[edit] The school buildings of 1853 (left), 1837 (centre) and 1904 (right). The first school on the site was a schoolroom for 200 boys and 100 girls. It was founded in 1810 by local lawyer William Wilshere in a disused malthouse. This schoolroom was the first monitorial school for the sons of the poor in Hertfordshire. Teaching was based on Joseph Lancaster's methods of monitorial teaching. He developed a system in which large numbers of younger scholars could be taught by older scholars under the supervision of the master (for boys) or mistress (for girls). This method continued until the Revised Code of 1862 that brought in the Pupil Teacher method of teaching.[3] The monitorial system was changed as it was the general consensus that having children teach other children, when they are not well educated themselves, proved to be problematic. The Pupil Teacher method involved an older scholar being given training and being paid to teach. The government hoped that this would increase the number of teachers in the future, using a system that could be described as an apprenticeship in teaching.[4] The school grew steadily and to such an extent that in 1837 a new schoolroom was built that could hold 300 boys. This was completed in 1838, and the original school in the converted malthouse then included an infants school as well as the girls'. HM Inspector of Schools Matthew Arnold visited the school in 1852 and reinforced the 1849 recommendation of inspector J D Morrell that the boys' school would benefit from a new classroom. A new Gallery classroom for 110 pupils was completed in February 1854. The 1857 school building with the houses for the Master and Mistress to the left. In 1857, it was decided by the School's Board of Trustees to completely rebuild the Girls' and Infants' School. The new building was completed in 1858 together with adjoining houses for the Master and Mistress. When Matthew Arnold paid a return visit to the school in 1867 he reported that the new buildings were "excellent". By 1904 additional classrooms were needed because of the growing number of pupils, and these were built in 1905, but by 1929 the school was too small (and quite worn out!) and the Boys' and Girls Schools transferred to the new Wilshere Dacre School in the town. The Infants School carried on in the original buildings, but because of the number of evacuees who were sent to Hitchin at the outbreak of World War II the school reverted to a Junior Mixed Infants School in 1940. This school continued on the site until 1969, when it closed, but the buildings were taken over by North Hertfordshire College as the Queen Street Activities Centre. Recent years[edit] The buildings were listed as Grade II in 1975 for their importance as a site of historic school architecture. Mrs Jill Grey, a local educational historian, opened a small museum in one of the Edwardian classrooms. In July 1990 North Herts College left the site and Hertfordshire County Council put the buildings up for sale. The Hitchin British Schools Trust was formed and by 1994 were successful in purchasing the buildings. The Trust, mainly through the efforts of volunteers, has restored the schoolrooms to reflect their original condition, and work continues to improve them. The museum is visited by adults and groups of children from all over the country who are interested in seeing how their ancestors were taught. The BBC filmed scenes from the 2010 children's television series Just William at Hitchin. The 1944 Education Act by Margaret Ventham A debate about secondary education was happening in the later 1930s. It continued during WW2 until the 1944 Education Act was presented to Parliament by Rab Butler and became law. These years of discussion and gathering of ideas were the outcome of changes in society after WW1, innovations in industrial and technical processes, better communications and the gradual improvement of education, resulting from the Education Acts of the 1900s which raised the school leaving age to 14, and made all county and town councils offer secondary education. At this point in time secondary education was not free. Local Authorities required fees and the schools demanded that pupils wore uniforms – an expense that many families could not afford. Some elementary pupils aged 13 from poor homes were able to take the entry exam for secondary school or technical institute. If they passed the entry exam they could achieved a free, scholarship place. Those who did not take the exam left elementary school at the end of spring or summer terms when they were 14. Many went into apprenticeships for what, today, would be considered very basic skills and trades. Alongside statutory education, there were public schools and old established grammar schools offering education up to entry level for university. Some of these schools awarded free scholarships to very bright students. People involved in higher education and those of influence in the upper classes also became part of the national debate about secondary education for all. Meanwhile various organisations, societies and trade unions, all wanting changes to the system, were making their voices heard. The ideas and suggested changes were not universally compatible! Some wanted complete closure of public and private schools. Some wanted religious foundations banned from running schools.