Abbey Primary School

Education available to all is a comparatively recent innovation in England and it was not until the Education Act of 1870 that elementary schools were built and run by the state and local school boards appointed to supervise their running and empowered to levy a rate for this purpose. This was a major social change that has evolved into what we know today as the state education system although conditions have drastically changed since Victorian times. 

In December 1874, a board of five members was created in Bourne consisting of John Roberts, the Rev William Orton (Baptist), Thomas Mays (for the dissenters), Charles Glover, Stephen Andrews and John Bell, clerk, and its first task was to begin the construction of a new elementary school. The board purchased an orchard in Star Lane [now Abbey Road] from Mrs Matilda Arnold at a cost of £125 per rood for the building of a school and a master's residence. Thirteen architects submitted designs for consideration but the contract was awarded to Mr Charles Bell of 4 Union Court, Old Broad Street, London, and the construction was carried out by Messrs Priest of Grantham at a cost of £3,727. It opened in 1877 as the Star Lane Board School with room for 480 children, both boys and girls, and the building still operates today as the Abbey Primary School, although greatly modernised and extended. It became the main centre for elementary education in the town, superseding the old National School in North Street although these premises were used for a period to provide technical education for selected pupils supervised by a local committee working in conjunction with the county council. The staff were Mr John Derry, headmaster of the boys' school at a alary of £80 a year, and Miss Readwin, headmistress of the girls' and infants' school.

It is worth noting that the village school at Twenty, four miles east of Bourne, was built in 1876 at a cost of £1,174 with room for 60 pupils, by the same architect and builder who also used similar distinctive yellow bricks and blue slate popular for institutional buildings during the mid-19th century. The average attendance at the new Board School, as it was known, during the ensuing years was 350 but numbers steadily increased to 500 by the turn of the century and the premises were enlarged to accommodate the additional children in 1892 and again in 1894. There was a further extension in 1901 with the aim of eventually providing classroom space for 700 children although this turned out to be an optimistic forecast. 

During this period in the school's history, a logbook was kept by head teachers, providing a wealth of information about elementary schooling in Victorian and Edwardian times and giving a glimpse of life as it was before the outbreak of the First World War. The entries concerning the daily attendance of pupils for instance, an important part of school administration during these early days of state education, reflect the history of the times, the bad weather and recurrent illnesses that kept boys and girls away from their lessons. During one week in January 1878, stormy weather caused fluctuating attendances and a year later, heavy snowfalls resulted in only 55 girls turning up out of a total of 120 while in July 1901, continuous rain flooded the streets and closed the school and pupils were taken home in vans. There were similar occurrences of wet weather disrupting the school's activities in 1910, 1911 and 1912, causing serious flooding in the surrounding fenland. 

Illness and epidemics were also a common cause of children staying away. Influenza closed the school for three weeks in 1891 and it was shut again for a fortnight in 1897 because of an outbreak of measles. Mumps and whooping cough were also prevalent illnesses of the time together with other diseases that have become quite rare such as diphtheria, scarlet fever and smallpox that was mentioned in the log book of March 1893 when it was given as the reason why a number of children from the workhouse were absent although the local Medical Officer of Health did not confirm the diagnosis. Many of the fathers of children attending the school were agricultural labourers and so busy periods in the farming year were also a major cause of absenteeism. 

Attendance fell in October 1879 because girls were out gleaning and six years later, the headmistress reported: "Attendance irregular - some of the girls are absent getting the potatoes up." While in July 1901, girls stayed away for half-days while taking dinner and tea to the hay fields. The authorities were well aware that schooling in a farming area was likely to be affected in this way and tried to minimise the difficulties by arranging holidays to coincide with busy times on the land. In the final decades of the 19th century, the summer holiday of five or six weeks' duration became known as the harvest holiday and a log book entry of November 1918 states: "School opened this morning after a closure of four weeks for potato picking". 

There were many other reasons for a fall in attendances during the school year including the arrival of a circus in the town, ice skating in severely cold weather, cheap day rail trips to surrounding towns, the October Fair, church picnics and national holidays such as the coronations of 1902 and 1911. In February 1905, each pupil was handed a slotted card with a sixpence attached that had come from Burghley House to mark the birth of David George Brownlow Cecil, Lord Burghley and later the 6th Marquess of Exeter. One of the boys, George Darnes, later remembered: "Some of my classmates, to whom sixpence was real wealth in those days, chose to spend it on sweets on the way home." But despite these interruptions to the daily routine, attendances slowly improved and had reached 90% by 1907 while inspectors spoke highly of the standards achieved. 

Today, the Abbey Primary is a large, mixed nursery, infant and junior school although the original buildings of 1877 can still be seen with separate entrance doors marked Boys and Girls while the stone tablet bearing the crest and the motto Vigila et ora or Watch and Pray remains on the front wall. The premises however have been recently modernised and new extensions built during the early 1960s and mid 1980s and a further addition of three infant and two junior classes and a technology room was completed in the 1990s. Apart from the well equipped classrooms, there are two large halls used for assemblies, physical education and drama lessons, concerts and musical presentations while outside there are extensive hard and grassed areas for play and outdoor games. The current IT provision is among the best in Lincolnshire and pupils have their own web site on the Internet of a very high quality, well designed and easy to read and navigate and additional pages are being added showing the work of each year group and community links. 

There was a landmark in the history of the school in April 1991 when it was named as the first primary in Britain to become grant maintained and pupils and staff received a surprise visit from the then Secretary of State for Education Kenneth Clarke to mark the occasion, a far cry from those Board School days of a century ago.