Stepping off the train from Birmingham at Bletchley I walked the short distance to Bletchley Park and Milton Keynes College of Education. Back then Bletchley Park was at the centre of its local community and our community’s education. As well as the teacher training college Royal Mail (No BT in those days) had its telephone training centre centred in Bletchley Park’s mansion and deeper into the park where once the codebreakers wielded their hammers air traffic controllers were taught their all-important skills.
Milton Keynes College of Education, shortly before I joined its student body it was North Bucks College of Education, was a satellite of Oxford University’s Delegacy for Education and vital within the Milton Keynes Development Corporation’s plan to staff schools across the city.
How many schools are there in Milton Keynes today ? I bet you don’t have a clue, I don’t. Let’s make it easier, how many secondary schools are there in twenty-first century MK ? Still a question too far. September 1971 every undergraduate at Milton Keynes College of Knowledge could answer, as indeed could just about every resident, and say six. Four of those six secondary schools could be found in Bletchley.
In Wolverton there was and still is Radcliffe School named after John Radcliffe. As a medic he may have given his name to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford but in Wolverton he gave his name to an important location for teenage education.
In Newport Pagnell there was and still in Ousedale School, now with a satellite in Olney. I have a special story from my own experience to share about Ousedale Olney when I later twist the base of the kaleidoscope so watch this space.
Bletchley, today the home for just two schools. I will insist in this writing to call them schools and not the modern term of academy ! What happened to the other two from 1971 ? Actually what happened to three, only Leon School from fifty years ago exists.
There was Denbigh School in Cornwall Grove, West Bletchley. It still exists by name but the needs of our developing New City needed it to relocate to where it can be found today in Shenley Church End. The name Denbigh comes from Denbigh Hall Farm on which land it originally stood. The development of the school and the housing it served was not something from Milton Keynes Development Corporation but predates its birth and was given to the New City by Bletchley Urban District Council.
In the early 1970’s there were two fundamental differences in secondary education which today are outside most peoples’ understanding. The school leaving age was fifteen, it was at the beginning of 1972 that ROSLA – Raising Of The School Leaving Age meant that pupils leaving the following summer could not depart unless they were in the 5th Form (Today we call it Year 11). Those in the 4th Form were obliged to remain in school for another year. For those who were not interested in examination qualifications but getting out into the world and earning money it was like having a prison sentence extended. ROSLA kids were not happy bunnies !
Second difference. Education was selective. In the final year of junior school every kid had to sit the 11+ examination which was a series of ability tests supposedly deciding if a grammar school education or a secondary modern (second class) education best suited the individual. Every child had a ball and chain strapped to their legs, the earlier you were born in the school year of September to August the more points were deducted from your score. I was born in November so my ball and chain was quite heavy. I lived in the middle class Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield where snobbery refused to accept the terminology of secondary modern. Yes, I failed my 11+ from which I went to Boldmere HIGH School for Boys.
Bletchley in 1971 had its own selective education system but this was not seen fit for purpose in a New City. Leon School and Denbigh School were secondary modern schools as was Wilton School on Rickley Lane but located on the former cricket ground of Bletchley Park could be found Bletchey Grammar School. Bletchley Grammar and Wilton would in 1974 combine to become Lord Grey School meaning there were just two secondary schools in the southern area of our New City.
During
a BBC TV programme looking back of the seventy years of Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II and how things had changed from 1952 to 2022 two pictures suddenly
appeared of Leon School being built on Bletchley’s Lakes Estate.
Fortunately
I was recording the programme so have been able to snatch these screen shots.
Leon
School goes back before Milton Keynes Development Corporation and Bletchley’s
Lakes Estate but that is something for a kaleidoscope twist I will make later,
all in due time. Right now we are going back to Bletchley Park in 1971 and
Milton Keynes College of Education. Here it is.
These days universities have freshers weeks, not fifty and a bit years ago where we had freshers day. We freshers were then quickly thrown in at the deep end with what was called Orientation Week. Sink or swim we spent five days, Monday to Friday, shadowing staff in local schools. Towards the end of the week the shadowing was reversed as the qualified teachers shadowed us. My orientation week was spent at Wilton School. I loved it and am proud to say my extended essay on my time in Wilton gained me an A grade.
Every year at teacher training college every student had to step through a rite of passage, teaching practice. This comprised three weeks on the front line, if you failed teaching practice you left college and were obliged to seek an alternative career path. Teaching practice for me in my second year was at Wilton School. Yippee ! Yes I passed and passed with an A grade.
At the end of my three weeks the headmaster called me to his office. I can clearly remember what he said, I will share it with you now but will need to offer a twenty-first century translation to what he said. Before then let me explain Mr Smith, Headmaster of Bletchley’s Wilton School drove a sports car.
“Discipline,” Mr Smith explained, “is like the choke on my car. Not enough and the engine won’t start, too much and it will stall. You have to get the choke position just right if you are to be a teacher, you have your choke in the right position.”
No, he was not talking about strangling the kids but within a car’s engine the choke balanced the air and fuel in the carburettor. Today cars do not have chokes, I am not even sure they have carburettors but never mind.
Mr Smith went on to say, “When you leave college in a year’s time Wilton School will merge with Bletchley Grammar School to become Lord Grey School, I don’t want to be its headmaster so I am retiring but if you want a job in then new school I can fix it for you.”
Everybody knew that the merging of these two Bletchley Schools was not going to be easy, there was great rivalry among the staff and also the pupils. Those from Bletchley Grammar saw themselves as superior to Wilton School so its early days would be full of trouble, I did not want to be a part of that !
My first teaching practice was at Buckingham Junio Secondary School, second as I have said at Wilton School and my third was at Halyard High School in Luton. The one school no student teacher wanted to be assigned to for teaching practice was Leon School on Bletchley’s Lakes Estate. In one Bletchley Gazette report it was referred to as Bletchley’s Infamous Lakes Estate !
On
WEDNESDAY 10th March 1971, six months before I came to live in Bletchley
Park, Leon School having moved from its former home in Central Bletchley to the
joint Bletchley Urban District Council and Greater London Council’s Lakes
Estate development the school’s formal opening took place. I am going to end
this kaleidoscope picture by sharing the official programme of events. This document
was so kindly given to me by Leon School’s legendary Mrs Daphne Capp – Head of
Music.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
EDUCATION COMMITTEE
NORTH BUCKS DIVISIONAL EXECUTIVE
OFFICIAL
OPENING
of
THE
LEON SCHOOL BLETCHLEY
by
THE RT
HON LORD BELSTEAD
Joint
Parliamentary Under – Secretary of State
for Education and Science
on
WEDNESDAY 10th March 1971
at
2.30 pm
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE EDUCATION COMMITTEE:
Chairman
RT HON THE EARL HOWE CBE DL JP
Chief Education Officer
Roy P Harding ESQ BSc FIMA DPA
North Bucks Divisional Executive
Chairman:
F W FINLOW Esq
Divisional Education Officer
D G LUCAS Esq BA
School Governors (1970 – 1973)
K FULLER
Esq (Chairman)
I T E GADESDEN Esq (Vice Chairman)
W A CALDWELL
Esq
A G CAMPBELL
Esq
Mrs G E
GREENWAY
E HOLDOM
Esq
Mrs D J PHILLIPS
Mrs.S.SNOOK
R A Swepston
Esq
H C WEATHERHEAD
Esq
CANON K WRIGHT
County Architect
F P
POOLEY Esq
CBE FRIBA MI Struct E AMTPI
Main Contractors:
QUEENSWAY BUILDERS LTD
School Staff:
D B BRADSHAW Esq BA (Headmaster)
A J COZENS Esq (Deputy Headmaster)
Mrs J C Kilpin (Senior Mistress)
J
A ARMSTRONG Esq Mrs H J F HOLLAND
Mrs
M P BALLENGER A
R HOWE Esq
Mrs
G BARFORD H
I C JONES Esq
Miss
S H BENFORD M
E LEONARD Esq HNC
D
J R BUCANNAN Esq Mrs P M MEAD
Mrs
D M CAPP LTCL Miss
J S MORGAN
R
P CARD Esq J
MORRIS Esq NDD ATD
G
L COPSON Esq BA Mrs
J A PERKS
Mrs
G COOPER-SMITH Miss
G M PHILLIPS
W
T R CROSS Esq. Mrs Z M PILGRIM
M
D CROSS Esq. Mrs
V S ROPER
P
C CUTLER Esq. W
J ROSE Esq
Miss
K DAVIES J
G SNINER Esq BA
Miss.
S.Derry Mrs
A B STOPFORTH
J
T W GARNER Esq Miss
J M TAYLOR
M
P GAUDIN Esq Miss
P A THOMPSON
Mrs
M C GRIFFITHS Mrs
E A TIMOTHY
J
F HACKET Esq B Comm Mrs
O B J WHITFORD
W
J HARE Esq BA B J WILLIAMS Esq BSc
R
HELLOWELL Esq Mrs
P WOOLFORD
Mrs E ARNOLD
(School Secretary)
Miss L ROGERS
(Cook Supervisor)
Mr D CLARKE
(Caretaker)
ORDER
OF PROCEEDINGS
1. The Chairman – Rt Hon The Earl Howe CBE DL
JP
2. The Headmaster – D B Bradshaw Esq BA
3. OFFICIAL OPENING – The Rt Hon Lord Balstead
MA JP
4. Dedication – The Rt Rev The Lord Bishop of Buckingham
5. Vote of Thanks – K Fuller Esq
The Head Girl - Tracey Stevens
6. National Anthem
LEON
SCHOOL WATER EATON
The new school complex is sited within the new Water Eaton housing development on the fringe of what will be the new city of Milton Keynes. Its 26 acres of grounds include playing fields and the new school buildings themselves, a district heating boiler house designed to serve all County administered property in the area, and a flood-lit running track and hard surface playing pitch.
The school is designed mainly with single and two storey blocks, to complement the ground contours, and to ensure the new first-year pupil is faced with a building within human scale and of contemporary simplicity. To this end, also, the various faculties have been laid out around internal courts, giving additional light and pleasant sitting out areas, while the interior has been designed to achieve as near a balance as possible between the necessity for hardwearing materials and the right kind of environment.
From the glazed entrance hall, stairs lead to the administrative accommodation and reference library at first floor level, and behind it, a three storey humanities block centres on grass courts bounded on one side by the music and drama rooms and a two storied science and mathematics wing on the other. The southern court is approached by paved colonnades under the domestic science and language block, a wide lawn separating the dining room and lecture theatre on one side and the English faculty on the other, while around the perimeter are planned an engineering and craft block, rural studies accommodation, a sports hall laid out for basketball, badminton, netball and cricket practice.
Construction has now commenced on the second phase of the school, which will cater for 600 additional pupils, bringing the total 1,400. Here a five-storied general teaching block will mark the culmination in vertical build-up, again surrounded by quiet lawns. Craft, woodwork and metalwork rooms, domestic science rooms, and first floor science accommodation, all planned around this central core. Provide a well-integrated Lower School. Further sixth-form study rooms are included, to augment the existing teaching rooms and communal suite, this latter area will perhaps be seen as the most informal in treatment, the aim being to bridge the gap in the environment between school and university.
Certain areas of the school have been provided by Bletchley UDC and by Milton Keynes Development Corporation. This marks a major step forward in the concept of joint provision and dual use of schools. The UDC have financed the provision of the floodlighting and the hard surface playing-pitch, and the Development Corporation have added a small sum to provide a social area. Pitch and running-track, sports hall, changing rooms, swimming pool and lounge, will form a recreational and athletics complex for the use of both school and public second to none in this area.
The school was designed by the office of the County Architect, and the firs phase was built by Queensway Builders Ltd at a cost of £406,200.
County
Architect: F B Pooley CBE FRIBA FRICS
Deputy
County Architect: A R Walker Dip Arch
ARIBA
Assistant County Architect: A G Humpston B Arch ARIBA
Architect In Charge: D Aylett Dip Arch (Hons) ARIBA
Chief
of Works: F C Coles
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