Stapleford Tawney School – Petition to the County Council November 1911

The following petition n to the County Council has been signed by Sir D. Cunliffe Smith, Sir W. Bowyer Smyth, Mr. C. E.Hunter, trhe Rev. L.N. Prance, Messrs J. Wither, A. Green, J. Miller, R.P. Scott, H.O. Blott, W. Pittam, R. Waltham, and about 40 other.

“We understand that a proposal has been made to close the school in this parish. To this we strongly object. We built the school in 1873 at the request of the Government, and have recently added a classroom, all at our own expense. The school is in thorough good order, well lighted, warmed and ventilated, and in the best position for the children of the parishioners. In July ( as frequently before) it had the best attendance of the 290 schools in the Ongar district – 98.5 per cent. The Government Inspector, at his visit in October, said to the correspondent: ‘Your school is in very good order, and the teaching and discipline leave nothing to be desired. I shall not report on the school, as I have nothing to suggest for its improvement.’ The children took three prizes for needlework at the Ongar Agricultural Show. The health of the children is very good: neither this school nor Theydon Mount has ever been closed by doctor’s order. We have an able college- trained mistress, and are well satisfied with the progress and behaviour of the children.

Stapleford Abbotts, the nearest school is 2½ miles from here. To send the children there would involve 5 miles walk, 2 hours per diem for the year of 210 days, 1,050 miles – too much for the little children and ruinous to the education of all who would not attend as regularly as they do now. There are 28 children on the the books. Last year the attendance sank to 19, but for the previous five years it was 29. In calculating the expense per child to the ratepayers whom you represent, you must take account of the £20 extra Government grant to this as a ‘small population’ school, which is not given to the larger schools, reducing the expense last year by about £1 per head.

In the past 10 years our Log Book shows an average of 38 children receiving instruction in this school in the course of the year. Theydon Mount school is 3 miles distant, and serves well for its immediate neighbourhood; the roads thereto each way go around the verge of the parishes, and the inhabitants of both parishes agree as they did in 1873 that it is fully necessary for each to have their own school.

We have lately been paying in education rates more than double what the rates have been expended on the school. We protest that to close the school woud be unjust to the ratepayers, as making them pay for schools in other parishes and depriving them of their own, and cruel to the children, in adding to many 1000 miles extra walking per annum, and exceedingly disatrous to their education, as they could not attend school as regularly as they do now. We request you continue the support of our schools as heretofore.”