ADWICK LE STREET PARK COUNTY SCHOOL RECORDS (FORMERLEY PARK COUNCIL SCHOOL)

Scope and Content

Comprising: log books 1909-1965; admission registers 1946-1965; attendance registers 1925-1948; punishment book 1914-1954; managers and visitors book 1914-1944; plans 1923-1969

Administrative / Biographical History

The first intake of children at this school, which was opened at Windmill Balk Lane, Woodlands, by the West Riding County Council's Education Department on 11 June 1914 [Doncaster Archives ref. SD/5/2, p. 40], was made up largely of the girls of the Woodlands Temporary Provided School [for whose logbook, inherited by its successor school, see SR 102/1/1, below] and the boys temporarily housed at the Primitive Methodist Chapel. On 5 January 1911 Bentley Education District Sub-Committee [SD/5/1, p. 218], which managed the West Riding's schools in Adwick between 1904 and 1938, had decided that the new school would open as Adwick le Street Central Council School. However, a more geographically specific name was deemed appropriate before the school had completed its ninth year: from the summer term of 1923, following the Sub-Committee's decision of 8 February that year [SD/5/3, p. 160] to restrict the school's catchment area to the eastern side of the Great North Road, the school became Adwick le Street Park Council School.

Though it had accommodated some senior pupils from the outset, it was principally a junior school until April 1926, when, with the completion of the school buildings in accordance with the original scheme [Doncaster Archives UD/ADW/6/437 & 477] it opened a senior department. This situation prevailed for a little under five years until January 1931, when, shorn of its senior pupils (11-14 year olds) and with the boundaries of its catchment area redrawn again, Adwick Park Council School began operating solely as a Junior Mixed Department (for 7-11 year olds). The school was renamed Adwick le Street Park County Primary School (Junior Mixed) - informally Adwick Park Junior School - no later than 1954, and was effectively dissolved in this form on 30 July 1965. Most of its staff and pupils began the following autumn term at Woodlands Junior Mixed.

A newly constituted school, Adwick Park Junior Mixed and Infants, occupied the premises on Windmill Balk Lane from September 1965. It ceased to have infants in 1969 and became a middle school in 1970. At the time of writing [December 2005] it remains at the same address, though now functioning as Adwick Park Junior School.

The timetables, the plan of the Sand House galleries, and the photographs [SR 102/5/5-7 below] were among records transferred to Doncaster Archives from Woodlands Primary School [see SR 163 and 164] in November 2005. The timetables and photographs seem likely to have been removed from Adwick Park in 1965 and taken to Woodlands by one of the redeployed members of the former school's staff. The plan of the Sand House was enclosed with the Adwick Park material, but there is nothing other than this to connect the drawing with one school rather than another. The timetables are undated, but relatively precise dates can be given to them because they list the classes and forms that made up the school and because the arrangement and designations of these classes and forms underwent periodic change. The school logbooks supply dates for the various changes in the school's organizational structure and so allow the timetables to be ascribed to some fairly narrow date ranges.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into five series as follows:

SR102/1: Log Books

SR102/2: Admission Registers

SR102/3: Attendance Registers

SR102/4: Stock and Stores Book

SR102/5: Other Records

Access Information

Open

private

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