Central school

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A central school was a selective secondary education school with a focus on technical and commercial skills in the English education system. It was positioned between the more academic grammar schools and the ordinary elementary schools where most pupils prior to 1944 were educated to 14 years of age.

Central schools were established in England and Wales following the Education Act 1918, although London County Council had already introduced them in 1910 and ran fifty by 1918. [1]

Following the introduction of the tri-partite system of selective education and the changes introduced by the Education Act 1944, many central schools became Secondary Modern schools or the premises otherwise absorbed in the post-WWII education system.

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A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usually referred to as secondary schools, and in areas of England, such as Buckinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Wirral,.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comprehensive school (England and Wales)</span> Term for a non-selective secondary school in England and Wales

A comprehensive school, or simply a comprehensive, typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis of selection criteria, usually academic performance. In England and Wales comprehensive schools were introduced as state schools on an experimental basis in the 1940s and became more widespread from 1965. They may be part of a local education authority or be a self governing academy or part of a multi-academy trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elementary school (England and Wales)</span>

Elementary schools were the first schools in England and Wales intended to give a basic education to the children of working class families. At the start of the 19th century, the only schooling available to these young people were run by private concerns or by charities and were often of a very poor standard. In the first decades of that century, a network of elementary schools were established by societies backed by the Christian churches. In an effort to expand the extent of this "voluntary" system, the government made grants available to these societies, initially for new school buildings but later towards their running costs. It became apparent that although this system worked reasonably well in rural communities, it was far less successful in the rapidly expanding industrial cities and that Britain was falling behind the rest of the developed world. In 1870, an act of parliament established elected school boards throughout England and Wales, which were able to create secular "board schools" funded by local taxation where there was no provision by the church societies. Further legislation made school attendance compulsory and eventually free of charge. The problem of how the education of older pupils should be managed was solved by abolishing school boards in 1902 and passing responsibility to local councils. Elementary schools were eventually replaced in 1944 by the system of primary and secondary education.

The Frank Montgomery School was a mixed-gender secondary modern school in the village of Sturry near Canterbury in east Kent. It was founded in 1935 and closed in 2007, when the site and school roll was taken over by Spires Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Scotland in the twentieth century</span>

Education in Scotland in the twentieth century includes all forms of organised education in Scotland, such as elementary, secondary and higher education. The centre of the education system became more focused on Scotland throughout the century, with the Scottish Education Department partly moving north from 1918 and new departments created by the Scottish Executive after devolution.

References

  1. The Central School System of London, by E. J. Sainsbury, National Union of Teachers, 1918.