Back to college got me a job as a teacher – by JP

Anyway I learnt all about this because I went back to college, I was rather snotty that I hadn’t had the opportunity to take A levels and O levels so I went to the Adult College and I took an English O level and an English A level and a History O level and a French O level and I learnt that they were recruiting middle-aged women or women with […]

Instant infant teacher – by FH

Well what I did was, when I took Andrew to school at Meadlands and the headmaster realised I was a teacher, an infant teacher, he said well when can you start because he had more children than he could cope with and an empty classroom and he was desperate to divide his reception class so I think I went home from registering Andrew and reported for duty within a week,  […]

To and from school by bus – by GS

I had a bus pass, but we used to cheat sometimes because Mortlake Boys School had no actual sports ground as such our games period had to be taken on places like Palewell Park, Sheen Common or even just inside Sheen Gate, which was a long walk from the school. When you was at the actual school and you never had to go to games you’d just come up the […]

Teaching methods at Ham School – by JP

…this discovery method at Ham School, I imagine it sort of they threw the baby out with the bath-water, all the Piaget discovery of things, yes they were true but the old ways worked too, I mean I still know my times tables and children up to ten are wonderful at rote learning it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing. In the thirties children used to come […]

European Schools in Ham – by VG

Of course If you walk up Lauderdale Drive you would hear people talking across the road in German. It was very much the case that, and it’s not only Germans there are many nationalities in Sandy Lane I would say.  There was a Swedish School up in the grounds of Grey Court and I think for a brief, a short time there were Swedish families as well.

School choices in Ham – by PP

They went to the nursery and they went to what was called Oakfield School then. It is now part of the comprehensive, Grey Court, but it was just a little local school, a primary school. And then they went up to the second half of the primary school. They were moved up when they were seven and a half. They went to Orchard School which is now called the Russell […]

School sport days – by KM

School sport days were inter Ham/Petersham days as I remember. We would have them on Ham Common. The other schools would be what was then St Andrews School – St Andrews was then at what is now St Thomas Aquinas Church. That ceased to be a school when St Richard’s School in Ashburnham Road was built. The other local school would be then called the Orchard, that is the junior […]