Mexborough & Swinton Times, October 06
Round About Conisboro´
School Accomodation
The announcement of the intention of the County Education authority to provide further school accommodation in the Urban area of Conisbrough has aroused a good deal of interest and apparently not time is to be lost in seeking the approval of the Board of Education to go forward with the proposal, for notices are exhibited in the entrances of the various places of worship stating the intentions of the County authority in the matter.
It is evident that a “Middle” School accommodating 400 children is quite incapable of taking the whole of the children of Conisbrough of the ages 11 to 14. These Middle Schools, I believe, are intended to give a three years course at 11 years.
I am assuming that the normal child would enter soon after his eleventh birthday. If boys and girls did remain after their 14th birthday there would be fewer vacant places for the younger children.
The number of children on the roll of Conisbrough schools within the Urban area in July 1923 was 3,510 and if we reckon a child´s school-life as 9 years this would give approximately 400 entrants to the Middle School per year.
But there is, judging by these figures, in the schools three times 400 children of the ages 11 to 14. The major portion of the older children as far as the writer can see will find themselves still outside the Middle School.
No doubt, the method of selection will be here, as in other places by examination, and the effect will be that we shall have the present elementary schools skimmed of their brightest children to form recruits for the Middle School, just as at present they are skimmed to make up the numbers which can be accommodated in the district Secondary School.
The foregoing remarks assume for the sake of argument the sanction of the Board of Education to the Education Committee´s proposals. Whether the assumption is justified time will reveal though the letter on the subject in your last issue leaves no doubt of the strenuous opposition of one section of the community.