Mexborough and Swinton Times September 11, 1936
Conisborough School Extensions
Accommodation for 1000 Pupils
County Council’s Huge Programme
Mr W. H. Hyman (centre), who opened the extensions to the Conisborough middle school on Saturday, with a group of those assisting at the ceremony.
The assembly Hall was packed with public and educational representatives from a wide area in South Yorkshire, when their important extensions to Conisborough Senior Council School were opened on Saturday by Mr W. H. Hyman, vice-chairman of the West Riding education committee, the cost of the extensions were £11,500, and the school has now 1,000 children on roll. It caters for all children over 11 in the Conisborough and Denaby areas, apart from Roman Catholics.
It is run on the house system according to contributory schools, and the older children share in its government and management. This said Mr H Gomersall, chairman of the district education subcommittee, gave them a training in citizenship and service. A special domestic science room afforded opportunities for work bearing directly on everyday day life. Facilities for physical training were provided in the new gymnasium, which, with extensive playing fields, fulfilled all requirements for this important part of school activity.
The position of the school and its surrounding gardens, lawns and fields must have an effect on the cultural and aesthetic side of the child’s nature, and the conditions for work, away from the noise of the main roads, were ideal, besides adding to the safety of the child. Eventually, a new library and a separate gymnasium would probably be added.
A dedicatory prayer was offered by the rev. W. J. T. Pascoe, vicar of Conisborough. Apart from the speakers, those on the platform including Mr W. E. Jones, Ald. G. Schofield, Mrs M. J. Wright, Mr E. B. Stockdale, divisional education clerk, Mr W. Gledhill headmaster, and Miss Packwood headmistress.
It’s an Ill Wind.
Mr H Gomersall, introducing Mr Hyman, said that when they had a school burned down in Denaby a lot of people did not mind, because it precipitated the extensions of the Senior School. A conference of all the local education authorities was arranged in May, 1933. After that conference petitions were got up, and there was a public outcry for a new school in Denaby. The education committee however, were satisfied at that time that there was not the faintest hope that the County Council would give them a new school. One of the main features of the petition was the point that the children would have to traverse the crags. “My reply to that,” said Mr Gomersall, “is that there were no hopes of getting this new school at Denaby, and their school we have altered here is a school for a district like this.”
When they had practically unanimously decided that the school should be extended there came the bombshell in the shape of a message that the extensions were to be built in wood. The district committee were up in arms against this, and eventually came the welcome news that the county had decided not to build in wood. “For years,” said Mr Gomersall, “I have been advocating, with other progressive educationalists, that something like this school should be available for children over 11. This is my ideal. I wish all schools in the country were of this type for children over 11. There is a vast difference between this type of school and the schools for children under 11.”
Good Advocacy
Mr W. M. Hyman paid a tribute to Mr Gomersall and his colleagues on the district committee. He recalled that prominent among those who opposed building the extensions in wood were Mr B. Roberts and Mr J. T. E. Collins, a former County Councillor it was largely their fight at Wakefield that saved the situation. Mr Hyman continued that we were essentially a freedom loving people.
We abominated dictators. At Wakefield they could not do the same things they dreamed of unless they had the men and woman of the districts with them. They wanted to see beautiful schools built, not only internally but externally. There were beautiful and picturesque parts of Yorkshire, but the mining areas, apart from the people in them, were certainly not beautiful, and when the West Riding authority was about to build new educational institutions the least they could do was to make those institutions the centre of culture for the area. They could not make them centres of culture unless they were beautiful buildings.
After remarking on the beauty of colleges in university towns, Mr Hyman said he wanted the next generation in Yorkshire to feel that those who were in control of the educational policy of the Riding today were as wise as those old Britishers who built the University colleges.
“We have a program in the next three or four years to the extent of three million pounds,” said Mr Hyman. “We have something like 80 schools to build, and I want to see each one different from the other.” His concern, he continued was the danger of being satisfied with schools of this type. There was still in our minds an essential difference between elementary education and secondary education. There was not the slightest need for sameness in education, or for giving the same type of education, but we should see that in each case the children we were training should get the best. He could never understand why we spend twice as much money on secondary education as an elementary education. It appears that it should be rather the reverse, that we should spend more money on the average child. The brilliant child would make good and would find its own way. But the average child had to become the average citizen of the country, and the quality of the country did not depend upon their brilliant few. The mentally deficient and the blind child received special care, but why we should give only second best to the bulk of our children he could never understand. All post primary education of children over 11 must be secondary in the fullest sense of the word. We have one child a different type of education, but we should give as good as the other. We should not reach that stage until we seized to talk about elementary education at one end, and secondary education at the other.
Vote of Thanks.
Mr R. J. Troughton, moving a vote of thanks to Mr Hyman, said that in building these extensions they were helping their work that centuries had given them in Conisborough. Conisborough had inherent beauty.
Mr B. Roberts, seconding said that progress in Conisborough, could be judged when they remembered the time when they had only two schools.
Father Holohan, proposing a vote of thanks to Mr Gomersall, said the scheme of having a middle school had always been uppermost in Mr Gomersall’s mind. “I well remember the day the fire occurred at the old school,” said father Holohan, “Mr Gomersall said now we shall get the school.” (Laughter.)
Mr R. H. Shepherd, seconding said that the district had turned out some first-class athletes already. With this school, and its new gymnasium, he thought they would now turn out tiptop men.