Hethersett Old Hall School
| Established | 1938 |
|---|---|
| Type | Independent Day School |
| Religion | Christian |
| Headmaster | Mr S. G. Crump |
| Location | Hethersett Norfolk England |
| Ages | 4–18 |
| Website | Hethersett Old Hall School |
At Hellesdon House in September 1924, Mrs CP Andrews opened a school for her daughters, niece and three of the girls’ friends. Although she had not intended to take more than nine boarders in total, parental demand persuaded her to accept day pupils. Outbuildings became classrooms and staff flats; teachers, trained in the Parents National Educational Union (P.N.E.U.) way, joined the staff. Hellesdon House had the feel of a country rectory, enjoying velvety lawns, wonderful flower beds and an Italian garden, high on the crest of a green cliff.
Move to Hethersett
By 1938, the preparatory school had outgrown its premises. Once a village, Hellesdon had become a suburb of Norwich. Mr and Mrs Andrews purchased the Old Hall, Hethersett, another property of great charm. Exercising great care, they added a dining room, new classrooms and a gymnasium, for they wished to preserve the special character of what was essentially a Georgian building. The extensive grounds contained a grand kitchen garden as well as many unusual trees.
The Second World War
As pupil numbers reached fifty, the war clouds gathered. In 1940, the parents requested that their children be evacuated to a spot less vulnerable to enemy bombing. Always at her best in an emergency, Mrs Andrews soon had the school relocated to Hay Tor in Devon. Nine months later, with the worst over, the intrepid party returned for Christmas, only to discover the Royal Army Service Corps ensconced at the Old Hall. Temporary bases were sought at Mergate Hall (beautiful but ‘spooky’) and, as the war ended, at Old Catton. Finally, the Old Hall was derequisitioned; the exiles unpacked their bags and set about spring-cleaning.
Mrs Andrews relinquished control, renting the school to Mrs CM Brabner and Miss MP Thomson, whilst continuing to live on site with her husband. Hundreds of Old Girls look back with affection to those uncomplicated days when ‘Auntie Gladys’ and ‘Uncle Percy’ took them into their home as part of the family, alongside Paul, Barbara and Ruth.
Era of Expansion
In March 1950, Mrs Brabner retired. When Miss Christabel Lewin purchased both estate and enterprise, the Andrews went to live at Sprowston Court in Norwich. An era of expansion was about to begin.
Work began straight away on converting the old stables into much-needed teaching areas, with a hayloft transformed into an art studio. Senior girls would have somewhere pleasant for playing their gramophone without annoying others! A new drive to the front of the barn was created; the large backyard underwent asphalting and tennis and netball courts were marked out there. Iron railings round the lawn were moved elsewhere. Young trees were introduced to separate garden from playing field. Day girls benefited form new wash basins and lavatories. All this occurred within two years of Miss Lewin’s arrival. Much more was in the offing.
Fund-raising started for the restoration of the barn, so that it might function as the schools place of assembly. Mr B.M. Feilden’s sympathetic plans involved the installation of clerestory windows, the laying-on of heating and lighting, the provision of a stage and comprehensive re-roofing. Even though the Lord Mayor of Norwich formally opened the barn on the 16th May 1956, work on the barn continued for some years. Mr R.W. Sutton converted the old threshing bay into a chapel. On the 7th July 1960, the Bishop of Thetford held a service of dedication. By the end of the summer 1964, a floor of Canadian Maple had been laid throughout.
A swimming pool was the next major project. Dimensions were agreed first, as for the site, the sunniest part of the west meadow, beyond the rounders pitch, away from the falling leaves seemed just right. Such amazing progress was made that even before the summer of 1960 commenced, every member of the school had tested the waters. Changing rooms and a hummocky windshield followed within months. It should not be forgotten that the Parents Association, first set up in 1950, worked tirelessly to reach the monetary targets for such amenities – the pool costing £1,200. (An interesting comparison, the later project of heating and enclosing the pool in 1993/4 cost £159,363!)
Throughout this period, teaching was based on principles laid down in the 1880s by Miss Charlotte Mason, founder of the P.N.E.U. The mind of the child, she stated, deserved to be fed with all manner of knowledge, communicated through works of literary value and lasting interest. Only by writing about or narrating (‘telling back’) part of what she had read would a girl readily assimilate the material. Work was to be corrected and commented on by the teacher, though no marks were awarded.
Under Miss Lewin, examinations occurred twice a year those of the summer term being set by the P.N.E.U; scripts were gathered up and sent to P.N.E.U. headquarters for assessment. Those under eight could dictate their answers. Two poems, written for the July 1954 exam on the theme of ‘I remember’, received an airing in the school magazine of that year.
In the following issue, that of 1955, there appeared a dozen extracts from nature notebooks ‘published exactly as written by the children’ which convey genuine enthusiasm as well keenness of ear and eye. Great art and composers were studied too, in order to broaden the mind.
By 1958, the Old Hall, with all ages ranging from 5 to 12, had more than one hundred pupils. Good success rates in the Common Entrance exams had brought full recognition as a preparatory school. Officers of the Parents Association now broached the idea of retaining the older girls in a new senior department, which duly launched in September 1959. To provide for this expansion, the school acquired six ‘Arcon’ temporary buildings from a defunct U.S. Air Force Base. These huts, arranged in horseshoe fashion, increased the teaching space significantly. There are now areas devoted to geography, biology, cookery, sewing and pottery, besides a library that would soon hold 500 books. These sturdy units served for a good thirty years!
Mrs J. Curson and his fellow builders never lacked work. During the summer of 1960, they finished an extension to the dining room just in time for lunch on the first day of the autumn term (which brought places at table to a precise 104!), and by October, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a lavatory had emerged aloft. Elsewhere provision allowed senior girls to carry out exciting experiments using Bunsen burners, running water and doubtless other novelties! By 1965, Hethersett Old Hall was taking 200 7 - 16 year olds, including 60 boarders.
Delightfully described in the school magazine for 1963-64 (pages 13 – 14) is ‘The Laurels’, a house modernised and then leased to Miss Lewin by the ever supportive Back family. Now up to a dozen senior boarders might earn the privilege of lodging just across the road from the school, in Ketteringham Lane, developing toleration for one another and readying themselves for independence in later life.
On 21 July 1962, the seniors staged their first swimming gala, with York, Lancaster and Tudor houses vying for points. By early 1964, sporting provision was enhanced with the appearance of two all-weather hard tennis courts, made possible, yet again, by the generosity of the Parents’ Association. Rounders and netball constituted the other main games though lacrosse was catching on in popularity.
At the beginning of 1968 the school left the P.N.E.U. and in 1969 was granted full recognition by the Department of Education and Science. Three years later Miss Lewin invited individuals with a wide range of interests to form a board of Governors (1972); and the school was registered as a charitable education trust. Miss Barbara Andrews, daughter of the founder (who had died in 1968), became one of the Governors. The first chairman was Mr Nicholas Hinde, of Bonds of Norwich. For the moment, Miss Lewin continued as Head Mistress.
Those attending the school in the transitional period that followed Christabel Lewin’s retirement in 1975, particularly the boarders must have found life at the Old Hall unsettling. A Mr Ramsden and a Miss Pilgrim came and went as heads; Miss B.M. Wharton, long-time Senior Mistress, served as head until retirement (1976–78), providing great stability, and then came Miss H. Beswick’s period (1978–82). Her speech of 28 July 1980 provides a fascinating insight into the state of the school. Numbers of boarders and day girls virtually balanced, with 67 juniors and 108 seniors. There was an acknowledgement of a very wide ability span; several girls had been slimming unnecessarily; chemistry might be offered as a second science, whilst German could well be axed; uncertainties included the widening of the All; the Parents’ Association had supplied the school’s first overhead projector and a kind individual who wanted to remain anonymous had donated a video cassette recorder!
There survive in the archives architects’ plans for a most attractive dining hall with clocktower (1974) and a series of cloisters and classrooms (1980). Sadly neither got off the ground. What did happen, at some juncture, was dismembering of the 104-seater dining room into dormitories and corridor; meals would now be taken in along, characterless ‘mobile’, with the provision of a mobile classroom block for juniors in the walled kitchen garden. Indeed, Miss Berwick (1980) referred to juniors now having adjusted to life I such prefabs.
Plantagenet, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor constituted the school’s houses from 1966. Perhaps this was the result of growing pupil numbers; certainly tournaments would prove easier to resolve using four rather than three sides. Nonetheless, this arrangement ceased in 1978, as York, Lancaster and Tudor ambled back from the wilderness.
On the retirement of Mr Hinde as Chairman of Governors, Mr H.G. Back of Church Farm became and, with an enlarged Board of Governors, sought a new head when Miss Beswick moved to another school. Humphrey Back was a dedicated and supportive Chairman of Governors who had faith in the school’s future and encouraged positive changes over the years, until his sudden and unexpected death in 1994.
January 1983 witnessed the arrival of Mrs Victoria Redington, the school’s sixth head in eight years. The modern era had dawned.
New types of public examinations, changing parent expectations and the need for greater financial prudence – all were issues that Mrs Redington had to address. Luckily, she inherited a dedicated and experienced staff led by Mrs B.M. Garrard (deputy since 1978), and she appointed fresh blood as the opportunities arose. As deputy head of All Hallows, Ditchingham, Mrs Redington had accumulated useful managerial and timetabling skills, invaluable in the years ahead. ColonelBerry, the Bursar in Miss Beswick’s period as Head, retired in 1983 and his financial assistant Mrs Diane Kay (then Hollis) was appointed to succeed him in August of that year, determined to exercise tight fiscal control to ensure the school’s future growth.
Few photographs of the entire school from Miss Lewin’s period still exist. Every o0ther year, from 1985 onwards, a splendid colour snapshot would capture a community growing steadily in size and self-confidence. By the early 1990s the barn could hardly cope with the burgeoning numbers.
By September 1984 a sixth form was up and running. This had implications for the remainder of the school in terms of timetabling. As more full-time staff were recruited, so a building programme commenced which continues to this day.
After the stable block underwent renovation in 1983-4, enabling textiles and pottery to join art, work began on a brand new building. Its two floors supported six general classrooms, three laboratories (one to take computers0, a home economics base, two offices, a staff workroom and toilets. Designed by Mrs Heather Longman and constructed by Mr R.E. Fairhead, this ‘main teaching block’ was opened by the Right Honourable James Prior, M.P. on 17 October 1986.
Teaching also continued behind the wall of the kitchen garden. The mobile, originally supplied by George Mixer & Company, was moved from the site of the main teaching block to the walled garden and became the Geography and English rooms.
In 1985 a bedroom annexe for fifth and sixth formers was completed. The main sixth form house with library and music rooms replaced the old laundry and farmsheds behind the barn in 1987. Much consideration was given to ensuring that all these new buildings harmonised with the old. During 1988 the dining-room re-emerged; refurbishment of the kitchens led to the creation of a new exit from the main building. That canteen on stilts moved to a green-field site, functioning as overflow classroom, exhibition area and, crucially, an examination room!
Within the Old Hall, some noticeable alterations were made to meet the needs of administrative staff. The secretary to the headmistress acquired her own office, carved from the drawing room (1989); whilst the area dubbed the black hole shrank sharply in size, to ease Storage requirements in the bursar’s office alongside (1990). Remodelling of the reception zone in 1994 created a registrar’s office, the final flush of downstairs lavatories and the deposition of a time capsule for a future generation to ponder. At the top of the stairs former sleeping quarters were transformed into cloakroom and cubicles for staff and visitors.
On a raw 1 December 1989, the Right Honourable John MacGregor, Secretary of State for Education and Science, cut the tape on another new block, the Wolfson, named after the foundation whose substantial grant ensured early completion of the project. Very welcome extra funding, as ever, cam from parents, Old Girls, friends and local firms. This help, added to careful financial planning by the Governors, ensured financial stability. Two more laboratories, a sixth form common room, cloakroom and office would offer considerable flexibility to the timetabler.
The completion of a capacious sports hall, opened on 16 June 1990, meant that bad weather would no longer hamper match preparations and immediately let the barn to be used for more appropriate activities. Girls could participate in, or view from on high, an array of activities made possible by gleaming new apparatus and 6,000 square feet of specialist flooring. They appreciated also the civilised surroundings for changing and showering.
By the 1980s, the original gym had become the school’s music room. With a sports hall releasing the barn from the demands of physical education, music teaching could be centred in the barn with its very fine piano. Meanwhile, the growing interest at sixth-form level in acting prompted the creation, over the summer of 1993, of a drama studio in the former music room (previously the gym!).
All remaining Arcons underwent demolition in 1992. Even though a string of ‘mobiles’, (vital for sixth-form tutorial and small teaching groups, film-processing and storage) replaced them, these were the first steps towards something more attractive and permanent which was already in mind. Mrs Redington envisaged the creation of a second courtyard, which would reduce the time wasted on journeying between lessons, permit the juxtaposing of related subjects and further enhance the appearance of the school, but the planning had to be long term, as both the school and Parents’ Association had been fundraising for a covered swimming pool for a long time.
In 1993 the Governors gave the go-ahead to create an indoor swimming pool and provide a decent changing zone, thereby guaranteeing year-round use. The change would mean, however, the disappearance of inter-house swimming, with spectators parked on the grassy knoll, cheering the competitors lustily. Most appropriately, on 78th June 1994, during an afternoon of student athletics and parental barbecuing, Mrs J. Back declared the building open, tinged with sadness that Humphrey had not seen the finishing of a project which he had long supported.
During 1993, with an eye to the future, the Governors planned the building of a staff residence on land already owned by the school. By the autumn of 1995, it was ready for occupation. The lease of The Laurels was then relinquished and the avoidance of ever-rising rent funded the new building.
By this time plans for a completed second courtyard were taking shape. Both the finances and the desire to minimise inconvenience to teachers and girls alike dictated that any project should proceed in two distinct phases. In early 1997 the Jubilee Development was launched.
In September 1997 the juniors began the New Year in a stable block that had endured yet another face-lift whilst they were holidaying. Their accommodation was much more comfortable and pleasant, and closer to the heart of the school. Art, photography, technology and textiles re-located to the first wing of the Jubilee block, just completed by Mr Fairhead’s experienced team. Mrs Longman’s design also featured common room and lavatories for the lower sixth students.
Within weeks, a team of Inspectors had materialised to conduct a thorough review of school life. Suddenly the air became charged with jargon like ‘differentiation’, ‘lesson objectives’ and ‘mission statement’. The resultant report proved most complimentary. For the remainder of term those teachers with a vested interest in the next building phase could focus on concepts like ‘breeze block’ and ‘whiteboard’.
Midway through the spring term of 1998, English, geography and history classes received their marching orders and relocated to their new bases. It had truly been a triumph of logistics.
By Speech Day 19988, not only had the Jubilee project been completed and £96,000 rose out of the £100,000 fundraising target, but the Parents’ Association had contributed generously towards two more tennis courts, on which work had already begun.
In September 1998 the school can celebrate its Jubilee, having achieved its set objectives and ready to move forward to the future with confidence.
New buildings signal success to the outside world, and are witness to progress and confidence. They also satisfy on an aesthetic and architectural plane. Sometimes, as in the case of the sports hall and swimming pool, they generate income and serve the wider community. Improved heating and lighting, greater opportunities for display, the deployment of the latest technology – all can aid the processes of learning and teaching.
The school’s record of public examination success is impressive, as is the range of university and professional qualifications which our sixth form leavers go on to study, and whether they become teachers, engineers, nurses, doctors, or business managers, every individual benefits from the enthusiasm, expertise and commitment of a gifted staff. Indeed, some girls have spent ten or eleven years here, and remain in close touch with the school and staff to this day. It is a small community, yet increasingly cosmopolitan in outlook; after all, many from overseas choose to board at Hethersett joining day girls from across the county.
Certainly the school is a busier place than ever. There are lunch-time clubs, regular musical and theatrical productions and an established programme of sports fixtures. Different departments organise workshops, field trips and competitions. An artist in residence, demonstrating fresh approach, is a regular occurrence. A parent or Old Girl might be persuaded to give a talk on some career. During the evenings and at weekend’s boarders – and interested day girls – indulge in a variety of activities. Girls look after one another, and raise considerable sums each year for good causes at home and abroad; one ‘high-profile’ example is our link with a needy girls’ school in Wuluga, Northern Ghana. Hethersett Old Hall School nurtures good citizenship.
Miss Charlotte Mason spoke frequently of education as ‘the science of relations’ and as ‘the maker of character’, downgrading the importance of heredity or environment. She was operating in a post-Darwinian, late-Victorian world and harboured great hopes for the P.N.E.U. pedagogy. By blending the best of old and new, in terms of knowledge and skills, we envisage a stimulating future for the Hethersettians of the twenty-first century. Next Stop? Our Centenary! BE there if you can….
References
Independent School, Girls School
External links
- [School Website http://www.hethersettoldhallschool.co.uk/]
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hethersett_Old_Hall_School
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