"The Keyham School Board was one of nearly 2,500 school boards created in England and Wales between 1870 and 1896; and in common with half of those, it served a community of less than 1,000. At the time the Keyham Board School began it was still the concept, as it remained so into the late twentieth century, that elementary schools were for the children of the labouring poor. No respectable middle class gentleman would send his child to an elementary school if he could afford to do otherwise. A pamphlet on the public elementary schools published by the National Union of Teachers early in the twentieth century begins with the typical statement: 'Six million children are in the Public Elementary Schools of England and Wales. They are the children of the workers, to be themselves England's workers a few years hence'.
The children who attended the new Keyham School were the children of the poor, but did not come from families that had been swamped by the Industrial Revolution. Keyham and the surrounding villages had been mainly given over to agricultural and domestic work. There was little industry roundabout, and the considerable subsequent migration from the village can be attributed to families moving to Leicester where industry offered a wage, if nothing else. The children came from Scraptoft, Beeby and Hungarton, in addition to the home village, and many came from outlying farms such as Scraptoft Hills, Beeby Grange and Little Beeby, which could mean anything up to a walk of four miles. The roads to Keyham are few and far between which meant that the children would often have to use the footpaths and rough byways to reach the school. Bad weather could be a major deterrent in sending the children to school.
The school was due to open on Monday 7 December 1885; however the first entry in the logbook shows us the reason for a delay:
'Dec 8 18S5. Opened school this morning instead of on Monday as the furniture was not in its place. Number of children admitted is 16'
The first schoolmistress was a Miss M. L. Cox, who was beset with difficulties as her second entry shows:
'Dec 15th 1885. The Revd. R Burton called this afternoon and measured the desks. These are too long to go conveniently down the room, so that arrangements are to be made for altering them.
Not having had a school nearer than Hungarton or Thumby the children have not been able to attend regularly, so that most of them are very backward in their work, and several of those admitted are 7 years of age, or nearly so, and do not know their letters run- have they any idea of writing.'
On Christmas Eve the school closed for a short holiday, and in the New Year the desks were in their proper position. Each week Miss Cox was pleased to record a decided improvement in the standard of the children's work in arithmetic, grammar, reading, and 'the sewing of the girls and infant boys'. In February she received notice from the Education department that the annual HMI visit 'May be looked for in the month of May - First visit May 1887.' In May 1886 at the time of the preliminary visit by HM Inspector the roll had risen to 30. He approved the following pieces for recitation at the examination the following year:
Stan IV 'Bruce and the Spider' with 'Homes of England' Stanlll 'Bruce and the Spider' Stan II We are Seven' Stan I The two Crossing Sweepers'
Considerable emphasis was laid on recitation by the visiting inspectors and it was they who had to approve the selection of poems and dramatic extracts.
Attendance on the whole was good, an average of 26.8 in the first year with 32 on the register. This however depended on the weather and the time of year. For instance on September 16 1886, Miss Cox recorded that one third of the children were absent as gleaning (gathering what is left by reapers at harvest time) had commenced.
In March 1887 the Rev Burton, the Manager of the school board called and told the children that the trustees of the Woodcock Charity had decided to give each child in the school, ' in case of passing the May examination, or of attending 300 times during the school year, the sum of five shillings'. No doubt this helped considerably with the attendance as many parents were not wholly convinced of the necessity of compulsory attendance and would, if they wished, keep the children at home to help with the chores or on the farm. Indeed the attendance was so good that in June when the prizes were given out by the vicar and the trustees to the 24 winners, it was decided to alter the number of attendances required to 375 for the following year......
..... The school closed in 1939. That year the school opened with only 9 pupils and the Education Committee had no option but to close the school. The final entry in the logbook bluntly reads:
Feb. 28th 1939 School closes tonight. Three children are transferred to Thurnby and six to Hungarton C.of E. School.
The Report of the Education Committee to the Annual Meeting of the L.C.C. stated in a short memo:
'The Keyham Council School, the number of pupils having fallen to 7, and appearing likely to decline further, was closed on 28th February 1939. The pupils are now accommodated at Hungarton.'
Educational provisions for the village had come to an end; village schools were not to be a feature of future educational policy and with the improvement of roads and transport, the cost of ferrying pupils to another school (as happens today) was not too expensive and impractical as it would have been in those pre-war days.
Only 46 years previously a School Board of five members including the vicar Rev. Richard Burton and the squire Mr. R.D. Miles had managed to raise the capital required to build a school for their village within the year. Their philanthropic efforts are now a distant memory along with such teachers as Miss George, Miss Sharp and Miss Hood who had served the children of this rural district well in the little school that had made an 'excellent beginning'."
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