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Laying the Foundations((This article appeared in the 1957 edition of the Eliots Green Grammar School magazine.) It now seems a very long time since mid-February 1956, when I was appointed Headmaster at the new Grammar School to be developed at Eliots Green. Consultations with the administrators, architects, builders, County and Borough Advisers, visits to the site, the design of the school badge and the planning of the uniform, staff appointments: all these and much else followed in quick succession, for there was much to be done if the school was to open in September with some two hundred pupils. Everywhere I was met with friendliness and a sincere welcome. Typical of this was the hospitality extended to me by the Headmasters of the three other Ealing co-educational Grammar Schools at which Eliots Green pupils were already being taught. Good preparations, too, were being made at Eliots Green to receive these pupils for the staff who were being appointed to work with me and lay the foundations on which the life of the school was to be built were proving to be of exceptional quality. The Easter holidays were invaluable for planning: on one occasion most of the staff gathered together at my home to co-ordinate policy with specimen school uniforms draped over most of the furniture! Soon summer was with us and, as no accommodation was yet available at Eliots Green, the School Secretary and I spent the month of July as the guests of our most hospitable neighbours at Vincent School. Fresh in my memory is the relief with which I passed the rapidly swelling school files into such competent and experienced hands. It was during this period that I had the privilege and pleasure of sending out the first letter to parents. By August, textbooks, stationery and equipment of all kinds were arriving in a steady stream to be stowed away methodically by an ever willing schoolkeeper; but it did seem hard that nearly all the rooms available to us were so far from the front door! Staff were often to be seen in the building unpacking, checking and planning. With the Hall at last available for use, the Senior Master, Senior Mistress and I were able to welcome parents to Eliots Green. I should say to part of Eliots Green, for, although the administrative block and top floor were available, little else was as yet released by the builders, the lower corridor was dark and had no made floor but an open ditch fuil of pipes running along almost its whole length. On the very first morning of school, one lost First Former strayed into the dark bowels of this corridor and emerged later with relief almost to bump into the gowned backs of one of my colleagues and myself! But such was the co-operation and good sense shown by the pupils that this is the only case of broken bounds which I can recall. Of our lives since September, 1956, most of you will have heard much. Gradually the completed sections of the building were released for normal school use. Our kitchen became available after the Christmas holidays and our excellent meals, previously brought to the school ready cooked, were from that time prepared by our own industrious kitchen staff. During these early days three Second Form girls played regularly and reliably in Assembly throughout the year. The Library grew steadily. The various out-of-school activities made their bow, one by one, in an introductory notice in morning Assembly, soon to be accepted as a normal feature of school life. Throughout this period the whole-hearted and encouraging response of the parents was a tremendous help in overcoming many initial difficulties. This year also saw the beginning of a number of activities and functions which will naturally increase in number and content as the school develops. Our first matches against other schools were full of excitement. Towards the end of the Autumn Term, at the devotional but musically simple Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, we had the pleasure of numbering among the readers a parent and one of the building staff. One day in the Spring Term apprehension weighed on many of the pupils as they approached the Hall on the first morning of our school examinations. Soon followed the meeting of parents of Second Formers, addressed by the Borough Careers' Advisers, as we neared the end of the planning of courses for the Third Year. Then, in the Summer Term I recall our quite delightful and homely Open Day in June, the first School photograph, our first very informal inter-house athletics sports and the fine success of our tiny party of girl swimmers at the Borough baths. It was a year which, for me, will always be rich with memories. Uppermost in my mind, I know, will remain the unstinted co-operation of almost all the pupils, the full and most heartening support of their parents, together with the high loyalty, integrity of purpose and solid hard work of the staff. Remembering the continued feeling of purposeful progress and enthusiasm to work together for the common good with which our second year has started, we can face the future with confidence, in the knowledge that the foundations being laid at Eliots Green should enable a Grammar School to develop here of which Northolt, we hope, will have good reason to be proud. A.E.J.W |