The school opened on October 21st 1878, and must have come into being as a direct result of the 1870 Education Act, as no real school existed in the village prior to this date, although Mrs. Jones, a former headmistress of Wymington School, informs me that a small Dame School was kept in an old cottage in Church Lane, opposite the present school, but very little is now known about this.

The first log entry, October 21st 1878, records that 49 children entered during the week and a further 22 were registered in the second week. Other children were admitted at intervals until about 80 children were on the registers. On November 8th, a fortnight after it first opened, the school closed for a week’s holiday to celebrate the Feast of St. Lawrence, the saint to whom the parish church is dedicated, thus indicating that it was a “National School”, provided and controlled by the Church of England.

The building was not specially erected as a school, but was adapted from the Church Farm, standing only a few feet away from the church itself, but on a much lower level. The back of the farmhouse was in part the retaining wall of the graveyard. The small windows in this back wall, almost on eye-level in the churchyard are high above eye-level in the building, and the new windows put into the front walls are also too high for anyone to see outside, as in so many schools built at that period. Another, smaller room was built on to the north side, and a small porch which did duty as a cloakroom was added at the front.

There was no water supply to the school, though there was a well in the yard. When the parish council obtained a piped supply for the village in 1900, standpipes with taps were erected at convenient points, and the school obtained its water from a tap in Church Lane. A bowl in the porch was the only hand washing facility. This situation continued until 1922 when the school and the school house which had been built onto the school later, had a piped supply, and a washbasin with a cold tap was put into the porch. At the same time the old earth closets across the playground were replaced with water closets. Now the school has good toilet facilities indoors with hot and cold water, while the infants have separate lavatories and wash basins adjacent to their new classroom.

There was no form of artificial lighting in the school until gas lighting was provided in 1910. On dark winter afternoons school began and ended half an hour earlier, and there are several references in the log book to the children repeating tables of poetry because other lessons were impossible.

The old farmyard with its stone edged paths and a few fruit trees became, without alteration, the playground. It was divided into two parts by spiked iron railings with a gate at the school end. The boys and girls played separately, and one H.M.I. recommended that the gate should be kept permanently locked.

The playground remained in its original state until the early 1920s when it had a coat of tar and gravel, although it had been levelled some years previous to this, to “facilitate the drill”. Now there are two playgrounds – the old one in front of the school, and a new one on the north side and also a well mown grassed area of about a third of an acre, at one end of which a swimming pool stands. Behind the school there is newly acquired playing field, large enough for a full-sized football pitch.

Heating in the school was provided by an open fire in each room and it was the duty of the managers to provide coal, but this was not always done, as there are references to poor attendances “owing to the neglect of the managers to provide coals.”

In 1919, at the time of the national coal strike, the school had to close during February and part of March as coal was unobtainable. Today the whole school is comfortably warmed by the central heating put in when the extension was the subject of much controversy in Wymington. It seems appropriate to describe events leading up to it at this point.

The authority of the Church was unchallenged in the school for some years after its opening, and all children took part in the daily scripture lessons, learnt the catechism and attended services in church on Saint’s Days and other church festivals and during Lent. In the mid-1890s, a Methodist minister moved into one of the village farms although he did not preach in the Wesleyan chapel built in Wymington in 1870, but at a nearby village. He soon advised Nonconformist families of their right of withdrawal of children from religious instruction and from church attendance – a right never previously exercised – he actually went himself to the school to serve notices of withdrawal for twelve children and for four families who wished their children withdrawn from catechism only. A very strong Nonconformist element was emerging in the village at this time, as in 1897, a new estate was built in the parish, just outside the old village. These thirty houses were occupied mainly by families working in the boot and shoe trade in Rushden and had moved out from the town. Most of these attended chapel, and the influence of the church, once paramount in the village, began to wane. There are references in many places in the early log books to children being withdrawn from religious instruction after the minister’s initial advice. These children remained in school with their headmistress, learning spellings and tables during scripture lessons and when the rest of the school went to church. But as interest in religion in general began to decline, the divergence of church and chapel became less noticeable in school and after 1920 there is no record of children being withdrawn from scripture lessons. After the Second World War church attendance and membership fell rapidly, social functions ceased, and even the Sunday School closed for lack of scholars. But chapel membership, always strong, did not decrease at this time, and the Sunday School had over sixty children on its registers (although all of these were not in regular attendance). A clear dichotomy in the religious interests of the village became evident.

Wymington was an all-age school until 1937 when a new secondary school was built at Harrold, eight miles away, and children from eleven yeas of age were transferred from Wymington. In spite of all this, the village school was still overcrowded, and the Bedfordshire County Council proposed building a new school at Podington, nearly two miles away and to serve both villages. There was a strong protest from Wymington and the proposal was never implemented.

Six years later a school half-way between both villages was proposed and strenuously opposed by both of them. The school at Wymington was still seriously overcrowded for the times, though not as badly as in the early years of the century when the number of children being taught in the two small rooms rose to 114. Nothing was done until January 1964 when for the first time, a headmaster was appointed to Wymington School. He had arranged for children over the age of nine years to be transferred temporarily to Sharnbrook School, seven miles away where they were taught as a separate unit and not integrated with the Sharnbrook children. Mr. Summers’ appointment began an era of complete change in Wymington School in most of its aspects.

The Bedfordshire Education Authority’s eventual solution to the overcrowding problem was to propose the renovation and extension of the existing school, and immediately this became known in the village, the old antagonism to the control of the school by the church became apparent. A special Parish Meeting was called by the Parish Council to discuss the matter. It was held in the Wesleyan Chapel Schoolrooms on March 16th 1964 and was attended by eighty parishioners. It had been heard that the estimate for improvements and additions to the school would cost about £14,000 and many people objected to this. The school had become of “Aided” status in 1952, and the Church’s contribution to the cost would be low, while it still retained its right to appoint teachers and to give denominational instruction.

The school had been going through a very bad period regarding teachers. Apart from the headmistress, no qualified teachers had been employed at the school since early in the century, and there had been very frequent changes of staff, both full time and part time. Petitions were sent and a delegation headed by several mothers met the Director of Education in Bedford to request that a full-time qualified teacher should be appointed to try to end the unsettling conditions prevailing in the school, which appeared to be having an adverse effect on the children’s education.

After discussion at the meeting it was proposed and seconded that:

“rather than spend such a sum on an antiquated building long since served its purpose, a completely new one was preferred, administered solely by the County Council and free from the shackles of the Church of England.”

But the villagers, supported by the Parish Council were not successful in their bid to persuade the County Council to build a new school. The old one was improved and enlarged at a cost eventually far exceeding the £14,000 first quoted. The Education Authority paid the greater part of this and the Church made most of its 20% contribution by providing the land on which the extension was to be built, and by giving an enlarged play area.

In spite of much criticism at the time, little is now heard of the new school extension which fits in very well with its surroundings. As well as complete redecoration of the old school, one of the two rooms was converted into an assembly hall and library, and it is also used as a dining room and a kitchen block was built on to this. At right angles to the old school two new classrooms were built – large, light, airy, with windows almost from roof to ground level, the length of the building. The school of today bears little resemblance to the rather grim looking one of years ago. Apart from one family, new to the village, no children are withdrawn from assembly or church services although only five of them attend church with their parents and over forty go to the chapel. The rector never exercises his right to give religious instruction in the school.

Absences and Attendance

Attendance was not compulsory when Wymington School opened, as Forster’s Education Act of 1870 had left this to the discretion of individual school boards or managers, but in its early years the Attendance Officer paid frequent visits to the village. There are many references to the names of irregular attenders being sent to him for his investigation.

A Wymington father was summoned under the 1876 Act for not sending his children regularly to school and he was fined 1/- with 4/- costs, although when summoned again later that year he was able to produce a doctor’s certificate stating the children were not well enough to attend school. They must have been in generally poor circumstances, as shortly after this the whole family was removed to the Union at Wellingborough.

Great importance was attached to the marking and testing of the registers, as every child over the age of six could earn his school 12/- a year, so much of the grant then depended on attendances. The first 4/- of the grant depended on the school’s average attendance figures and the next 8/- depended on the pupil attending 200 morning or afternoon sessions. Although children under five years did not then earn their school the full grant, the average age of entry seemed to be about four and a half years but they were occasionally accepted earlier:

"Feb 8th 1886. Admitted an infant, three years old.
Oct 14th 1904. Admitted five infants this week, four three years of age and one four years of age. 117 on the books".

There did not appear to be any particular time when children began school in the early days, as there are references of children beginning, even in mid-week, throughout the three terms.

Attendance was extremely irregular at the school in its early years, sickness, severe weather and harvesting being the main reasons. Sometimes the number of children left in school was so small that it was closed for a half-day, a day or even a week. During the course of some epidemics the school was closed several times over a month, but the most persistent cause of poor attendance was the fact that many children, even very young ones, worked on the village farms, especially during summer and autumn. These children did not include the officially designated ‘half-timers’ who had obtained their Labour Certificates after reaching the required standard in the three ‘R’s” and were enabled to work half days, usually in the boot factories of nearby Rushden. Though permitted officially, this half-time work must have had a very adverse effect on the children. There are entries in the log books recording that most children could move up a standard after the examinations:

“....apart from several half-timers who have failed and are unfit to be promoted.”

“....five attendances lost by half-timers through their not being allowed to leave work in time for school.”

There is no record of the age of these children, but as they could then leave school to work full-time at the age of eleven, the official half-timers must have been younger than this, and the children unofficially absent, even younger still. There is no direct evidence that the ‘gang system’ of child labour existed in Wymington, but it did in a neighbouring village and this was the subject of a Government investigation. Children aged from five years were hired out in gangs to farmers for a season, when they worked long hours, nine in winter and eleven in summer. 1875-1895 was the period of the great national agricultural depression with a series of the great national agricultural depression with a series of bad harvests culminating in the “Black Year” of 1879. Many farmers were only able to keep their farms going by employing this very cheap child labour. There seemed little concern for the welfare of these young children in the early years of school, but later, in 1916, the Bedfordshire Education Committee sent an officer to Wymington school to make enquiries about the conditions of work in agriculture for boys aged 12 years.

As well as for the harvest proper, the children assisted in the hay-making, went pea-picking and potato gathering and – very important – they went gleaning. But it was at the time of the grain harvest that the full impact of their absence was felt in the school. On one occasion only four children were left in school.

The summer holiday was always referred to as the Harvest Holiday; it was not fixed but was dictated solely by agricultural conditions. It could start as late as September 5th and end as late as the middle of October, or it could be a month earlier than these dates. It did not become fixed until 1904 when it was also restricted to five weeks instead of the duration of the harvest. Other holidays were short, often two days, with no half-term and no Bank Holidays, though the Bank Holiday Act had been passed in 1871. The first week in August was rarely a rural holiday, but was a traditional one in the shoe trade in Rushden where many Wymington men were turning from the ill-paid farm work and consequently their holidays no longer co-incided with those of the children. Many children lost their mark at school because they had to carry boots and shoes to the Rushden factories when their fathers began ‘outwork’ – making the footwear by hand at home in their back workshops.

Education as such seemed to have little intrinsic value to many village people in those days, but this is understandable when the dreadfully poor financial circumstances are realised. Possibly the fact that fees still had to be paid influenced some parents to keep children away from school especially when the Managers of Wymington School decided to increase the fee from 1d to 2d a week. Many children were absent the week after the increase, and some who came were sent home to fetch the extra money. This increase would have made a noticeable difference to large families even though the fourth child was to be free when four or more in a family were in regular attendance.

There were numerous occasions when the school closed for functions connected with the church, apart from the celebration of saint’s days and many of the children took the day off for chapel tea-parties which did not merit an official holiday as the church parties did. Neither did the Band of Hope festivals held annually in Bedford, but the children attended these, and on one occasion when H.M.I. visited Wymington School, only a few scholars were there, most of them had gone to Bedford.

The school always had to close when a circus visited Rushden and many children walked the six miles to Wellingborough when the circus was there:

“Barnum was at Wellingborough today, there the children flocked so gave half a day.”

A regular complaint of absence was on May Day when the girls carrying decorated baskets, and the boys carrying Maypoles toured the parish singing the old May songs and collecting a few pence. It was not until the coming of Miss Rutter, as headmistress, in 1900 that the day was given as a holiday. The old songs were taught in school and this practice continued until Miss Rutter’s retirement in 1928.

In 1899 it was recorded, the first of many such entries, that a child’s mark had been cancelled because he left school before noon. Many men, boys and girls had by this time found work in the Rushden factories, and it was too far for them to return home for a midday meal, so the children had to take the dinners to Rushden. The hot meals, well wrapped in cloths, were wheeled in trucks down the road to where the workers were met just outside the town. The children stayed with their fathers to eat their own meals, then pushed the trucks back home in time for school. In winter, or when it rained, everyone huddled under sacks for protection. There are several references in the school logs to children being too tired or too hot to work properly during afternoon lessons after their journey to Rushden. Any teacher who, for whatever reason, kept a child in school after the stroke of noon, could be faced with an irate mother actually fetching him or her out of the classroom, in spite of the warning notice about unauthorised persons on school premises. The feeding of her working family was of far more importance than the few minutes of schooling. This practice of taking dinners down only stopped with the advent of a bus service in 1927.

As well as these absences, there were other obvious reasons for the poor attendance figures. There was a good deal of sickness, and ‘inclement weather’ also kept the children away from school. Most of the houses in the village were within a few minutes walk of the school, but rainy days, thunderstorms, flooding on the road or snow all kept the children away. This possibly not only indicated a more casual attitude to education, but also to the fact that the children had no protective clothing. There is a record of a boy being unable to attend one December because he had no shoes, and two infants could not attend ‘having sore feet and not able to wear their boots.’ The excuse put forward recently by a mother that her son could not attend because he had no shoes seems hardly credible.

Sickness of many kinds was prevalent among the children during the early years of the school, especially in the winters when hardly a week went by with our children being absent because of colds and sore throats. There were out-breaks of more serious diseases, and the deaths of several children are recorded. Sometimes there were so few children left in school during outbreaks of measles or mumps or scarlet fever that the school closed. Diphtheria was rife, and when several diseases occurred at the same time, the Sanitary Authority closed the school for long periods of thorough cleansing and disinfecting. The influenza epidemic which swept the world after the First World War closed the school for a week from November 11th 1918, the last time the school closed for health reasons and diphtheria was not mentioned after 1916, although immunisation was not yet available. The year 1908 saw the national introduction of school medical examinations, and Bedfordshire children must have been among some of the first to benefit from these, as in Wymington school they were examined, weighed and measured regularly form that date. Children were vaccinated at school as early as 1904 (smallpox vaccination became compulsory in 1873, but was made optional again in 1949). No large scale absences have been recorded since 1943 at Wymington, when an outbreak of measles resulted in only seven children being left in school, and today there seem little serious illness among children, and the childish complaints themselves are much less virulent than they one were. Although the school logs never mention it, T.B. did occur among some children, and one girl died of it, but that disease is almost wiped out. Inoculations (B.C.G.) against it are now available to schoolchildren, as well as immunisation against diphtheria, whooping-cough, tetanus, polio and measles.

Teachers and Curriculum

There are few references in the first log book to any curriculum subjects apart from the daily scripture and singing and needlework. Singing and needlework were among the subjects capable of earning ‘merit grants’ at that time, and Wymington School seemed to spend a great deal of time with both of them. Several times a week the Rector, his wife, son and daughter visited the school together or separately to hear the children sing or to inspect the needlework, but little else is known to have been done. There were several changes of teachers within the first year, and they all made the same comment:

“Have examined the children and found them very backward.”

The following year a mistress was appointed whose comment was:

“They are very backward, they not being able to set down scarcely anything in Numeration or to spell easy words.”

And the rector provided her with some books, Natural History sheets and Arithmetic cards a board and easel and a map of England.

There is no reference to H.M.I. visiting the school until 1881, and even then there is no record of his report.

The first report recorded in 1884 was bad, and one tenth of the grant was deducted on this account. The report for the following year was ‘extremely bad’ with the same result. There were several changes of teacher in that year, but a new one appointed in November 1885 appeared to get on better, and did much to vary the curriculum. She introduced Poetry, teaching long poems to the older children, (among them “The Wreck of the Hesperus”). Geography, national and local, was studied by the standards, a plan of the school and the playground was made, and the course of the River Ouse was studied.

At this time smaller grants were payable for proficiency in the three ‘R’, but increased grants were payable for other subjects in an attempt to get schools to teach a wider curriculum, and Miss Tyrer obviously tried to do so. She introduced several new things, including “Object Lessons”, which were special lessons mostly unrelated to each other or to any other work in school, and which covered an amazing range of ‘objects.’ She initiated daily recreation as previous mistresses had only allowed it on isolated occasions, all recorded, and she also sent out reports to mothers on the progress of their children. H.M.I.’s report in August 1886 was very good, the ‘Excellent’ Merit grant being awarded, but Miss Tyrer resigned, and the new mistress found the children ‘very backward’ again. Discipline became rigorous, there are references to punishment for various misdeeds, and a boy was expelled by the rector for insubordination.

Conditions in the school deteriorated rapidly when the new estate was built on the outskirts of the village resulting in a sudden increase in the number of pupils. The average attendance rose to about 80 in 1898 and there were severe difficulties in accommodation and discipline, resulting in poor reports with threats of cuts in the grants. Then began the procession of teachers and assistants, which resulted in fifteen changes of staff, by the end of the century and also very frequent changes of monitresses. In June 1899 there were 89 pupils present, in the charge of one teacher.

The rector gave other lessons beside his daily scripture and in the absence of other staff. Local unqualified help was sought. There were several temporary headmistresses in rapid succession and a most unhappy atmosphere seemed to prevail in the school at this time. A new Headmistress took charge on October 16th and she had three changes of assistant before the end of the year.

Discipline seemed to have quite broken down with the coming of the new children. One boy was sent home and his mark cancelled because of his very bad behaviour, but the attendance Officer ordered the mark to be re-instated and the boy was ordered by the magistrates at the Attendance Committee meeting to be thrashed by some of the managers. Apart from the ‘Object Lessons’ this headmistress made no mention of anything taught in school during her four months there and the next headmistress stayed only two months.

On April 23rd 1900 a mistress came to the school and stayed for 28 years. The Bedfordshire Education Department had been pressing the School Managers for some time to elect a school board and after pressure from the Parish Council they did so. The Nonconformist members of the Parish Council were highly critical of conditions existing in the school, and at the meeting of December 13th 1898, they drew attention to the inadequate staff accommodation, to the lack of discipline and to the standard of teaching and decided to call a special public meeting. This was held on January 5th 1899 with the result that 47 parishioners voted for a school board and 20 opposed the motion, so a board was duly elected and Miss Rutter appointed shortly afterwards.

There was an immediate improvement in conditions in Wymington School from the date Miss Rutter took over. She was a disciplinarian who exerted enormous influence not only in the school but in the village as a whole. Everyone respected her and she is still remembered for her common sense and care for her pupils at all times.

The old ‘Payment by Results’ system had come to an end by the time when Miss Rutter came to Wymington, but its emphasis on the three ‘R’s, on attendance, punctuality and personal neatness were all instilled into the children by her. There were 121 children in the school by 1905 and conditions were highly praised by successive H.M.I’s in their annual reports. The curriculum and teaching methods appeared to alter significantly as much wider range of subjects was studied and comprehensive schemes of work were recorded. The lessons had correlation at last. Drawing, another grant earning subject, had been introduced by Miss Tyrer in 1886, Miss Rutter taught technical drawing, scale drawing and design. She gave a series of 30 lessons in elementary science and in general things seemed to be on a much more practical basis. Instead of “sample strips” which the needlework once solely consists on the girls began to make clothing for themselves, to knit socks and stockings, and they bought clothing from home to darn and patch. Miss Rutter involved the children in things of national interest, like the eclipse of the sun ‘witnessed through smoke glass from the playground’ and the census of 1911. During the First World War the curriculum altered considerably. The girls spent much more time in sewing and knitting for the forces. The wool was provided by the Director of Education and the finished garments sent to him. Miss Rutter organised a War Savings Group with 12 members in 1916 and in 1966 a Certificate was presented to Wymington School as it was the only one in Bedfordshire which had 50 years continuous membership in the National Savings Movement. Nature rambles were put to good account during the war, as Miss Rutter organised blackberry picking.

“Sept 25th and 26th. Half holidays given to enable us to gather blackberries for our soldiers and sailors. The weight of blackberries despatched this morning was 1cwt. 1qr. 17¾lbs.”

Four more half days were given that season for blackberrying and the total weight of fruit sent from the school was over 3½cwt.

The girls’ education at this period seemed to be directed towards their future status as housewives and mothers, and not towards any career but the boys were being taught subjects which might have opened further opportunities for a career, although most of them were destined for work in the shoe factories of Rushden, or on local farms. In the early years of the school much emphasis was placed on arithmetic, both mental and written, though few of the children would have needed to use any but a very simple form of counting after they left school. There could have been little need for the instructions one H.M.I. gave to the effect that “the children should have practice in the rapid addition of columns of figures”. At that time, 1894, few of those children would have been in a position to work anywhere, shop or office, where such a skill was necessary.

The Free Place Regulations of 1906 had, in theory, brought secondary education within the reach of all classes of children, and immediately after the war Miss Rutter entered some Wymington children for the examination, taking two girls and a boy to Bedford for this. One girl was successful in obtaining a free place to the Girl’s Modern School in Bedford, but unfortunately was not able to take advantage of it because there was no public transport available between Wymington and Bedford. Four years later, the Parish Council took up this question of transport of children to Bedford and wrote to the County Council seeking permission for children winning scholarships to be allowed to attend a school in Wellingborough, or ‘some place other than Bedford,’ but nothing came of this and the parents of several children winning Free Places to Bedford schools paid fees for them to attend schools in Wellingborough. It was not until 1926 that a Wymington boy who had obtained a scholarship to Bedford School was able to travel there daily. Today, well over twenty Wymington children attend Bedford schools, going by bus from the village.

When Fisher’s Education Act of 1918 raised the school leaving age to fourteen, there was some complaint in the village, and the matter was raised at the annual Parish Meeting on May 8th 1922. One parent complained that children could reach the highest standard by the age of twelve, and he wanted to know what they were going to do if they were going to be kept at school a further eighteen months. It was generally agreed that the children would have to go over much of their work again, and ought to be able to leave at thirteen ‘as they could do their parents good by going to work’ but one man, a Trades Union Official, stated that boys should be kept at school until fourteen years old, because it was the boy labour that kept down the wages of men in the factories. Today, with the school leaving age scheduled to be raised to sixteen, some of the same arguments are heard.

Miss Rutter had excellent reports from all H.M.I.s throughout her employment in Wymington until her retirement in 1928 her:

“....instruction is sound and intelligent; one of its most noticeable features is that it is by no means mere instruction, but aims at and succeeds in developing the child’s powers…. The children are trained to do much for themselves – under very careful supervision.”

This report might very well apply to the school today under its present headmaster, Mr. Knowles. He took up his appointment in April 1967 after the resignation of Mr. Summers, and continued the re-organisation of the school which Mr. Summers had begun. Apart from the structural alterations, the school has changed into an excellent example of modern educational methods. Its aims are explicit:

“To endeavour to make the process of learning a vivid and happy experience.

To encourage the habits of natural and unconstrained behaviour and work subject to the restrictions of society.

To develop a ‘ community sense.’

To broaden the child’s outlook.

To promote a pride in workmanship.

To turn out whole, rounded individuals.”

Wymington School seems to be succeeding in its aim.

The processes of learning actually do appear to be a happy experience in the school now. The children work happily as individuals and in groups, both in the classrooms and in projects which involve them in meeting people in the village, gaining information, and being generally observant. They are encouraged at al times to make full use of their splendid library with its extensive reference section full of exciting books and maps.

The end of term displays of the children’s work are of a uniformly high quality in which great pride is taken and which are greatly appreciated by parents. The children’s outlook is broadened by expeditions to places of interest around which much work centres. Various people have accepted invitations to talk to the children in school on topics of special interest.

The children are encouraged to support charitable projects; the present target is a guide dog for a blind person, and the gifts from the children’s harvest festival service are taken by them to elderly people in the village.

The children are, on the whole, well mannered, alert, interesting and pleasant to talk with, and in spite of an element of change now present in the school as a result of a casual shifting population in the new housing estate, they seem to have a definite community sense, possibly fostered by an attractive uniform.

In contrast to the rigid discipline and restricted work of the early days, Wymington School now has a sense of freedom and love of learning within a framework of firm guidance and mutual respect.

Conclusion

Although it has certainly been added to over the last hundred years, the actual content of the curriculum in terms of definite subjects taught in primary schools today has not altered a good deal. But methods of teaching and the approach to learning has undergone a radical change.

Still influenced by educational legislation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the provision of education today bears little resemblance to that first provided by the religious societies and the state. Where once financial liability for education rested almost entirely with the religious societies, and was only later supplemented by government grants, at the present time the massive cost of education is one of the most expensive items in the nation’s economy, and the cost is still rising.

Educational matters are now, as at certain times in the past (notably the first decade of this century) a major political issue, both locally and nationally. Their complexity increases as social and economic pressures and needs are brought to bear on the types of education considered necessary to satisfy these. No longer can education be regarded as merely instruction in diverse but definite subjects, as these subjects are themselves both involved with each other, and are part of a vast complex of studies and services once regarded as quite separate from education and without its sphere. It seems difficult, if not impossible, now to define the boundaries of education.

The direction of change in education is determined to a large extent by change in other major social institutions, although education can itself govern change. It is only by examining the present relationships between these social institutions and education and studying the development of the relationships, that any indication can be made as to the future direction of our educational system.

In Wymington school, both the direction and the method of change seem, to the majority of parents and other interested people, to be satisfactory and right.