The central block and adjoining classrooms

From the day the school opened it was evident it was too small for the immediate needs of the area it was to serve. Extra accommodation was urgently required and the Education Authority responded by providing a temporary wooden building, with two class spaces, on the east side of the main building. Work was started in July 1929 in the hope that the unit would be ready for occupation at the start of the new school year. In the event, however, it took until the end of September for the first classroom to be ready and mid October before the second room could be used.

Rarely, if ever, are buildings constructed free of faults and Dolphin Lane was no exception. Before the end of its first year the ‘long overdue list of repairs’ included - flooding in the coal cellar, falling plaster in the latrines, faulty locks to some entrance doors, faulty window catches, problems with the gas pilot lights and the cloakroom rails that were too high for the children to reach comfortably.

The pressure on the school for places was continuous. Some relief was anticipated in April 1930 when a new temporary school, for children under seven, opened in Nailstone Crescent at the far end of this ever-expanding estate but in the event, only six children transferred to the new school so the situation at Dolphin Lane remained largely unchanged.

On the 3^rd November 1930, however, Severne Road Junior Mixed School was opened and a directive from the Education Department stated that all the infant and junior children currently attending Dolphin Lane but living on the Gospel Farm Estate must be transferred to the new school. Sixty-two children moved, as required, but even this did not solve the accommodation problem. Furthermore it created an additional difficulty. There were as many children waiting for places at the school as the number of children who had transferred to Severne Road but they were all five year olds! As the children who had moved to Severne Road came from across the age ranges a complete reorganisation of the classes had to be undertaken to accommodate these new infant children.

With no let up in the demand for school places it was agreed to build three permanent classrooms onto the school’s eastern wing, where space for a possible extension had been earmarked on the original plans. An analysis of the school’s roll, which totalled 690 in March 1931 clearly indicates why such an extension, just two years after the school had opened, was necessary.

Work started on the new brick-built classrooms that same month and for the safety of the children the entrance near the caretaker’s house was closed off. This necessitated the girls using the ‘Boy’s Entrance’ to reach their classrooms.

In July the school received an official notification stating;

By this time the classes being taught in the Hall had already moved to the two rooms ready for occupation; the third new classroom was completed during the summer break and was ready for use when the school reassembled in late August.

A rethink of school provision for this sector of the estate had become a priority; indeed a solution, in the form of plans for a new and separate Infants Department, had already been drawn up. The new wooden construction was to be sited at the rear of the existing Dolphin Lane School building and linked to it by covered walkways. Work on the structure started in January 1932 and was completed in time for the planned opening date of 4^th July, the same year.

The opening of this new school had not come a moment too soon as by April of that year there were in excess of 800 children on the school’s roll.

Numbers for April 1932

Miss Hood, appointed as the Head Teacher of this new Department, had a staff of seven assistant teachers.

Three hundred and thirty one children were transferred from the original school to the new Infant Department and these, together with a the fifty-four new children admitted, made up seven classes each with fifty-five children in them.

Figures for the Junior Department in August, the start of a new school year, suggest that with two autonomous establishments on the same site the reduced number of children in the one building would substantially ease the management issues faced by the Head Teacher.

There would be two transfers of children from the Infant Department to the Junior Department, one at the end of January and the other in July. (These transfer dates were also used for the movement of children from the Junior School to Secondary Schools.) Until 1938 the age of transfer was 7 years and 3 months but in that year it was raised to 7 years and 6 months.

By March 1933 the number of junior pupils had risen again, reaching the upper 500’s, while by September of that year the figure had further increased to 640 children. The roll remained either just above or just below the September 1933 figure until the end of school year in July 1937. At that juncture Mr Sutton was able to report,

No further improvements or alterations to the buildings were recorded until the decorators moved into the Junior Department soon after the mid-summer holiday of 1934. They continued working until the end of October, repainting both the interior and the exterior of the school.

The corridors along the wings of the main building were open to the elements and during inclement weather they became slippery and dangerous so enclosing them, or resurfacing them, seemed an obvious solution. There was, however, the problem of the cost involved in making such a simple improvement and the Education Department’s reply to Mr Sutton’s request was very much to the point,

‘Owing to expense relaying would not be justified at the present time’.

Instead mat wells were provided!!

Improvements to the Infant Department building were made in 1937, when French Doors were fitted into each of the classrooms. Essentially they were to provide a quick and safe exit in the event of a fire but they also gave the children easy access to the grounds outside their classrooms.

With the onset of the war any improvements or renovations to the buildings were put on hold. Certainly the most pressing need, in terms of building, was protection from air raids. Initially the school, as a single complex, was allocated nine shelters and these were completed and ready for use by January 1940. This provision was insufficient for the number of children attending the school and after a lot of pleading a further five shelters were built.

The next significant change to the school building was accidental ‘demolition’. On the night of 11^th/12^th December 1940 an anti-aircraft shell hit the roof of the main building and exploded. With rain, snow and water pouring through the roof and flooding the Hall and

corridors all efforts to mend the hole with sacking, tarpaulins and even blackboards, were unsuccessful. The G.P.O. finally came to the rescue. The school had already been earmarked as a temporary sorting office for the Christmas post so the repairs needed to weatherproof and windproof the Hall were carried out by the Post Office. In spite of the best efforts of the G.P.O. the continuous inclement weather still made some parts of the school uninhabitable. The situation was so bad that a letter forwarded to the Education Department stated ‘that repairs are urgent if education is to continue at Dolphin Lane.’ A claim for £630.1s.1d was eventually submitted for the damage caused by the shell.

Metal was in much demand as the conflict in Europe accelerated and as a result the partition railings that separated the boys and girls playgrounds had to be sacrificed as part of the war effort. Removed in 1943, they were never replaced.

Plans were already in place for the school to be used as an Emergency Feeding Station if necessary when a request was made for it to have a School Canteen. As part of this new initiative Miss Hood reported

"Workmen have been here this week putting in an Ascot heater and a hot cupboard in preparation for the serving of dinners."

With the majority of the staff in favour of having the facility, it became operational in March 1944. There were three part time cooks -

‘to serve meals and see to cleaning and washing of utensils’

but the collection of money and the supervision of the children was the responsibility of the teachers. The meals were supplied, and delivered by motor van, from Severne Road Meals Centre.

When the war was over it was back to requesting more routine improvements such as resurfacing the playgrounds and repainting the school. The air-raid shelters had also outlived their usefulness and request after request was submitted for their removal without any noteworthy success.

When Miss Hood retired, in July 1946, it was decided not to appoint a new Infant Head Teacher so the two separate Departments were amalgamated into a single school once again under the leadership of Mr Sutton (p.19).

The number of children at the school had been declining slowly and by early 1948 the five hundred and five children on roll were based in four infant classes and seven junior classes. With less need for all the classroom space available, the temporary wooden building erected as emergency accommodation in 1929 was removed and four of the other empty classrooms were temporarily loaned to Acocks Green Secondary School, to accommodate their excess numbers.

The repainting of the school, requested in 1946, was finally carried out between October and December 1954. Two years later banks of hand basins were installed adjacent to the Boy’s and the Girl’s Entrances and also in the air-raid shelter that had been built along the east wing of the school. A request was also made for the open corridors to be enclosed.

Introduction – Goodbye Green Fields and Country Lanes

Getting Started

Buildings – Meeting the Changing Needs

The School Staff – Comings and Goings

A Broader Education – Talks, Festivals and Visits

Concerts and Performances – A Chance to Show Off

Christmas Celebrations

Royal Occasions – Visits and Celebration Holidays

Physical Activities – Athletics, P.T. and Games

Fund Raising – Helping Others and Supporting Ourselves

Medical Matters – The Doctor, The Dentist and the ‘Nit’ Nurse

Accidents and Misfortunes – Cuts, Bruises and Even Worse

Transgressions – Naughty, Naughty!!

The Air Raid Shelter Saga – Keeping the Children Safe

Evacuation – From Birmingham to the Countryside and Back

Appendix 1 Birmingham Educational Districts & School Lists

Appendix 2 New Pupils’ Previous Named Schools

Appendix 3 Sketch Map of the Local Roads Housing Dolphin Lane Pupils

Appendix 4 Memories – Dennis Simons