England School Records Log Books, Photographs, and Reports (National Institute)

School Log Books
Thousands of these survive from as far back as the early 19th century for the British (nonconformist) and National (Church of England) Schools. The regulations for grant-aided schools from 1862 state that a log book should be kept in which the principal teacher should make a brief daily entry on the progress and other relevant facts which might require to be referred to or may deserve to be recorded. In 1871 this requirement changed to a minimum weekly entry. School log books can offer fascinating details of day-to-day school life, although sometimes they frustratingly offer only all going well or no remarks.

Log Books contain:


 * Causes of absence, showing what life was like for these children. Maybe they were required to help in the fields—haymaking, harvesting, blackberrying, digging potatoes or following the hunt—or at home with younger children. Even children in the city would go to help their parents with harvesting, a well-known example being the hop-pickers from East London. Another cause was inadequate clothing—perhaps they had no boots to wear to school; my mother related tales of a family of four children in West Ham who only had two pairs of boots so they took it in turns to go to school.
 * Visits by medical personnel such as the nit nurse who checked for head-lice.
 * Appointment of new staff, whether teachers, clerical, canteen or janitorial, and goodbye events for leavers or retirees.
 * Absences of staff for family emergencies, examinations or interviews.
 * Problems with facilities.
 * Staff problems.
 * Discipline problems, sometimes with parents as well as children.
 * Holidays and celebrations for national events.
 * Local events and customs.
 * Prizes given for best examination results or highest number of attendances.
 * Epidemics, sometimes causing school closure.
 * Closure of school due to severe weather.
 * Visits of clergy, school inspectors and local dignitaries.
 * Names of monitors and pupil-teachers appear frequently.
 * Subjects of school lessons such as songs learned, poetry recited or the object lessons delivered.
 * Text books used.
 * Deaths of children.
 * Difficulties in collecting the school pence (fees) before they were abolished in 1891.

Entries from an actual school log book taken from film 1472619 are shown below.

Chart: Extracts from Log Book of Church Street School, Woking, Surrey 1877-1895

Object Lessons 1894-1895

Repetition 1894-1895



One feels for teachers and children who suffered through such daily events as occurred at Canterbury Road Infants School, Deptford, London:


 *  “Aug 25. 88 new scholars admitted. Most of the morning taken up putting them into their new classes. Only six children had ever been to school before.”
 * “Aug 28. This is the first day that the children have been able to pay much attention to their work on account of the crying of the new children.”

Teynham School, Kent was situated in a poor, low-lying area by the River Swale and the log is replete with absences due to ague, marsh fever, and many infectious diseases. Several children suffered from near-starvation, and in winter the children cried in the schoolroom because of the cold, but there were happier times, and pictures of plays and school treats are given as well by Sattin.

Log books may have been deposited in county record offices but many remain with the school, parish or local education authority and have to be hunted down. The local county record office or archives will usually know where those in their area are located if they don’t have them in their holdings list. Look-ups may be available from fellow-members of the local FHS, so keep in touch with them. Some finding aids to log books have been written for example Webb’s index of school records of (Greater) London, and Horn has some worthwhile comments. There is a 30 to 50-year closure period from the date of the last entry.

School Photographs
Photographs of school classes, teams, events or a panorama of the whole school can be found from the last quarter of the 19th century for every kind of school, college or university. They may be in family collections, or with a local archives; the school itself probably retains some and may have name identification lists. The individual photograph is a more recent innovation in the last 30 years.

Testimonials and Reports
Annual or term school reports are most likely to be found amongst family papers of-course, as they were sent home with the student. An example is shown below. Testimonials for individual students were given as they left school, usually to go to work, but also to get further education. They also will be found amongst family papers. Reports of progress for the whole school can be found from early times, an early one is transcribed below.

Inspector’ Reports
Some schools commenced very poorly, for example Brook School, Kent opened in 1877 and the inspectors wrote these comments:


 * 1878 - Older girls do not attend regularly as they are employed in hop tying and hop clearing.
 * 1879 - The floor of the schoolroom should be washed oftener than once a year.
 * 1880 - Spelling and arithmetic being very weak, both classes’ grants have been forfeited.
 * 1883 - The school has done badly in almost all respects. One tenth grant deducted.

Term Report from Day Continuation Institute 1931 - West Ham Education Committee, Grace Thom 

Pupil was 16 at this time. This was one of the first schools to offer woodwork for girls!

(From the personal collection of Dr. Penelope Christensen)

Testimonial from a National School - Boys National School, Crayford-Herbert Leonard Gardner Pupil was aged 12 in 1926 and seeking employment whilst waiting for an apprenticeship vacancy to arise in his father’s trade.

(From the personal collection of Dr. Penelope Christensen)

Chart: Report on Village Scholars at Meppershall, Bedfordshire

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