EDUCATION.

Before the construction of the new town housing estates Stirchley was served by one village school but in the 1970s new schools were built to serve the enlarged population.

William Banks, rector 1715-58, was listed as a schoolmaster in 1726. (fn. 16)

Stirchley County Primary School originated as an unendowed day school founded between 1818 and 1833 (fn. 17) and supported by the Botfield family and the rector. (fn. 18) It contained only 12 children in 1833, (fn. 19) and the parish clerk acted as schoolmaster during the 1850s. (fn. 20) By 1861 the school, a parish day school, was taught by a mistress in a building that was apparently near the rectory. (fn. 21)

In 1879 control passed to the new Stirchley school board (fn. 22) and in 1880 a new school for 80 pupils was built at the north end of the village on land bought from the lords of the manor; it opened in 1881. (fn. 23) There were 86 children on the register in 1902 and overcrowding remained a problem throughout the first decade of the century. (fn. 24) By 1948 children over 11 went to Madeley Secondary Modern School, Pool Hill County School, or Coalbrookdale High School, and numbers on the roll dropped from 67 in 1946 to 43 in 1951. (fn. 25) There were only 30 pupils on the register in 1973 and the school closed at the end of that year, children being transferred to the new schools at Brookside. (fn. 26)

A three-tier system of education was introduced on the construction of the Brookside, Stirchley, and Randlay housing estates in the 1970s. 'First' schools were opened at Brookside in 1974. (fn. 27) Brookside County Middle School, at Brookside local centre, was opened in 1974, Stirchley County First School at Calcott centre in 1975, Stirchley Middle and Upper schools at Stirchley district centre in 1975; there were 436, 410, 619, and 565 pupils in 1979. Randlay County First School opened in 1980. (fn. 28)

'Special' education was provided by the Thomas Parker Special School from 1971 (fn. 29) and by Telford Education Guidance Unit, housed in the former Stirchley primary school building, from c. 1975; (fn. 30) the former had 59 pupils in 1980. (fn. 31)

Footnotes