St Catherine’s old and new

Story: Year 3 class – Hamzah,Isbah, Alex, Hannah, Morgan, Danyaal, Zoe, Ben, Zo, Joshua,Armani and Daanish

On Monday 29th June 2009 St Catherine’s School held a Heritage Week to celebrate our school getting bigger.

The old school used to be on Andover Street and it was shut down in 1974. The old school was knocked down and the new one was built on Firshill Crescent.

Going to the past

Year 2 are doing a time-line with pictures about how long the old school was open for and when it was shut and when the new school opened.

“We found putting a time-line together helped us understand the direction the school has taken,”

explained Miss Walker (Y2 teacher)

Books come alive!

Year 6 and Year 5 are going to the library to meet real-life books. The Living Books were Mr Robinson (ex-Governor), Mrs Watson (ex – pupil), Father Stoker and Mrs Easton (teaching assistant). What you do is you ask questions and the visitors answer.

“We are so lucky to have so many people who are willing to be books,”

said Miss Latter, Year 5 teacher.

“I liked it when Mr Robinson told us about how the toilets used to freeze in the winter,”

said Jack Green

Picture present

The 5 to 6 year old children were creating a scrap book about the new site. They looked at different photos and picked out which ones go in the scrapbook.

“They have worked ever so hard. They have done it by using the computers and looking at other pictures”

said Miss Barker.

“It was very good”

said Joshua.

Chatting to Mrs Bower

Mrs Bower was the head teacher before Mrs Rigby. She came and told everyone about the old school building on Andover Street. There was a massive hole in the roof and they were not allowed on the floor because they got splinters. Mrs Bower said that the playground was so small they didn’t have enough places to play. They knocked it down because it was not safe.

New site

Year 3 visited the new site and the builder called Clive explained the things that were in the building. We saw a multi-faith room that means any religion can come and pray. We had to wear helmets because bricks can fall on you and glowing vests for the people to see us.

Andover Street

We visited the old school site at Andover Street. We saw where the school and playground used to be. We saw where the playground was on a steep hill. We saw where they used to get their food from. Mrs Rigby said,

“This week is going really well. This is a great day.”

Everybody has had fun in what they are doing. The Y3 class have fun because their newspaper articles are going in the Burngreave Messenger.

Living Book- Ken Robinson

Interview by Farah, Antonia and Adam as part of Heritage Week’s living library.

How has the school changed?

I first came to St Catherine's on Andover Street in April 1929. There has been a dramatic change. There is no comparison between the new school and the one on Andover Street. It was a very old building. The windows started approximately two metres from the ground. There were 30 children per class, two children per desk. There were no school dinners, you brought your own sandwiches. We were made cups of coco though.

The school moved so that the children could have modern amenities. I was a school governor for 17 years. Initially the school was designed to be open plan, that was the vogue at the time.

Do you remember any funny stories from when you were at school?

I remember dashing out of school at the end of the day, running against the guard rail, banging my hand down, and breaking my wrist. It was my left hand and had to be set. The teacher thought I might try to get out of writing (because I'm left handed) and said I must learn to write with my right hand.The teacher's were very good. They were firm, rather than strict. Sister Vieni imparted a lot of information and knowledge to me. We had an excellent grounding in English.

How has the area changed?

The current school used to be allotments. In fact, Firshill wasn't buildings, it was all allotments. Pitsmoor was lived in by very high class people. Burngreave Road used to have seven or eight doctors living on it from Spital Hill to the Tollbar. There were a lot of dentists. And people from the steel works, all skilled jobs.

St Catherine’s are collecting the information from their Hertiage Week for an exhibition to celebrate the opening of the school extension in September. You can find more photos and work by the children on the Messenger website.