The most interesting idea to surface during our stay in Essex was emailed to me by a teacher from St. Philips Priory School in Chelmsford, who invited me to photograph the school’s last ever sports day to be held in their eighty year history. The event featured all the old favourites, the egg and spoon race, sack race and the highly competitive parents sprint!

St. Philips was founded as a fee-paying school in 1927 by the Servite Sisters with 30 children on the roll. Originally, there was a primary and secondary school until 1954; now, it is just primary. Although a Catholic faith school, they have welcomed children of all faiths and it was fascinating to see how many Hindu and Muslim parents had enrolled their children (in one class, Christian children were actually a minority,) presumably in recognition of the school’s excellent Ofsted results and the fact it’s a feeder to the local grammar.

Sadly, the Sisters are having to sell the school as the majority of the order are getting quite old and need to start providing for their later years. The news came as a huge blow to the students, parents and staff. Several of the staff had been students at the school themselves. The teacher who contacted me was one of three generations of her family to attend. Despite an active campaign to save the school and keep it independent, efforts have failed, and a neighbouring private school in Chelmsford (sold to St. Cedd’s Educational Trust, a charity that already runs another primary school in the local area, St. Cedd’s School) has bought the site.

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under EVENTS & PASTIMES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.