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Springfield School Kempston

Springfield Lower School July 2007
Springfield Lower School July 2007

Springfield County Primary School was created in 1969. It is named after a field in the vicinity before the inclosure of Kempston in 1804.

County Primary schools were created by the Education Act 1944 and taught children up to the age of eleven when they took an exam (the eleven plus) to determine whether they were academically gifted, in which case they went on top a grammar school or more practical, in which case they went to a county secondary school or secondary modern school.

In the 1970s local education authority Bedfordshire County Council introduced comprehensive education, doing away with the 11+ examination and grammar schools and introducing a tier of school between the old county primary and county secondary schools. Thus lower schools now taught children aged 4 to 9, middle schools from 9 to 13 and upper schools from 13 onwards. Springfield became a lower school.

On 1st April 2009 Bedfordshire County Council was abolished. Its functions in the north of the county were taken over by Bedford Borough Council. This was a district, or second tier, authority which was upgraded to a unitary council with both first and second tier responsibilities – a county and district council rolled into one. It this became Kempston’s local education authority.

The following list gives all the sources relating to Springfield School held by Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service. Due to the terms of the Data Protection Act records containing personal details of living individuals will be closed in total, or in part, depending on the nature of the information.

  • CA2/294: building file: 1964-1971;
  • CA2/290: building file: 1967-1973;
  • CA8/942: building maintenance file: 1970-1984;
  • E/ME6/1/5: applications for Section 11 funded posts at school: 1980s;
  • E/MS2/1/3: O&M study of lunchtime supervision: 1983;
  • E/PM6/2/4: school opposition to abolition of corporal punishment: 1985-1986;
  • E/TE2/2/L/45: details of school: 1989;
  • E/ME7/7/1: letter from headmistress enthusing about visit of professional Indian dancer to school: 1989;
  • HT13/2/12: Harpur Trust grant to school: 1999.