Brickhill Lower School

Brickhill Lower School prospectus [E/Pu4/4/211]

In the early 1970s education in Bedfordshire changed significantly from the model it had followed since the Education Act of 1944 which had established the principle of County Primary Schools for children up to the age of 11, at which time they took an examination to determine the nature of the secondary school they would attend until they were 15, the most academically able going to grammar schools, the rest to secondary or secondary modern schools. The new comprehensive education model did away with the 11+ examination and grammar schools and introduced 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.

The old Brickhill County Primary Infant School had opened in 1963, sharing a site with a junior school which later became Brickhill Middle School. Brickhill Lower School was created in the mid-1970s as part of the new comprehensive model in the old infant school buildings where it remains at the time of writing [2017].

The following list gives all the sources relating to Brickhill Lower 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.

• CA7/4: plans for proposed development: 1959-1960;
• EBGM5: Bedford Borough school managers’ minutes: 1970-1974;
• CA8/593: school maintenance file: 1974-1979;
• CA8/940: school maintenance file: 1974-1984;
• E/TE3/4: return of teaching staff: 1981;
• E/MS2/1/3: request for additional lunchtime supervisors: 1982;
• E/TE3/7: return of teaching staff: 1986;
• E/ME4/2/2: notes on approach to multicultural education: 1986-1989;
• E/MS3/2/1: kitchen and other details: c. 1987;
• E/Pu4/4/211: school prospectus: 1995.