Saint Thomas More Catholic Teaching School

Saint Thomas More prospectus 1995 [E/Pu4/4/202]

Saint Thomas More Voluntary Aided Roman Catholic Upper School opened in the mid-1970s when 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. A voluntary aided school was one in which the Local Education Authority funded the school but the governing body was independent.

In 2013 the four Roman Catholic schools in Bedford formed a Multi Academy Trust. At the time of writing [2017] the school is officially known as Saint Thomas More Catholic Teaching School.

The following list gives all the sources relating to Saint Thomas More 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.

• X819/8/6: five worksheets on Bedford in 1871 produced by the school in the 1970s: 1871;
• CA2/889: school building file: 1972-1985;
• X494/64/25: newspaper cutting stating that Bedford’s fourth upper school was to be Roman Catholic: 1975;
• E/OL1/6/1: participation on foreign exchanges: 1979-1984;
• CA8/1027: building maintenance file: 1979-1985;
• E/TE3/2: return of teaching staff: 1981;
• E/ME7/6/1: donation of £800 for Italian books by LEA: 1984;
• E/TE3/7: return of teaching staff: 1986;
• CC/HS3/4/1: health and safety issues: 1986-1988;
• E/MS3/2/1: kitchen and other details: c. 1987;
• E/ME9/3/2: detailed report on multiculturalism at the school: 1987-1988;
• E/DE1/1/5: poor condition of the wicket on the playing field: 1989;
• E/Pu4/4/202: school prospectus: 1995