Balliol School Kempston
Balliol Lower School September 2007
Balliol County Primary School was created in the early 1950s as the population of Kempston increased. It is named after John Balliol, King of Scotland (1292-1296) who was also Lord of the Manor of Kempston Daubeney.
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 the 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. Balliol thus 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 Balliol 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.
- CA8/560: building maintenance file: 1964-1979;
- PY/E3/1/7: short-term lettings management file: 1975-1977;
- CA2/768: 40 place nursery unit building file: 1975-1979;
- TCKempston26/7: Duplicated sheet entitled 'Effect of cuts at Balliol Lower School (Roll 215) plus 70 Nursery children': 1980s;
- E/TE3/4: return of teaching staff: 1981;
- E/TE3/7: return of teaching staff: 1986;
- E/PG2/1/1: details of nursery provision: 1986;
- E/PM6/2/1: school's answers to a questionnaire on corporal punishment: 1986;
- E/MS3/2/2: kitchen and other details: c.1987;
- E/Pu4/4/72: prospectus: 1995;
- HT13/2/11: Harpur Trust grant to school: 1999.