Our History

Amphitheatre being used for an outdoor assembly in 1963.  Miss Ennis, Headteacher at the time, is leading the assembly and on her left is Noreen Osborne, her Deputy, who later became Headteacher at St Patricks. This area was filled in for health and safety reasons in the early 1990’s and is now a garden with trees and shrubs.

Bell 1963

The Boys’ School was situated next to the old St Patrick’s church on London Road in Nottingham.  This photograph dates from 1906.

Children at work in class in the new St Patrick’s School in 1963.  Note the old wooden chairs and tables.

Children working in class in 1963.  Note the outside play area with wall enclosure.  Children used to use this area for artwork (see photo below).

Children reading to ‘old style tape recorder’ in class in 1963.  The school uniform at this time was gold and green and girls wore socks!

This area is now mainly the lunch club room, created in 2009, which is used by the full time Nursery children to have their lunch.  The room at the far end is the current Class 1 and the room on the right is the current Class 2.  This room has now been closed off by a partition and door.  At the rear of this room, you can see a white circular water tray which was used by the children for water play.  Behind that are the book shelves for children to use.

This is a view from where the current lunch club room is with what is now Class 2 on the left hand side and Foundation 1 on the right.  Class 2 had a sliding partition which could be used to separate the classroom from the play area.  The same applied to where the Nursery is now.  Please notice the very young boys on the left of the picture using saws, hammers and nails unsupervised!!

This is where the current Class 5 is now situated.  Notice the two external windows which were reduced to one soon after the School was built to create the extension classroom.  The variety of activities looks like a handwork lesson where sewing, modelling and other similar activities took place.

This is a view of the main entrance to the school shortly after the school was built in 1963. The wall on which the children are sitting was demolished in 2010 to create the current parents’ covered waiting area and bicycle park.  Notice the old main entrance which is set much further back than present day.  On the left, just inside the entrance, was an area used to store bees which later was used to house budgies!  This was discontinued in 1990!  The lawn that you see in the foreground is now part of the Site Manager’s house, which was built in approximately 1991.  The tree to the left is still on site and is located just next to the Site Manager’s garden fence currently approximately 70′ tall!

These children are in the area which is now part of the school building used for After School Club and meetings.  Notice the small wicket gate on the far left centre of the picture, which leads into the garden of a house on Main Road.  The house was rented by the Diocese to provide accommodation for the Caretaker at the School.  This has now been bricked up and the house is no longer used for that purpose, as the new house was built on grounds at the front of the main entrance.

Children using the enclosed area outside the current Classes 3/4 as a painting area.  Note the old fashioned milk crate in the right middle of the picture.  Milk was delivered to School in ‘third of a pint’ glass bottles and distributed by the ‘milk monitor’.  During the Summer the milk tended to be rather warm as there were no fridges to keep it cool!  The floor tiles, which were seen in many areas of the School grounds, were all hexagonal to reflect the shape of all the classrooms in the School which were also hexagonal.  These have all now been replaced for health and safety reasons with tarmacadam.

In this picture we see Canon Philip Soar on the right, Parish Priest and Chair of Governors, Miss Ennis, Headteacher and Mr Peter Bartlett, FRIBA of Bartlett and Gray, Nottingham who was the Architect who designed the new School building.  The tower, with a cross on the side, in the centre of the picture was where the altar was located, adjacent to the main hall.  On the lower left of the picture, is where the current car park is located.

This is a view of the School library in 1963 which was located in the same position as it is now.  The view to the rear of the picture shows the cloakroom leading to where Classes 3/4 are currently located.  This is still a cloakroom but there are two fire doors in position now leading into the area. The top right hand corner shows a door leading into the girls changing rooms which remains the same today.

On of the first masses in the new School hall in 1963.  The picture shows Canon Soar celebrating the mass still in the old fashioned way with his back to the congregation (this changed following the second Vatican Council of 1963 where priests changed to saying mass facing the congregation).  This area ceased to be used as the altar in 2006 and is now used as a storeroom for catering tables.  Masses are now celebrated in the hall itself, in the round with a table used for the altar and the children sit in a large semi circle around it.  This helps children to see, hear, and participate better in the mass itself.  To the far end of the hall you will notice it opens directly onto the corridor.  Partition walls were erected in 2005 to provide more privacy for any activities taking place in the hall.

This article was included in the Times Educational Supplement on Friday 4th October 1963.  The honeycomb of hexagonal units was intended to enclose the maximum space within the costly perimeter walls and produce a clustering effect.  The design won an award at the time for being very innovative.  All classrooms, the hall and enclosed outdoor activity areas were built to complement the hexagonal design.  Even the tables when put together made hexagonal shapes.  The bottom left picture shows children with a scale model of the School building used by the Architects when designing the School.  The bottom right picture shows the old amphitheatre being used for role play (we think)!!  This area is now filled in and was made into a garden for health and safety reasons.

This is a picture of the old school building which dates from approximately 1867.  As you can see, the school building is linked to the old St Patrick’s church building.  Behind the school you can see the buildings high up in the Lace Market.  This school building and church were demolished around 1963 to make room for road improvements.  The school moved to its new location on a vacant field in Wilford village situated adjacent to Coronation Avenue in 1963.  The church was replaced by a new building on Launder Street in the Meadows in the towards the end of the 1970’s.

PE taking place in the School hall in 1963.  It seems that boys and girls did PE separately judging by the contents of the picture.  This PE apparatus was still in use in the early 1990’s but was replaced by modern lightweight apparatus towards the end of the 1990’s.  Notice the curtain area at the rear of the picture was used as a chair storage area.  This is still currently used as a chair and table store for school dinners.