The school was 100 years old and what better way to celebrate than to turn back the clock 100 years.
Staff and pupils at St Andrew’s School at Headington, Oxford, marked their centenary in 1994 by holding a Victorian Day.
Everyone dressed in caps and petticoats so they looked exactly as their predecessors would have done in 1894.
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And not only did pupils dress appropriately, even more importantly, they had to behave as the Victorians did.
Nicola Green, left, and Emily Kirkley, both five, enjoy turning the clock back in 1994
They opened school doors to parents, former pupils and visitors, and had to keep quiet in class unless told to speak.
Headteacher Carol Price said: “It was very formal and stern. We had silence most of the day. But it was wonderful. The whole school had a photograph taken in Victorian costume.”
There was a display of school memorabilia from the previous 100 years and children completed a huge centenary collage to hang in the school hall.
There was also a Victorian Fair where visitors were invited to guess the weight of a Victorian cake or enjoy a treat at a Victorian sweet stall.
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The centenary celebrations took place 100 years after the completion of new buildings on the site in London Road.
Headteacher Carol Price calls her Victorian pupils to order
In 1880, education had been made compulsory for all children between the ages of five and 10 and in 1893, the school leaving age was raised to 11.
These measures, combined with Headington’s increasing population, meant that St Andrew’s School was too small.
The new buildings allowed the school to meet the demand for places from families in Old and New Headington. The school’s history can be traced back to 1847 when Charles Tawney, a brewer, gave half an acre of land to the vicar of Headington to set up a National School.
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The delight of the people of Headington was evident when the foundation stone was laid in June that year. Jackson’s Oxford Journal newspaper reported: “So great and universal was the interest which the proceedings excited in the villagers that we believe there was scarcely an inhabitant left at home; the place looked like a deserted village.”
Sedia Rogers, 10, face painting Rosie Wilson, six, at the school fete in 2001
The new buildings, designed by Thomas Grimsley and facing London Road, consisted of a boys’ schoolroom and a girls’ schoolroom, with the schoolmaster’s house sandwiched in between. The two schoolrooms measured just 40ft by 18ft and 90 children were crammed into each. The 180 pupils shared three toilets.
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As in many Victorian schools, discipline was strict - headmaster George Stace was cleared at Oxford Petty Sessions in 1893 after he violently punished a boy for missing school to attend a policeman’s funeral.
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The school, originally known as the Field School because it occupied the Quarry Field, was renamed St Andrew’s in 1961.
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