An Oxford primary school is appealing for former pupils, parents and staff to come forward with their pictures and stories ahead of a 70th anniversary event this summer.
Rose Hill Primary School in The Oval is holding a party next month to coincide with The Queen’s jubilee celebrations.
People with connections to the school are being urged to share their old photographs and memories, with the best set to feature in a brochure marking the 70th anniversary of the official opening of the school on its current site.
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The Rose Hill 70th jubilee party will take place at the school on Saturday June 11th.
Rose Hill headteacher Sue Vermes said: “We want to produce something which does justice to the story of a fantastic school and of the fantastic community that it serves.
“The Rose Hill estate has changed markedly over the last seven decades, and it is changing again today.
“The story of the school is the story of the estate; we want to be able to tell it.
“What we want to do is to bring together the stories and the pictures from people who attended the school, sent their children there or who worked there.
“A lot of material and memories are at risk of being lost, which would be terrible. We feel that The Queen’s jubilee and our own jubilee make this a perfect moment to make sure that we preserve that history.”
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Rose Hill School was officially opened on its current site on July 10th 1952.
At the event, John Christi, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, told the assembled guests: “I doubt there is a single room in the great public schools of Winchester, Rugby, Repton or Westminster that could hold a candle to some of these beautifully designed rooms.”
He added: “You can see from here the dreaming spires of Oxford and, from where I am standing, an unparalleled view of the gasometer.”
The school, which cost £135,800 to build, was the third to be constructed in the city after the end of World War Two.
It is not known whether the gasometer referred to was the Cowley gasometer on Oxford Road or the city’s former gasworks at St Ebbe’s.
The city gasworks were operational from 1818 to 1960 and stood on the site of the Grandpont Nature Reserve.
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The poet WH Auden, an undergraduate at Christ Church in the mid 1920s, would reputedly take visitors there as he believed the site to be embodiment of The Waste Land described in TS Eliot’s poem of the same name.
Rose Hill Primary School has recently undertaken £1.3m worth of building improvements after joining River Learning Trust, the Oxfordshire-based multi academy trust.
People with memories should email Lisa Scott-Russell at lscott-russell@rosehillprimary.org.
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