High Street School in Tunstall was demolished in 1994.
About two years later, Robert Turner, a teacher at the school from 1953 to 1963, was interviewed by Tunstall History Society.
Robert, who taught Art, Physical Education and Games, said:
It was a small school facing High Street, nestling between factories and rows of small, terraced houses. Tunstall reminded me of a T. S. Lowry painting, with small figures moving about.
The building housed two schools: a co-educational infants’ school and a boys’ secondary modern school. The infants’ school was on the ground floor, and the boys’ school was on the first floor. There were about 200 boys in the secondary modern. They were treated like little soldiers. Order and discipline prevailed. Every teacher kept a cane in their classroom. They used it when boys talked in class or ran along the corridor.
The boys were marched in lines two abreast to the swimming pool in Greengates Street or along Pickle Onion Entry to the park, where they played football and cricket.
At the start of school, a teacher blew a whistle. The boys stood still in the playground. The teacher blew his whistle again, and they walked to their designated lines, waiting silently for the whistle to blow a third time. When it blew, the boys marched into school, supervised by prefects
The school hall had a flat roof, which was used for physical training and by boys who were members of the art club. The roof gave them a wonderful pictorial vantage point, enabling them to paint and sketch views of Tunstall’s pottery factories with their bottle ovens and kilns, churches, shops and terraced houses.
Members of the art club won many prizes for their paintings. In 1962, they starred in a BBC film. It was shown in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe by Eurovision.
If you were a pupil at High Street School, please visit Share Your Story: Who Was Your Favourite Teacher? and tell us about your school days there.
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North Staffordshire Heritage 