PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Following the transfer of education from the Devonport School Board to the Local Education Authority on June 1st 1903, Cherry Garden Street Board School became the Cherry Garden Street Elementary School. Cherry Garden Street was renamed York Street and consequently the school was also renamed York Street Elementary School. When the Borough of Devonport was amalgamated with Plymouth and Stonehouse in 1914, the School was, of course, transferred to the new Plymouth Local Education Authority. On two days in June 1928, the 15th and the 29th, a Miss M S Ryan, HM Inspector of Schools, visited the premises. She described the main schoolroom as a passage room for five classes and commented that two of the lowest classes were actually taught side-by-side. He report on the Standard 1 class was somewhat damming: '(It) contains a number of backward children, some of whom can neither read nor write'. In 1935 some old premises in Pond Lane were purchased by Devonport Corporation and demolished to make way for an to the boys' playground. Three years later, the School was reorganised, partly demolished and rebuilt to conform to the latest Board of Education standards. It was reopened on Friday April 1st 1938 as a Junior Mixed and Infants' School, with a Nursery Class for forty children. The Head Master was Mr V T Pedlar. In addition to the assembly hall, there were eleven classrooms providing accommodation for 528 pupils, plus two practical rooms holding a further 100. The infants entered from York Street and their classrooms were arranged down one side of a corridor, with the cloakrooms on the opposite side. At the far end was the assembly hall. The juniors entered from a new entrance off Pond Lane and went to their seven classrooms and the two practical rooms on the first floor by means of a staircase by the assembly hall. Externally, there were outside staircases at each end of the building and the sanitary blocks were positioned away from the main building. The boys used the original playground while a new one on the west side of Pond Lane was provided for the infants and girls. Along with a boiler room, there was also two bathrooms and a milk store, where the milk could be warmed. A nursery classroom had its own entrance off York Street. It had separate cloakroom, lavatories and playground. York Street Elementary School was badly damaged in the Devonport Blitz of the Second World War. All except the assembly hall and four classrooms was gutted. Under the reorganisation of education brought about by the Education Act 1944, as from Sunday April 1st 1945 York Street Elementary became the York Street Primary School.
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