Winthorpe County Primary School P.T.A.

The School and the P.T.A. both celebrate anniversaries this year 1981. The present school building was opened in September 1971. Ten years earlier on 9th May 1961 after an Open Evening at the old school building the Parent/Teacher's Association was born with high hopes and, Initially, modest funds. The princely sum of £1.08 was held after the first meeting but the Association pressed on with plans for functions and activities and aims to purchase a tape recorder and record player for the School. There was also however, a note of uncertainty about the future of the School, voiced by Minutes of the early meetings, which speculated: "Will the School be extended or closed and all Scholars transferred to Collingham?"

From this small beginning, the Association grew steadily and became an active and integral part of the village life. At that time extensive changes were taking place; the village was growing in size and the Newark by-pass was being built. This had an inevitable effect on the school, which in the old building was only capable of holding about 40 children. Throughout the mid-sixties the Association pressed County Hall to commit itself about the future of the School and requested that it be extended to cater for the growing numbers of children. A petition was taken round the village by the Association asking for the County Authority to enlarge the School and this was signed by 122 residents. The continued vigilance and representations made by the end of 1965 the County Authority accepted that the School should not be closed but should be extended or rebuilt.

Since the opening of the new School building ten years ago, the Association has continued to organise a wide range of activities from year to year, has been prominent in discussions about local issues, and has applied its funds to many projects large and small, which have benefited the School.

In the early stages library books and musical instruments were purchased and in more recent years P.T.A. Funds have enabled the School to purchase among other things, a colour television, a heat copier, a 16 mm. film projector with sound equipment and screen, a piano for the Infant class, and plans are now in hand to buy a jumbo type­writer, a microscope and sports equipment. Committee members have over the years devoted considerable amounts of time and skills in providing materials and making and renovating School equipment, such as the fine table-tennis table and puppet theatre and the netball and football goalposts and nets. With these achievements behind us the Association can look forward confidently to the challenge of the next twenty years.

Simon Bennett. Secretary Winthorpe P.T.A.

Extract from Focal Point. April 1981.

 

NOTE.

Further readings can be found in  

         The School in Winthorpe in Volume 1.

         Winthorpe County Primary School 1971 - 2006 in Volume 3. 

         Winthorpe County Primary School Centenary Booklet 1879 - 1979 in Volume 3.