Sad Farewell: Acting headteacher at Wood Top Infants, Carol Lombard, with pupils and staff on the last day of registration. (Copy of image from the newspaper)
The doors will close at Wood Top School for the last time today. After 134 years the school will ring the final bell to mark the end of school and the end of an era. Falling pupil numbers, a critical Ofsted report and an old Victorian building, which needed £340,000 to bring it up to scratch, led to members of Lancashire County Council's Schools and General Purposes Sub-committee agreeing to the closure in May. Now forty-two of the 61 remaining children will be forced to move on to another infant school, with the remainder leaving for primary school.
The school was originally named Wood Top Church of England Day School, Habergham. The headmaster, Mr. Connell, had just two pupil teachers to help him run the school. Education was also a highly competitive business. Wood Top lost scholars when a Wesleyan school opened nearby, offering a more attractive service to pupils and opening for 15 minutes longer than Wood Top in the morning. In fact, it is on record that some pupils removed themselves from the old school to the new one without their parents' knowledge.
At the turn of the century Wood Top changed from a primary to an infant school - the way it has remained ever since. After the 1945 Education Act the school adopted state-aided status, under which the church appointed four of the six school managers. More recently the school became state-controlled with the education authority appointing four managers and the Parochial Church Council only two, with the Vicar as chairman.
In 1985 the school was chosen to greet Prince Charles and Princess Diana at Rosegrove Station.
From a longer article by Anne-Marie Houghton.