In 1873 the trustees of the Town Lands Charity legally transferred the ownership of the land immediately to the west of the church to be used as the site of a brand new ‘National’ primary school for the village. Thecompleted building, which included accommodation for the head teacher, cost over £550 and opened to admit its first 24 pupils on Monday 12th Jan 1874 – just the next day a very blunt entry states: “children all very ignorant.”

As we can see from the first 3 pages of the School Report Book covering the opening term there were a fair few challenges – the main one being attendance, which appears to have grown very gradually to around 60 over 5 months. A monitor from Weybread School was supposed to assist in the mornings but was constantly reported as absent. Despite regular visits from the local clergy the results of various examinations were repeatedly described as “unsatisfactory”. By 14th May 1875 the book states that “average attendance low (35), several boys absent working in fields”, other reasons for poor turnout included illness and bad weather.

Throughout the rest of the 19th century, particularly in agricultural areas, there was an ongoing battle between the authorities and poor families who repeatedly kept children away from school when they were desperately needed for working in the fields, at harvest time, or for doing essential household chores due to parental illness. Numerous newspaper reports of cases in front of local Magistrates relate to parents being fined for “neglecting to send their children to school.” By the early Edwardian period special ‘Attendance Certificates’ were being awarded to encourage children not to miss school - like those belonging to young Sidney Spinlove who also appears in the 1911 school photo. The first Head Mistress appears to have thrown in the towel after two years, as Rev Fitzgerald was already advertising for a replacement in October 1875. By 1883 average attendance was still around 30, but in 1900 Needham School was expanded at the cost of £134 to accommodate up to 120 pupils. In 1902 it was required to complete a survey for the new bosses at Norfolk County Council and the average attendance was now reported to be a very creditable 79 out of 99 places. The plan of the school set up and an inventory of its contents and staff was included. (See p.8)

However, by 1959 pupil numbers had plummeted to a mere 17 children, and the school was finally closed.

NEEDHAM SCHOOL PLAN 1902