CCHS

Kate Stubbs, Marketing and Communications Manager CCHSG

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HISTORY OF THE HEADTEACHERS OF CCHS - Part 2

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In 1957, Colchester County High School for Girls became united on one site when the new premises were opened at Norman Way, where the school is today.  In 1956 Miss King retired after 25 years at CCHS.  She was presented with a travelling clock and a patchwork bedspread which every girl in school had helped to embroider.  It was the new Headteacher, Miss Katherine Vashon Baker, who, as she wrote in the 1953 School Magazine, “after many years of disappointment and hopes deferred”, was in charge of supervising the school’s move to Norman Way in 1957.  The plan, originally mooted before WW2, had taken some 30 years to come to fruition.

 

The new, rather more functional 1950s school building took some getting used to after the elegant surroundings of Georgian Grey Friars.  Miss Vashon Baker summed up the mixed feelings in her opening speech:  “We cannot but feel great regret at leaving Grey Friars where the girls and staff have found peace and serenity, but we must all feel a sense of thankfulness that plans for transferring the school to new buildings and uniting it under the same roof ...... are at last fulfilled. ... How much having a school in one building will mean to us, you all will know.  And to this must be added many other things we have longed for; good laboratories, proper provision for Domestic Science, a full-sized and fully equipped gymnasium, and a hall where we can all meet…. The school will still be the same school in all the ways that matter.  We shall carry with us all the rich endowment of tradition, and friendship and ideals of the past years and former generations.  The greatest single advantage in the new building is that each room has been designed for its special purpose.  To our school, housed in separate buildings for so many years, the Hall in which the whole school can meet for daily assembly is one of our greatest pleasures.”

 

Under Miss Vashon Baker’s leadership, a House system was introduced, and a Parent-Teacher Association was formed.  The students and parents added to the school facilities by raising funds to build a swimming pool – something that some of the students involved were later to come to regret, as covering the pool was not something that could be afforded and heating was not introduced until 1966, when an average of 240 girls were using the pool every day.

 

Even at this initial stage there was a shortage of classrooms on the site, and a number of temporary “demountable” buildings, which were much disliked as poorly insulated and noisy, were installed.  They were not finally demolished until 2018 – and in 2021 one, used as a store, still remains.

 

Miss Joan Hasler, a graduate of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, became CCHS’s next Headmistress in 1967.  This was a period during which the national education system was changing, with comprehensive co-educational schools being widely introduced.  CCHS continued to pursue a selective education policy, with the school growing in popularity.  There were three forms of entry, with just 96 students in each year group.

 

Mrs Jean Goodfellow succeeded Miss Hasler in 1976 and held the post for the next 11 years overseeing the school’s move, as part of a national change, from centrally managed Local Education Authority funding, to devolved budgets as a “grant maintained” school.  “When I arrived the budget was £30,000” she recalled. ”When I left it was more than £1.8 million.  We were able to do so much more as a grant maintained school. We substantially improved our premises and we established a budget for in-service education for staff.  We were able to choose what to spend our money on and when it was appropriate to spend it.”

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Over time extensions have been made to the original building and new buildings added to the site.  The first was under the leadership of Dr Aline Black, who in 1996 was responsible for the “technology block” extension of the main building.

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