King Offa celebrates centenary

Today's pupils have worked for months to research the history of their school.

They had responded equally magnificently to the occasion - each clad in Edwardian-style costume.

As they packed the larger hall the results of their labours were all about them. Eager youngsters were waiting to show the school's guests their work.

A corner of the flag be-decked hall was devoted to an Edwardian classroom, complete with bell, teacher's desk, ink, bell - and cane.

Pupils had culled material from school logbooks to make displays. They had written imaginatively through the pens of their Edwardian forebears. They had traced crime and (corporal) punishment.

Photographs of stiffly-posed pioneer classes contrasted with memorabilia from the intervening decades.

They had gone through the trades directory in a 1907 almanac to trace the businesses of the day - milliners and dairymen, drapers, confectioners and even cutlers.

Each leaf of a symbolic King Offa tree bears the name of a pupil - past pupils adding the year they joined the school.

Facing a sea of caps, waistcoats and pinafores, headteacher Jenni Miller told pupils and guests who included Town Mayor Cllr Eric Armstrong of her childhood ambition to teach and to return to her own school as head.

There was nostalgia for the guests as well.

Cllr Paul Lendon, a contemporary, said on entering the building: "I never thought I would come back here on its centenary as a school governor..."

When the school opened the Forth Bridge was the engineering marvel of the age. Key Stage 2 had learned and performed the Forth Bridge Song for Wednesday's occasion.

The head told her school: "This is a very special assembly.....I want to thank you all for all the work that you have done. Some people have been beavering away since last September to get everything ready.

"This morning is not the culmination of all that we have done because I feel that we are on a journey. You wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. You don't think 'I am going to be part of history.'

"You don't realise that some day ALL that you do will be part of history.

"People are going to look back at this - as we have done at 1907 and the 'Fifties and all the pages of history people have been looking at.

"We are on a journey. We are not finished yet. One thing leads on to something else..."

It was a privilege to be head at such a time.

"I used to be a pupil here. When you start off on your journey in life you often have aspirations of what you want to do.

"My family used to say to me 'I bet you will be a teacher.' The only thing I ever wanted to do was to work as a teacher and also with teams of experts because the is SO important in a school. "

Some aspects of today's school were unchanged. Others were completely different.

"We are all making that history this morning. Somebody one day will look back at our logbooks and read about all of you."

The Town Mayor said a letter of invitation from the pupil had ended: "We would like you to come because we would enjoy that."

He told the assembly: "Every time I come to King Offa I enjoy it...."

He recalled his own childhood when he was small and his school seemed huge. We all started with a small footprint, he told the children. But who knew how big an impact they would grow up to make?

Pupils sang The Bell Of Creation.

Chairman of governors Alison Watts congratulated all concerned on the way the anniversary was being celebrated and the centenary assembly ended with the singing of Jerusalem.