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   The National School, 1870-1904
 The Education Act of 1870 made education compulsory although it was not until 1875 that the National School was established in Folkingham. The building in the Market Place cost £1000 to build and could cater for 120 children On 25 June 1875 Mr Walter Lawton took up his duties as Master.

The school was regularly inspected by Reverend George Carter and Edward John Grummitt who held the position of School Correspondent; it was his responsibility to periodically check the attendance register and attest to its correctness. The inspections were often unannounced.
In addition there would be official visits by the Attendance Officer and annual visits by Her Majesty's Inspector.

Right from the start the Head Teacher had considerable trouble in maintaining an acceptable attendance. The school Log Books regularly record children who failed to attend, many of them were persistent offenders and these children were brought to the attention of the Attendance Officer. Mr Lawson resigned from his position in 1879 because of his frustration over consistently poor attendance. His successor, Mr W. Moss fared little better.

Lack of attendance was inevitably reflected in standards of schooling and the Log Book records on 9 November 1888 a list of 'irregular' children "who have not passed Fourth Standard nor reached 13 years". The list includes Deborah and George Harrison (who were sister and brother of Jane, later to become the wife of John Pile) who had both been absent three times in the previous week; the Log Book further records that the Attendance Officer would visit their parents!

Deborah's parents appear not to have got the message as just five weeks later she appears on a further list sent to the Attendance Officer having been absent twice in the last week. On 12 December she herself was sent to the Attendance Officer.

At least Deborah Harrison had started school. On 8 March 1889 the Head Teacher wrote in the Log;
"I gave the Attendance Officer the names of the following three children, a fortnight ago, as they had never yet attended the school, but they have not yet made a beginning:-" Percy Pile aged 7 years Minnie Clark " 5 " Edwin Clark " 5 "
The Clark children attended school very soon after this, presumably the Attendance Officer had visited their parents. However Henry and Elizabeth Pile still did not send their eldest child to the school, a fact recorded in the school Log on 3 April and 1 May. David Percy Pile eventually started school on 17 November 1890 when the Log says
"Admitted David Percy and Henry Pile aged eight and six respectively.
This is their first appearance in any school except a Dame's school."
There were several "Dames Schools" in Folkingham from around 1794, they were fee paying and private and principally provided education for "young ladies" although they did admit boys as well. Percy and Henry Pile would almost certainly have attended the school operated by Miss Casswell in Back Lane (now Chapel Street).

The poor attendance records can be attributed to a number of causes. All parents were liable for school charges. These were initially at the rate of 9d per child per week for children of trades people, 4d for non-labourer's children and 3d for those of labourers. Parents could however appeal to the school governors for funding in cases of exceptional hardship and in many cases they paid because it was important for them to maintain a good attendance as Government grants depended upon it.

Attendance was always low in late summer as local farmers required all the labour they could get for the harvest and this inevitably included local children.

Even in the late nineteenth century many parents did not consider educating their daughters as important and this too is reflected in the school Log, there are more cases of girls not attending than boys. Girls, in many families, were almost considered to be domestic servants and if their mother had young children to look after this would take precedence over schooling.

On 1 April 1889 a method of improving attendance was introduced whereby each child who attended for a full five days would be given a ticket on the Friday afternoon, this would count as one penny towards the next week's fees payable on the Monday. There is no real evidence to suggest that it worked although it shows how important the Governors considered good attendance to be regardless of their motives.

The school was open for the whole year except for a short break over Christmas, although it was closed for various reasons throughout the year. Every July there was a traditional fair at nearby Stow Green and as most children attended this the school allowed them the day off.

The school also closed on several occasions because of illness in the community, in both 1890 and 1891 it closed for a whole week because of measles and 'colds' respectively, and in 1896 the local doctor ordered the school to close for almost a month due to whooping cough. There are also several accounts of the school opening and then having to close because there were too few children there to be worth staying open.

Henry and Elizabeth Pile continued to send their children to the school; Mary (26 October 1891), Gertrude (3 October 1892), George Cecil (2 April 1895) and Bertie (26 September 1898) all started between the ages of three and five. Edith and Constance also attended, although their is no record of when they started, Edith left on 14 November 1902 at the age of 14 and on the same day it is recorded that Constance "has been absent 5 times this week"

From 1895 David Percy started to have poor attendance recorded in the school log until on 13 March 1896 he left the school.

John and Jane Pile also sent their children to Folkingham school, Edmund being the first starting on 4 October 1897 still a month short of his fourth birthday. His younger brother Wilfred started on 18 July 1899 at the age of four, there is no record, however of when older sister Lily started school although she is recorded as being absent two times on 4 July 1900.

Wilfred Pile must have been a particularly difficult child for the school to deal with, the mental problems which dominated his relatively short life showed in an long entry in the school Log dated 24 September 1900:
"A boy named Wilfred Pile, aged 5, attends this school who neither says nor does anything that is told him. He simply pouts and screams and obstinately refuses to do as he is told. This I believe to be nothing but temper. This afternoon he was at the same game so I fetched him into my room to say the alphabet after his sister, as he would not say it for the teacher. After standing for an hour (3.20 to 4.20) without speaking a word, the door was suddenly opened by the mother, who called him out of school and took him away without either first knocking or asking to speak to me.
signed W. Moss"
Wilfred's mental condition was apparent even at this young age and must have given the school a serious problem, they would have been quite unable to give the necessary help and Wilfred may have been disruptive to the other children. Despite this he and Lily seemed to have attended regularly there being only one further attendance entry in the log for 12 April 1901 which records

"Our attendance is very poor. Lily Pile and Wilfred Pile have been absent all week...".
The head teacher's attitude towards Wilfred appears to have been unsympathetic and an entry for 28 June 1901 is abrupt:
"Examined the whole school in the work prepared in the third quarter and am well satisfied with the results except in the following cases:- … Pile Wilfred aged 5 an idiot …
Despite his problems Wilfred remained a pupil at the school with no further log entries. John and Elsie joined Wilfred, Lily and Edmund although there are no records of their dates of admission.

On 15 April 1904 the log records Edmund, Wilfred, John and Elsie left the school with Lily remaining a pupil until 7 October. (This may have coincided with the time that John and Jane and their children moved to nearby Billingborough).

The records after this date are far less detailed as at the end of March 1906 the Head Teacher left Folkingham for a new post in Buckinghamshire and on April 6 Ernest Shipway "commenced duties as Head Teacher", unfortunately his entries in the log do not show the same attention to detail as those of his predecessor.

The National School became a Church of England Controlled School in 1952, it finally closed in July 1986. 		 
     
  Copyright © 2005 Andrew Pile