Contents: Lady Knightley School | The National School | The Council School | Badby School Centenary 2013 | Badby Primary School in 2017 | May Day celebrations | Recollections of schooling in Badby | Back to History Section overview
The Lady Knightley School
The first school in Badby was a charity school supported by the Knightleys of Fawsley. It was housed in The Old School House on The Green, built in 1812 by James Wyatt for the Lady Mary Knightley who married Sir John Knightley in 1779.
The school was named ‘The Lady Knightley’ and provided education for twelve poor girls. Board and clothing such as boots, shawls and bonnets were provided for the six younger girls and a person who lived in the village taught them domestic work including the spinning and weaving of sheets.
The six older girls were known as Lady Knightley girls and went to Fawsley Hall each day where the housekeeper there taught them how to cook, clean, make beds, set tables and even feed fowl. At the age of 12 they could leave school if they passed what was called a Labour Certificate examination which enabled them to start in a situation with a good knowledge of household work. Otherwise they stayed at school until they were 14.
The school building was used in later years as an infant school, supported by the Knightleys, until the County Council took over the education of the village children in 1913.
The Old School House has now been listed as a building of historic interest (Grade 2, List Entry Number 1075239).
The National School
National Schools were founded in the 1800s by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. These schools provided elementary education in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England to the children of the poor.
The National School in Badby was started in 1870 by Mrs Mary Green, the second wife of the Rev. Thomas Green who was the vicar in the village from 1816 to until he died in 1871.
Mrs Green gathered a number of church-going girls in the vicarage on Sunday afternoons to learn poetry and hymns. She then began to teach them to read and write and subsequently decided to take a cottage for this purpose.
Opposite the vicarage there was a workhouse, however, this building was later converted into three cottages to be disposed of by the vicar at his discretion. The poor lived in these cottages, however, when the first of these cottages became vacant Mrs Green started the school for girls. As soon as the next cottage became vacant it was taken for a school for boys and then the third cottage was finally added to the school.
These buildings eventually needed repairing and bringing up to acceptable standards, and the school board attempted to raise money by subscription for repair and extension. However, insufficient money could be found to do these and the National School was closed, while education of the village children passed to the County Council.
In 1966 the building was declared unsafe and pulled down. Today the site is now used for car parking.
The Council School
The present Badby School, on School Lane, was built by the Council, opening in January 1913, on the site already used by the school children for gardening lessons. For some years the Council had the meadow behind the Hollies earmarked for a school playing field. When the Hollies was sold in 1965 the Council purchased the field and the playing area was completed in 1967.
The original Georgian school building was extended to include a science room, classrooms and hall and these were opened in 1975.
Nature study was taken seriously and the school pioneered nature trails in Badby wood and Fawsley Park. The children produced their own leaflets, printed in the school, which included a ‘Badby Wood Nature Trail’, ‘Badby Discovery Trail’ and a ‘Historical Trail’. The leaflets gave properly marked out routes and described in detail trees, landmarks, flowers and vegetation, animals and bird to be seen in the area.
The school was rewarded for its interest in its surroundings and came second in a national competition sponsored by the British Tourist Authority and The Guardian newspaper. Headmaster, Mr. N.J. Lucas, went to London to receive a plaque from HRH The Duke of Gloucester. The plaque used to hang in the school vestibule – present-day teachers have looked for the plaque but unfortunately it cannot be found.
Badby School Centenary 2013
In February 2013, the school celebrated its 100th birthday with a week of exciting events. Each class investigated and explored life in a different decade from 1913 to 2013 finding out about music, fashion and key events in history. Pupils also spent a day learning as the children would have in 1913. They used chalk and a slate board instead of laptops to write, sat in rows and learned to use the handwriting style from long ago.
Past pupils, teachers and headteachers came to visit in class and attend an evening party, including the school’s oldest living past pupil, Mr Roy Barnett, who was 94 years old at the time. At the end of the week a birthday party was held with a disco and birthday cakes.
Badby Primary School in 2017
The original school had what was called the infant hall and two additional classrooms which are still there today. In the 1970s the school was extended to include an additional seven classrooms and a large hall. The hall is used for many activities including assemblies, PE and there is a stage for school performances such as Christmas pantomimes and end of year school plays. Children also have their lunch in there.
There are seven classes which are for Reception and Years 1-6. There is a teacher and teaching assistant for each class and up to 25 children in a class. The age range is from 4-11 years. At 11 years old they leave and go on to a range of secondary schools. Also within the school there is Bluebells Pre-school which is a small and friendly nursery for children from age 3 years which was established in 2011 by the Badby School governors.
The school gate opens at 8.40am and registration is between 8.50 to 8.55am. School finishes at 3.30pm. Reception and Class 1 finish at 3.20pm. There are breaks in the morning and afternoon. Lunch is from 12-1.00pm and children can either bring a packed lunch or have a hot meal which is prepared in what is called “The Pod”. Most children come to school by car, very few walk to school these days.
Lessons include maths, reading, RE, science, PE, French, IT and sports. Children learn by using information technology and interactive whiteboards.
There is one playground which includes playing fields and climbing frames where both girls and boys play. Games include football and hopscotch. There are also table-top games such as snakes and ladders, drafts and table tennis. Children go out of school for walks around the village and Badby woods throughout the year especially in May to see the bluebells. Visits outside the village include botanical gardens and the Derngate theatre to see the Christmas pantomime each year. Various theatre and history groups also visit the school.
Pupils also help to organise the annual Macmillan Coffee Morning in the village hall. There are extra curriculum activities during lunch times and after school. These include football, basketball, knitting, chess and games club, arts and crafts.
For many years the highlight of the school year has been the “Rose Day” event when the elected Rose King and Queen are crowned at a ceremony held in June or July and incorporating Maypole dances. This replaces the traditional May Day celebrations.
May Day celebrations
May Day was celebrated from the early days of the school. The procession would go around the village and sing songs with the May garland which was a framework of hazel wood decorated with flowers.
The May Day celebrations stopped in 1954 and were re-established by the then Headteacher (and by then Chair of the Parish Council), Mr F.W. Harrison, in 1960. His daughters, Jane and Deborah, write about their memories of the event in 1960.
“In the morning the Junior School pupils paraded around the village singing English folk songs carrying a garland made by Mrs Clara Shaw, whose mother, Mrs Elizabeth Cox had made the last one in 1934. By 1.30pm “the stage” was set and the Maypole erected on the Green outside “The Laurels”. The cast of the May Queen, her attendants and that of the Mummers Play “St George and the Dragon” then arrived.
“The Queen was Margaret Parratt. The attendants were Janet Trotman, Carol Barnstable, Valerie Collins, Maureen Thompson and Linda Darwood.
“The cast of the Mummers Play was:
Jester – Jane Harrison
St George – Robert Collins
Slasher – the Knight, Graham Parrott
The Doctor – Andrew Warr
The Dragon – Jill Bull
The Clown – Stephen Smith
Little Jerry Dout – David Fennell
[Jane and Deborah cannot remember who played Johnny Jack and Bellsie Bob.]
“The May Queen was crowned with flowers made by Mrs Harrison and after the play there was Maypole and Country Dancing taught by Miss Mason, followed by Morris Dancing by students of the Abbey School in Daventry. The day ended with everyone present dancing the Circassian Circle and enjoying an afternoon tea provided by the PTA.”
Some years later May Day was replaced by the Badby School Rose Day held every year in June or July, with celebrations include the crowning of an elected Rose Queen and King, maypole dancing, a fete and traditional country dancing from all the school children.
Jane and Deborah look back on their childhood with great affection: the freedom they enjoyed in the village and woods in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the happy times they spent with their peers and the many and varied aspects of village life. They remember the excitement of the weekend a Travelling Fair came to the Green with the usual sideshows and swing-boats. The sledging on “The Race” in the long winter of 1962/63 (when incidentally the school never closed!), the Chapel Youth Club where Jane and Mervyn Bull won the Twist Marathon!, and most of all, they value how everyone looked out for each other, a tight knit community and home for their formative years.
Sources:
1. Badby Parish Appraisal 2000
2. Compilation by Lynne Green with the help of a teacher at Badby Primary School, July 2017
3. Badby Primary School Website
4. Jane Fletcher & Deborah Chapman
February 2018, updated 4 March 2025