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Michael Thomas born 1958 School Memories

Chigwell House School, 1963-69

King Edward's Five Ways Grammar School, 1969-1976

Chigwell House School

Chigwell House School: 5, Highfield Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham   (Closed circa 1974)

I attended Chigwell House School from 1963 to 1969, following both my brothers, Roger & Peter, there. It was a private, fee-paying school and was considered one of the top junior schools in the area. It was a subsidiary of Greenmore College (Edgbaston) and it was housed in an old (?Victorian) house on the Calthorpe estate. However, it seems the school increasingly had financial problems. The building became quite run-down by the start of the 1970s and was demolished soon after the school closed.  Looking at the still empty site, there doesn't seem room for a school building, but the presence of the old playground (used as a car park) is proof of its former usage.

Unfortunately, I do not have any school photographs dating from the period I was there, though I'm sure at least one was taken. If anyone has a school photo from this period, please contact me. Ironically, my brothers have 3 school photos dated 1959, 1960 & 1961, from which I'll be taking the photos of the teachers for use here.

My class and my form teachers:

Below is a listing of the classes I was in, the years and the form teachers:

Some notes about the above table:
According to my earliest school reports (1963), the headmaster was F. Cade as far as I can tell from the signature. I don't remember him, only Mr Hamilton.
In Form 2, I remember being taught by Mrs Barton, but my Autumn term report is signed by Mrs Jacobs & Mrs Hancox, so I can only assume Mrs Barton left suddenly, partway through the term and her workload was taken on by Mrs Jacobs until a replacement (Mrs Hancox) was employed. Mrs Hancox signed both the later reports for that school year.
I think Mrs Evans left the school in 1965 and was replaced by Miss Fear.

The Teachers:

My Fellow Pupils:

A couple of years ago, I bumped into an old school friend who went to both Chigwell House & Five Ways, Peter Eckersley. He was trying to trace all the people in his first year class at Five Ways, but he also sent a list of all the pupils in our form at Chigwell. This, combines with my own memories has been used to form the list below. However, it numbers 24 children and I don't recall the classes being that big. There was some movement between years;  if pupils were bright, they moved up a year. I DO remember Form 4 being quite a big class, however, some of whom stayed on until the following year, probably due to their age?

King Edward's Five Ways Grammar School