The History of Ingham Primary School

One outstanding feature of the history of Ingham school is that, in more than 140 years of existence it has had only 10 permanent Head Teachers. The inference must be that they liked the village, or the village liked them.

The school came into being in its imposing position overlooking the village green in April 1878, the Head Teacher, Mr G. Hanson or “The Master” as he was known was the sole teacher and was plagued by irregular attendance of the children mainly due to harvesting or crop picking.

By 1883 there were 130 children on roll and at this stage the school acquired its second teacher, Miss Gertrude Bell, who lived in the village until she was past 90 years of age.

The next head was to be the longest serving of them all, holding the appointment for 30 years. Mr Bird relinquished his position in 1921 and was replaced by the second longest serving head Mr G. W. Crosby, who held the position for almost 27 years.

Mr H. Wilmore took charge in 1948 and it was after raising of the school leaving age to 15 that senior children were brought from neighbouring villages along the cliff to form a nucleus of older scholars, thus raising the school roll to 135. The raising of the school leaving age brought the first extension of the accommodation with the provision of a temporary classroom and the then village hall was in regular use. Prior to this the whole school had been taught in the original building.

In 1960 Mr F. G. Angel took charge of the school and was immediately faced with changes to the transfer age and process for secondary school education.

In 1964 Fillingham school closed its doors for the last time due to declining numbers and the children were brought to Ingham by bus. This gave a total of over 100 children on roll and the school gained another mobile classroom.

In 1978 Mr Alan Tedds became the Head Teacher. A new school had been mooted for Ingham as long ago as 1970, but it was not until the mid 1980's that any progress was made in this respect with the erection of new buildings adjacent to the site of the original school.

Mr Tedds continued as Head Teacher until his sudden death in 2002. The position was then taken up by Mrs Alldis, and then by Head Teacher Mrs Nicola Gough who left in 2010. Mr Ian Tyas was Head Teacher between 2010 until April 2022. Mrs Hutchinson took over as Head Teacher at the school at the end of April 2022 and has continued guiding the school forward into the future.