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The Elementary Education Act of 1870 provided for the education of the whole population of England and Wales; it created school boards, whose members were democratically elected, and which had the powers to build and run schools and to compel attendance. It was a major step forward in helping the children of poor families.
The School Board for London (the SBL) was the largest educational provider in London, and highly influential. Its policy was to provide modern, well-built schools with enough places for the poorest children, and in 1871 the SBL passed a by-law compelling parents to send all children between 5 and 13 to school.
By the 1880s, the SBL was educating over 350,000 children in over 400 schools, offering them an education and a school environment often much superior to private or charity schools. A visitor to a cookery class in a board school in West Lambeth in the 1890s bore witness to the well-planned classroom and the quality of the teaching.
The cookery school was in a building detached from the main body of the school, specially provided for the purpose. Everything in the room was neat and clean. The teacher stood behind a demonstration counter, facing the girls, who sat in a stepped gallery, making it easy for them all to see. There was a gas stove in the middle of the demonstration counter, and a kitchen range elsewhere in the room. On the blackboard beside the counter the teacher wrote the ingredients for the dishes to be cooked. After she had demonstrated the dishes, it was the turn of the girls to come to the counter and try cooking themselves, spurred on by the knowledge that what they cooked would be served to the other teachers.
The cookery teacher herself was required to be a fully certificated cook. She was also responsible for buying the raw materials as economically as possible and keeping correct accounts. And, of course, she had to possess all the qualities a good teacher needs. Her salary was between £80 and £100 a year – cheap at the price, one feels.
The visitor to the West Lambeth board school shown below was touched by the enthusiasm of the girls: they buzzed round their teacher, asking eager questions, and were quick to catch all her hints and suggestions. They took delight in their own prowess, and gleefully related all their experiments at home. See this illustration in the 'Children' category on this website.
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