In the early 80s, Mrs Smith was Head of the Infants and Mr Corp was Head of the Junior school until 1986 when Mr John Waldren joined the school. Mr Walby was in charge of the school-crossing, just like Mr Dale does so brilliantly. Alumni memories are very positive of this time period, especially about the teaching and the school dinners.

“Lessons were usually good apart from when we had supply teachers – it was utter mayhem!”

The 1980s saw a lot of changes at Bishop Road, especially with extensive building work.

February 1980: Cost of school dinners went up to 35p.

July 1980: Mrs Rennie (Head of the Infants School) retired and the infant and Junior school amalgamated.

July 1981: On the 17th July, at 1.45pm, the last remaining Senior school pupils left Bishop Road.

September 1980: ‘Bishop Road Primary School’ opened for the first time as we know it and school dinners went up to 50p.

September 1984: 217 children listed on role across the 7 classes.

February 1985: The Nursery Department was officially opened (42 on role).

September 1989: Th school library was removed to accommodate an extra class (temporarily in a random corridor). Emergency meeting which decided that the R.L.D.U. (Resources for Learning and Development Unit) should leave Bishopston, the empty building to be shared between the MEC and the school, temporary building to be removed from the playground and the school to be re-roofed and treated for dry rot.

On a side note, one of the year 6 buildings was called ‘Terapin’ Building – if anyone has any more information on why this name was given, we would be very interested.

“School dinners were nice, I ate everything!”