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| Bournemouth Church History |
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The Managers of St. Walburga's prepared a scheme in February 1938 for the enlargement of the School, and in October 1939 gave formal notice of their intention to provide an additional 120 places. However, by then war had broken out and all building work had to be postponed.
On 28th August 1939 the School re-opened after the summer holidays, but on 31st it was closed early in the afternoon to prepare for the evacuation of children from Southampton.
The School remained closed until 11th September, from which date the premises were shared with St. Mark's School from Southampton, the two schools using the premises turn and turn about mornings one week and afternoons the next week.
On 16th October St. Mark's was able to be accommodated at the nearby Charminster School, leaving St. Walburga's in full-time possession of its own premises.
The next major interruption came on 31st May 1940 when the School was closed in connection with the reception in local schools of French and Belgian troops evacuated from Dunkirk, and it was not until 10th June that Classes could resume.
This proved to be very short lived since on 12th June the military again required the use of Schools as temporary centres for soldiers, mostly British, from other parts of France. These finally left on 27th June and the School re-opened on 1st July.
It was on 3rd July that the first air raid warning was given, at 2.55 p.m., and the children quickly went to their assigned shelters. From that time onwards such warnings became very frequent. Owing to war time shortages black-out curtains could not be obtained for the School until 1942, after which normal school hours could be worked.
Although engaged in ah all-out effort to win the war, the Government found time to sponsor a new education bill, which was passed by Parliament as the Education Act 1944 to come into operation on 1st April 1945. This Act was fundamental and far reaching in its effects of the national education system.
Education in the schools was divided into Primary and Secondary, the transfer from one to the other being at about the age of 11 years. Amongst other reforms the school leaving age was raised to 15 from September 1947.
To enable the leaving age to be raised, the new Ministry of Education arranged for extra classrooms in temporary construction to be built throughout the country by the Ministry of Works, and a one classroom unit was in this way provided for St. Walburga's School.
Although taken out of use for school purposes some years ago, the hut is still in existence, having been used until recently as a Scout hut.
To implement the provision of secondary education as envisaged by the Act discussion took place within the Catholic community, with the result that the Bishop of Portsmouth, acting on behalf also of the Kinson area by agreement with the Bishop of Plymouth, put forward a scheme for a new Catholic Secondary School.
In addition the proposal included the conversion of Holy Cross School, Boscombe, and St. Walburga's into primary schools and the building of an additional primary school for Kinson.
These proposals were accepted by the Bournemouth Education Committee and included within the Authority's Development Plan for Education, which the Act required each Authority to prepare.
The Education Act provided for a considerable expansion of the School Meals Service with the aim of making dinner facilities available for every school. During the war years dinners had been served at St. Walburga's; these were cooked elsewhere and the school hall was used as a dining room.
The School was due to have its own kitchen and dining room provided as part of the general expansion; unfortunately a reduction of public expenditure became necessary by the end of the 1940s and St. Walburga's was one of a group of schools at which the building of meals premises was postponed.
When the school leaving age was raised in September 1947, the pupils at Holy Cross School due to remain at school for the additional year were transferred to St. Walburga's, as there were not enough of them to form a class at their own school. In view of the rapid building up of the West Howe and Kinson districts, a school bus was started from Kinson to St. Walburga's in October 1949.
It had not proved possible by 1954 to build the proposed secondary school, so the Managers of St. Walburga's decided to provide a domestic science and a handicraft room for the school, and a large timber building to give these facilities was obtained. In the same year Holy Cross was reorganised as a primary school, the pupils over 11 being transferred to St. Walburga's in September of that year.
Planning for the eventual use of St. Walburga's as a primary school was considered by the Managers in 1955 and as a first step it was decided to replace the existing rather small assembly hall by a larger one.
The hall was demolished during the summer holidays of 1956; the new hall and a new staff room were taken into use in March 1957. Whilst this work was taking place one class was accommodated at the Annunciation Hall. This Hall was used as an annexe to the School on numerous occasions during the period 1947 to 1962.
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