Kentisbeare C of E Primary School

Kentisbeare is a Church of England Voluntary Primary School. We still maintain the principles of the foundation and Christian values underlie the aims of the School. The main school is an attractive Victorian building, which has been modified and extended. During the last few years there has been a significant amount of development which has provided improved accommodation for some of the classes. The main development was completed with the opening of 3 new classrooms in May 2002 and the latest phase was completed in 2009. 

The earliest record of a school in Kentisbeare is in the days of Oliver Cromwell when “Henry Walrond went to schoole to Mr Ghiles of Kentisbeare” in 1665. There followed various schools for the sons of gentlemen, but working class children had to wait until 1764 for “a small school for instructing children to read”. In 1799 there were ‘two little schools which teach reading and writing’.

According to the records of the National Society, our present school was founded in 1793 and was developed from the Church Sunday school. It was operating as a day school by 1827. In 1798 the incumbent wrote that there was ‘One writing school and a Sunday School of One Hundred Children’. The official records of the Education Department record it from 1855.

At this time the premises were between the Reading Room garden and Priest Hill, but failed to meet the standards of the 1870 Education Act. In order to qualify for the new “grant” a new school was built in 1874 in the centre of the village with a capacity for 120 pupils (boys and girls). A schoolmaster’s house was also built, opposite the Wyndham Arms. The total cost was £875.18s.0d. The title deeds state that the school was ‘for the education of children and adults of the labouring and manufacturing and other poorer classes in the Parish of Kentisbeare’.

“The opening day was a great occasion for the village. The streets and church tower were decorated with bunting, there was a special service in the Parish Church, a band played and the church bells were rung.”

Numbers grew to 140 and the Department warned that 'the infants' room will accommodate 24 and there are 54 on the books .... This should be remedied, or the grant will be endangered'. As a result, a new infants classroom was built in 1894 at a cost of £272 2s 3d. By June 1876 there were 157 on the roll.

A reorganisation in 1937 resulted in the senior children (over 11 years) transferring to Cullompton Senior School, dropping numbers to 40. Although numbers rose during the war, by 1943 numbers were down to 39 - the lowest on record. School meals were introduced in 1943 and five years later the demolished Horsa was erected.

When Blackborough School closed in 1948 its twenty pupils were transferred to Kentisbeare, bringing with them Mrs E Taylor, headmistress, to take charge of the Infants.

The Devon Lady temporary classroom was added in 1963 and the swimming pool in 1965. The School House became part of the school in 1971 when the headmaster moved out. The centenary of the opening of the present building was in 1974.