Girls in tablecloths

The venerable Abbots Bromley Girls School was one of the early institutions in this country to educate girls, and it has been independent for over 140 years.

The residents get a treat each year with the Jerusalem Heights aka Commemoration Day Procession, which sees the youngsters process from the school premises through the village along to the church.

The pupils walk not in order of age or year-group, but in order of height, and wear white veils fringed with light blue (unofficially referred to as "the tea-towels") which makes it all rather endearing.
It's not dramatic enough an event to draw tourists, but local residents do stand and smile, as well as parents.

The members of the school choir (see pictures) get to wear an additional ankle-length white veil (unofficially referred to as "tablecloths").  As they go, they wave banners and sing the hymn "Jerusalem my happy home".  

Slightly batty, but then so many English customs are!

UPDATE  Sadly, the school closed its gates for the last time in 2019, so there will be no more such processions

Going to school for 150 years (plus)

Staffordshire is full of primary schools that still use old Victorian buildings. All Saints School in Bednall, which is a very small village, is just one example.

But... is it something to celebrate?  The fact that one of the world's leading nations is sending its children to schools that are past their sell-by date seems absurd to me.

Yet, we English do celebrate it! 
The plaque on this school (under the window - sorry, I know you can't read it) has been installed especially to mark the school's 150th anniversary in 2006.  Bednall's children have been attending here since 1856.

Do we laugh, or weep?

Chancel Primary knot

The Stafford Knot logo is pretty much everywhere in Staffordshire, and why not, as the logo of the county?
It's very often built into any heraldic symbols of any 'official' body. This is the plaque on the side of Chancel Primary School (which has now taken over the building occupied by the old grammar school in the 1930s) in Rugeley. It's right in the centre of the shield.

Alien gates

I’m not sure I much like these school gates at Waterside Primary in Hanley.  There’s something very cold and prison-like about them, and the thin, weedy structures coming out the top of them resemble nothing so much (to me) as alien antennae or unfriendly CCTV.

I haven’t been able to find out the symbolism yet, though the school is called Waterside because it is next to the canal, and it prides itself on an environmentally-friendly policy. I guess the wave-forms could symbolise water…

Anyway, I pity the poor children who have to go through them every day.