The Village School
The full article from which this summary is taken is available here. There are photographs in the Gallery at the bottom of the page.
Although there had been schools in Culbokie since the late 18th Century, the new Culbokie Primary School was opened on November 3rd 1873, after the Education Act of Scotland in 1872 made education compulsory for children age 5-13. The old school building has several Victorian features such as the arched door with heavy iron hinges, arched windows and tall chimneys.
In November 1873 William Fowler took up the post of Headteacher at the new Culbokie Primary School. The first day of the new school opened with praise and prayer at 10am.
Sometimes attendance was low due to the weather e.g. storms, snow or freezing conditions, or illnesses such as measles, scarletina, scarlet fever, whooping cough, chicken pox or mumps. Children were often absent from school as they helped their parents at the quarterly market days, late harvests, potato planting and lifting. Boys were often used to help with the beating on the Findon estate, or cattle-herding in June. The school holidays at this time were very different from the holidays today.
By 1914 there were 2 classrooms in the village school and children started school age 5. However if their family lived in an outlying area school began at age 7, as the children had to walk to school sometimes a long way. The School day was from 9 till 4 Monday to Friday, but 3.30 for children from outlying areas to allow time to walk home. These children were only allowed half an hour for lunch.
If the children passed a qualifying exam at the age of 12 they went to Dingwall Academy, otherwise they stayed at Culbokie until age the age of 14, the official school leaving age at the time.
On September 4th 1939 school was closed for a week when World War II broke out. The children still attended school during the war and many said that they did not realise a war was on except that the young men had left the village.
In 1979 the road from the Findon Hall was re-aligned to run along side the boundary wall of the Findon Hall. This provided the school with a safe playing area and later space to erect further classrooms in portacabins. Two photographs of work in progress can be viewed in the Gallery below.
The new Culbokie primary school opened at Easter 2007 and the old school building was purchased by the Church of Scotland in 2010.
A previous school located in Fernlea - now Schoolcroft.
We are indebted to Maureen and Alastair Rose for their contribution of the history of the old school. The text of their story can be found here.
The photograph of the school can be found in the Gallery at the foot of the page, click here.
The life of Ellen (Helen) Fowler wife of William Fowler, first headteacher.
We are indebted to David Rendell for his contribution of the life of Ellen Fowler which he prepared as part of a School Mistress project 2013 for The Family and Community History Research Society (FACHRS). The story can be found by clicking here.
Interior views of the classrooms in the 1970s
We are indebted to Angus Bethune, a former pupil, for these photographs of the classrooms in 2006 just prior to the closure of the school. They can be viewed on this page. Hidden behind a piece of panelling a piece of paper was found and can be seen in the gallery at the foot of the page. The full story can be found on the War Memorials page, courtesy of Alastair Rose.
A headteacher's scrapbook.
Click here to see a selection of class sets of school pupils during Stuart Greave's tenure as headteacher from 1982 to 1998. Some dates require confirmation.
Examples of exam papers from the 1950s
How would we fare now?
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
To open a pdf version of the above paper click here.
