school. They were taught by a master and a mistress. A significant event in the life of the village was the establishment of Codsall as an ecclesiastical parish in its own right in 1847. It was thus no longer dependant upon the Collegiate Church of Tettenhall. This event must have influenced the pace of education as Codsall then had its own resident Vicar.
    The 1851 census suggests that a few changes had taken place. The National School was being run by Thomas Lees. He was also a shoemaker and possibly in charge of the post, as mention is made of a foot post daily to Wolverhampton at 6pm which went from his address. In Codsall Wood another National School had opened under Miss Boocock. Most of the young people in the village at this time are listed as scholars, except for ten who were already in some form of employment. A Minute Book begun on 16th July 1859 records the first meeting of a Committee made up from the subscribers of  the National  School. The Sunday School and Religious Instruction in the Day School were to be ent-irely under the control of the clergyman (who was to be a member and chairman of the Committee) but in all other respects the school was to be managed by the Committee.
    They were also empowered to appoint and dismiss the Master and Mistress and they had to be bona fide Church people. The school building was situated on the west side of Church Road opposite to the site of the now demolished Co-operative Grocery Store. There were certain conditions by which pupils were admitted to the school. Schooling for instance was not free. If notice had pre-viously been given to the Master, children would be admitted on Monday morning when payment would be expected in advance.
    The fee for one child was twopence. For two or more it was four pence. Later it was decided that a child who was in partial employment should be able to attend for halfpenny a day whenever he/she was able to do so. The pupils had to be there punctually at 9.30am and 1.30pm. They must be neat and clean, and they were required to attend Sunday School, both in the morning and the afternoon. Saturday was a holiday. In addition,  two weeks were given at Christmas, two days at Easter and Whitsun and four weeks at Harvest. Obviously it was felt that these arrangements were too generous because they were changed in 1860. The Christmas Holiday was shortened to one week, the Easter and Whitsun two days were stopped,  but the four weeks given at Harvest was lengthened to five. Also it was decided that school should close at 4.30 in the summer instead of 4 o'clock.

....By 1910 the conditions at the school were extremely cramped, especially for the Infants, where there were 71 pupils in one classroom. Staffordshire Education Committee, which had taken over the responsibility for the school, decided to build a County Council School for the parish, but it took them a long time to achieve this aim. In the meantime, alterations were made to the existing accomm-odation for the 230 Juniors and Seniors and 69 Infants. Gardening, Cookery and Violin classes were also commenced. It is interesting to note that, at this time, school leavers had to make a certain number of attendances in order to get a labour certificate issued by the Education Committee.


THE FIRST WORLD WAR   1914-1918
With the outbreak of war in 1914 one teacher left to join the services. The other teachers and the pupils made many garments for the Belgian refugees who were being looked after in the Dower House, Oaken. On the last day of term, before the Christmas holidays, some 15 Belgians accepted an invitation to visit the school and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.
    In many ways school life carried on as normal during the first year or so of the Great War. However, it was obvious that the children were being required to work on the farms even more than previously. For instance, in 1916, it was decided that there would not be any holiday at Whitsuntide because the school would close for both the hay and the corn harvests, due to the shortage of labour.
    1917 was a disastrous year both with regard to the weather and ill-health. This was the year of a