Headington Council School (Windmill School)
After Forster’s Education Act in 1870, the Headington Parish Magazine urged the people of Headington to support their local church school, partly for financial reasons, but also to prevent a "godless" board school being set up. The parishioners of Old and New Headington followed this advice. But the 1902 Education Act abolished school boards, designating borough and county councils the new local education authorities and making rate aid available to all elementary schools, including church ones.
Headington Council School was the first school in Headington to be built by the local education authority. It opened in Margaret Road in 1908, with accommodation for 220 children and 150 infants. This led to the immediate closure of New Headington Infant School, which had been set up by the church in Perrin Street in 1873. Its teacher, Mrs Price, transferred to the new school with the pupils.
Until 1936 Headington Council School was an elementary school, taking children up to the age of 14. But in that year a new senior department (now Headington Middle School) was built next door, and the 1908 building became Headington Junior Mixed and Infant School, accommodating 224 juniors and 350 infants.
In 1975, when Oxford adopted a three-tier system of comprehensive education, it became a school for children aged 5 to 9, and was given the new name of Windmill First School.
In September 2003 Oxford reverted to a two-tier system of education and these school buildings were closed. The new Windmill Primary School opened in the Headington Middle School buildings in June 2004, and the 1908 school building and site has been converted into dwellings.
Above: Class III of Headington Council School in 1913