Norfolk School, Arbourthorne

[DaveH]

I think Hadfield was yellow. I had Osborn down as green and Balfour as blue

My intuition rather than memory now suggests, after thinking about it for a while, that

Balfour Blue

Firth Red

Hadfield Yellow

Neill Orange

Osborne Green

Tyzac Purple

And further back still, even more intuitive than memory here

Furnival Red

Lovetot Blue

Neville Yellow

Shrewsbury Green

[DaveH]

Tyzac : Pinky Purple (that sounds really "girly" but it was the one to which I belonged !)

At the school I currently teach at there are four houses which use red, blue, green and purple as their colours.

A few years ago getting sports kit in purple, as well as house badges, prefect badges, games captain badges and school ties with a central purple "house colour" stripe was becoming something of a problem as purple was not a common school house colour.

The outfitters offered yellow as an alternative which the students of the house rejected because they didn't like the colour for a variety of reasons.

The outfitters then offered yellow and black "hoops" (horizontal rather than vertical stripes). The kids were going to reject these as well until they realised that wearing the sports shirt made you look like a big wasp or bee, like a dangerous looking insect, so they accepted it until purple became avilable again.

I liked the yellow and black stripes as well, if only because they were Norfolk School colours and the equal width alternate yellow and black stripes were vert reminiscent of the old Norfolk Junior School tie.

[Guest wayneybabes]

My intuition rather than memory now suggests, after thinking about it for a while, that

Balfour Blue

Firth Red

Hadfield Yellow

Neill Orange

Osborne Green

Tyzac Purple

And further back still, even more intuitive than memory here

Furnival Red

Lovetot Blue

Neville Green

Shrewsbury Yellow

I was in Furnival, that was definately red and i was in Shrewsbury and pretty sure it was yellow. Then again, something is telling me that lovetot was green and neville was blue. Will ask my mates

i cant remember doing houses in the seniors TBH

edit: Shrewsbury was definately yellow when i was there

[Guest wayneybabes]

Not long ago a bloke who has a house on City Road which backs onto this field used to graze his donkey / pony on it!

He still does mate

[Guest wayneybabes]

my mate is pretty sure it was as follows

FURNIVAL = RED

NEVILLE = BLUE

LOVETOT = GREEN

SHREWSBURY = YELLOW

[DaveH]

He still does mate

Is the bloke who keeps the pony in the field the same guy who has a horse drawn cart outside the front of his house on City Road?

[DaveH]

my mate is pretty sure it was as follows

FURNIVAL = RED

NEVILLE = BLUE

LOVETOT = GREEN

SHREWSBURY = YELLOW

As it is over 40 years since I was at Junior school my memory is, as stated previously, getting a little mixed up.

I can quite accept that these are the colours, but if Shrewsbury (my old Junior school house) was Yellow then I am even more convinced that Osborne (my senior school house) must have been Green then.

I can certainly remember that green came into one of the houses I was in, and I can clearly remember having to parade that green house flag, - and having to go and collect it from Lass Hughes needlework room on the top floor of the glass tower. Lass Hughes (unusually referred to as "Miss Hughes", because if you say it quickly it sounds like "My Shoes" in a local accent) was in Osborne, organised the girls house teams and, being a needlework teacher, was custodian of the flags. Had to take the damn thing back after sports day as well!

[Guest wayneybabes]

Is the bloke who keeps the pony in the field the same guy who has a horse drawn cart outside the front of his house on City Road?

yes i am pretty sure it is

[Guest wayneybabes]

As it is over 40 years since I was at Junior school my memory is, as stated previously, getting a little mixed up.

I can quite accept that these are the colours, but if Shrewsbury (my old Junior school house) was Yellow then I am even more convinced that Osborne (my senior school house) must have been Green then.

I was Shrewsbury for the first 2 years and can definately remember every time i got a house point, sticking a round yellow dot sticker to the chart on the wall!. Then for some reason they changed me to Furnival which i am 95% sure was red.

My mate is sure that Lovetot was green and Neville blue but like me, isn't getting any younger!!! (in our case it is 23 years since we left Junior School, hopefully we can find someone with a younger memory than ours!).

Unless i am wrong, we didnt do 'house points' in the seniors, we used to get 'Merits' instead which i am sure where added up and put on our school reports at the end of the year

[Guest wayneybabes]

Unless i am wrong, we didnt do 'house points' in the seniors, we used to get 'Merits' instead which i am sure where added up and put on our school reports at the end of the year

Talking of school reports, i work on the wicker and when we had the floods in 2007 i lost most of my school reports which i had brought from my mums together with my sisters reports (typically i gave my sisters all thier reports before we got flooded). Thankfully, the ones from the middle school survived!.

[DaveH]

I was Shrewsbury for the first 2 years and can definately remember every time i got a house point, sticking a round yellow dot sticker to the chart on the wall!. Then for some reason they changed me to Furnival which i am 95% sure was red.

My mate is sure that Lovetot was green and Neville blue but like me, isn't getting any younger!!! (in our case it is 23 years since we left Junior School, hopefully we can find someone with a younger memory than ours!).

Unless i am wrong, we didnt do 'house points' in the seniors, we used to get 'Merits' instead which i am sure where added up and put on our school reports at the end of the year

In the senior school houses seemed to be used for sporting activities. We only ever used to have a house meeting just to organise sports teams

Don't remember doing anything else as a house activity.

[Stuart0742]

In the senior school houses seemed to be used for sporting activities. We only ever used to have a house meeting just to organise sports teams

Don't remember doing anything else as a house activity.

Seem to remember you were awarded housepoints, these were kept as totals in each class, then once a week somebody would come round and collect these, They would then be totalled up in the school office. Not quite sure why or what happened after that.

[DaveH]

Talking of school reports, i work on the wicker and when we had the floods in 2007 i lost most of my school reports which i had brought from my mums together with my sisters reports (typically i gave my sisters all thier reports before we got flooded). Thankfully, the ones from the middle school survived!.

Other way around for me, - I have all my secondary school reports but my junior school reports have "disappeared"

Just as well really, - I did great at secondary school but I was fairly ordinary at the juniors, - did well in first year and went quickly downhill to being not so good by the last year.

Did well at secondary school because I changed my attitude from "I don't like school" to "I don't really want to be here but seeing as I have no option I may as well make the most of it and take them for all I can get out of it". That worked wonders, got interested in lots of things, started doing well and coming top and then got to the stage where I really liked school and didn't particularly want to leave.

Being a teacher myself now Stuart0742 will probably try to tell me that I never really did leave school lol

[DaveH]

Seem to remember you were awarded housepoints, these were kept as totals in each class, then once a week somebody would come round and collect these, They would then be totalled up in the school office. Not quite sure why or what happened after that.

Seeing as neither of us can remember what happened to them perhaps they just chucked them in the bin.

I can't even remember getting house points.

[Stuart0742]

Seeing as neither of us can remember what happened to them perhaps they just chucked them in the bin.

I can't even remember getting house points.

Didn't use to publish a sort of league table over the year, then chuck them in the bin

[DaveH]

Didn't use to publish a sort of league table over the year, then chuck them in the bin

Another pointless exercise then <_<

[Guest wayneybabes]

Seem to remember you were awarded housepoints, these were kept as totals in each class, then once a week somebody would come round and collect these, They would then be totalled up in the school office. Not quite sure why or what happened after that.

We used to have a kind of assembly, last thing on a friday, where they would reveal the results of the house points for that week and the current standings for that year

[Guest wayneybabes]

Other way around for me, - I have all my secondary school reports but my junior school reports have "disappeared"

Just as well really, - I did great at secondary school but I was fairly ordinary at the juniors, - did well in first year and went quickly downhill to being not so good by the last year.

Totally opposite for me, did really good in the Juniors and went downhill in the seniors. The happiest 4 years of my life were spent in the Junior School :rolleyes:

[DaveH]

We used to have a kind of assembly, last thing on a friday, where they would reveal the results of the house points for that week and the current standings for that year

Last thing on Friday.

You didn't have "Creative Activities" like we did then.

A great lesson every friday afternoon where you got to choose (within reason) what "educational" activity you did.

That's where me and Stuart0742 learnt most of our photography skills.

[Guest wayneybabes]

Last thing on Friday.

You didn't have "Creative Activities" like we did then.

A great lesson every friday afternoon where you got to choose (within reason) what "educational" activity you did.

That's where me and Stuart0742 learnt most of our photography skills.

Sorry, i'm on about the Junior School. Yes we had activities in which i mainly did badminton or computers (old bbc's)

[DaveH]

Sorry, i'm on about the Junior School. Yes we had activities in which i mainly did badminton or computers (old bbc's)

Me and Stuart were "pre computer", although the maths department had some mechanical calculating machines which involved setting numbers on a set of metal sliders and turning a handle at the end to carry out some fairly basic arithmetic. Man Rosenberg used them occasionally in maths but the girls in form 5C who were doing RSA exams in accounting used them a fair bit.

The nearest me and Stuart got to a computer was using a book of 4 figure logarithms and just occasionally a slide rule

The term after I left Norfolk and went to Ashleigh for 6th form (1972) we did computer studies alongside sciences. This involved going down to Sheffield Polytechnic Pond Street site (now Sheffield Hallam University) once a week to sit in front of a punch card machine onto which we typed our computer programs in FORTRAN 4, one command line per card. We had spent the other computer studies lesson in school writing this program and learning FORTRAN. After typing all the cards you took them to a hatch in the wall and gave them to the "computer operator" who would feed them into a mainframe computer (mainframe in the sense that it filled a whole room up, but in reality probably had less computing power than your BBC micro) and get it to run your program and print out the results on a tractor feed printer, this would be available for collection the following week. Usually when I got my printouts it said something like, -

LINE 20 SYNTAX ERROR CODE SY97XB

LINE 35 NOMINAL EXCEPTION INTERUPTED PROCESSING ERROR CODE NE557

etc...

which meant that you had to start all over again.

It was all good fun, taught me a lot about computers and almost 40 years later I am amazed at how much computers have changed and improved.

I often relate the story above about my 1972 computer studies days at work to illustrate the extent of technological change within our own lifetimes.

[DaveH]

When our old rivals Hurlfield had a swimming pool built on their site we at Norfolk got use of it as well.

This happened when me and Stuart were in the second year (1969) and it meant a walk up Northern Avenue to get there and the same walk back. Taking into account getting changed and dried off after we probably got about 20 minutes in the pool out of a 70 minute lesson and we were frequently late back for the next lesson.

Before that when we were in the first year (1967 -8) we had to go down to Park Baths, just off Duke Street. This was very handy for those who lived on Park Hill or Hyde Park and usually went to school on a bus. It was also quite handy for Stuart0742 as he lived fairly close in town, but for me and Frithy off the Arbourthorne it now meant a bus trip on the 95 bus from City Road front to Duke Street just up from Park Hill flats.

Last lesson on Monday was PE, usually a game of football on the school field. When we came in for our shower Man McDermott would give us all a "bus token" so that we could get to Park Baths for the first lesson Tuesday for swimming without having to pay bus fare. This "bus token" was a coloured plastic coin which looked identical to a milk token which you could give the milk man for a pint of milk, - it was so identical to the milk token even down to the words "ONE PINT" embossed onto it, however, the bus conductor seemed to accept them in payment for a trip down to Park Baths. My mum, and probably the bus conductor as well, were wise to the fact that as the bus fare was less than the cost of a pint of milk it was easier to give me my bus fare and use the token to buy milk with.

Again we were frequently late for second lesson Tuesday which was History, - remember sitting through lessons on the Norman conquest feeling cold, wet and smelling of chlorine having had to rush to get back from the baths.

At Junior school swimming was every Wednesday afternoon. a special bus turned up at the school to take us across the Manor to Woodthorpe Junior School, a school which looked very similar to ours except that it had a school swimming pool with its own staff, - we had the dreaded Mrs. Lyons of Woodthorpe baths teach us how to swim (Anyone who was taught by her will remember what she was like). She forced me to do my 25 yards (one length) and then pushed me to do other things like jumping into water that was a lot deeper than I was tall. Because of this treatment I hated swimming and was put off it for a long time. Never liked it at school and never went swimming after I left until I was married and had young kids of my own.

[DaveH]

FURNIVAL = RED

NEVILLE = BLUE

LOVETOT = GREEN

SHREWSBURY = YELLOW

Having established the Junior school house colours here is a bit of a challenge,

not just to ex Norfolk students but also to all other Sheffield History members who have sufficient historical knowledge.

1)

Who were Furnival, Neville, Lovetot and Shrewsbury?

OK so they were local land owning barons in the middle ages, - but these were dynastic families covering more than a single generation. Do we have names, dates, events of what they did?

There's a lot of history there. Rather than post details in this school thread perhaps a link from here to the relevant answer thread would be better as I am sure the answers may already be on the site and that entire books could be written about each of these families.

2)

What were the heraldic coat of arms of these families?

I remember at Junior school each house, as well as having a house colour also had a coat of arms in the form of a shield. These were displayeed 2 either side of the school stage in the hall with the house name beneath them.

I am fairly sure these were the actual coats of arms of the 4 families the houses were named after. I can't remember what any of them looked like except that Lovetots looked the most impressive.

Can we find these coats of arms and either post images or link them so that we can see them again.

[DaveH]

Having established the Junior school house colours here is a bit of a challenge,

not just to ex Norfolk students but also to all other Sheffield History members who have sufficient historical knowledge.

1)

Who were Furnival, Neville, Lovetot and Shrewsbury?

OK so they were local land owning barons in the middle ages, - but these were dynastic families covering more than a single generation. Do we have names, dates, events of what they did?

There's a lot of history there. Rather than post details in this school thread perhaps a link from here to the relevant answer thread would be better as I am sure the answers may already be on the site and that entire books could be written about each of these families.

2)

What were the heraldic coat of arms of these families?

I remember at Junior school each house, as well as having a house colour also had a coat of arms in the form of a shield. These were displayeed 2 either side of the school stage in the hall with the house name beneath them.

I am fairly sure these were the actual coats of arms of the 4 families the houses were named after. I can't remember what any of them looked like except that Lovetots looked the most impressive.

Can we find these coats of arms and either post images or link them so that we can see them again.

To further this challenge to our secondary school (don't want Stuart0742 to feel left out) with the 6 houses named after steel works.

1)

The men who made the steel

Each house name is not just a steel works, it is the surname of the founder / owner of those works.

Presumably they are all Sheffield steel men, so do we have their life stories with dates and events and achievements.

Once again, rather than write a book about them in a school thread, perhaps links would be more appropriate to detailed biographies elsewhere.

2)

The factories and premises of the steel companies

As each house is a famous steel works, where was that steel works? what years? what happened to it? what exactly did they make? When did it close or get taken over? etc.

Do we have pictures to go with the locations of these steel works?

To start it off and as I was in Osborne here is a picture of Osborne steel works in 2007.

Are they still open and working? How long have they been there?

Again a lot of local history content in this one.

[DaveH]

Having established the Junior school house colours here is a bit of a challenge,

not just to ex Norfolk students but also to all other Sheffield History members who have sufficient historical knowledge.

1)

Who were Furnival, Neville, Lovetot and Shrewsbury?

OK so they were local land owning barons in the middle ages, - but these were dynastic families covering more than a single generation. Do we have names, dates, events of what they did?

There's a lot of history there. Rather than post details in this school thread perhaps a link from here to the relevant answer thread would be better as I am sure the answers may already be on the site and that entire books could be written about each of these families.

2)

What were the heraldic coat of arms of these families?

I remember at Junior school each house, as well as having a house colour also had a coat of arms in the form of a shield. These were displayeed 2 either side of the school stage in the hall with the house name beneath them.

I am fairly sure these were the actual coats of arms of the 4 families the houses were named after. I can't remember what any of them looked like except that Lovetots looked the most impressive.

Can we find these coats of arms and either post images or link them so that we can see them again.

Bayleaf has a complete biography on Shrewsbury in this thread here

Earl of Shrewsbury

This is exactly the sort of link I was thinking of when I set the challenge.