School celebrates 50th Anniversary

4:30pm Thursday 23rd October 2008

STAFF and students from past and present gathered together to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of a South Lakeland school.

Cartmel Priory School, Grange-over-Sands opened its doors on September 11 1958 to 245 children and was officially opened by Princess Margaret on October 15.

To mark the occasion, a time capsule was buried next to the flag at the front of the school on October 18 containing items from past and present.

A book about the school’s history, which was published earlier this year to commemorate the occasion went into the ground along with a school calendar, past and present photographs and school badges and banners. A collection of today’s must-have accessories including an MP3 player and a DVD of the hit High School Musical were also buried.

“We put things in that students are using today and things of the past that we still have at the school,” explained the school’s librarian and the event’s organiser, Carole Scott. “We put in a milk bottle and plastic bags too because they will be a thing of the past shortly.”

The celebrations commenced on Friday night, with a Syd Bank dance at the school and on Saturday, hundreds of people flooded through the school’s doors to view memorabilia and displays and bury the school’s time capsule.

“We had a mixture of people,” said Mrs Scott. “Some present students and lots of older ones came. There was also Mr Paterson, who used to be an art teacher at the school and Mrs Rawlins, who was a music teacher.”

The festivities carried on into the night with an opportunity to catch up with old friends at a school reunion, opened by Lord Cavendish, and the occasion was rounded off with a Priory service on Sunday.

“It was a fantastic celebration,” said Mrs Scott. “We’ve been inundated with cards and calls to say how wonderful it was. I’m really pleased.”

She added: ”The students have been quite involved with this. We’ve been doing things over the past two years such as quizzes and we renewed the school garden, which they very much had a big part in.”