Oakwood Collegiate School

      Oakwood Collegiate School, class photograph 1967

Michael Lightowler has been in touch with us from Essex about Oakwood Collegiate School, having seen references to it on our website from former pupils Howard Adams and Michael Moore who went there after Norwood School. Michael says:

I saw some shots of Sheffield on the TV the other night and started thinking about my school days. I attended Oakwood School, Pitsmoor between 1960 and 1963. Does anyone have any recollections of the School or the people who were there at that time including the headmistress Mrs Phoebe Holroyd? I lived in Millhouses and I remember it was long way there and back. My parents were next door neighbours of the Holroyds and that is why I came to the school aged 9 I think. It was without doubt a huge benefit and got me into the Grammar School which must have helped me in my career. I remember my days at Oakwood with affection. The discipline was quite tough and the teaching intense but the pupils seemed happy.

Michael Lightowler

Mrs Phoebe Kay Holroyd started the school in 1925 initially as the Firth Park Kindergarten and, by 1927, as the Firth Park Preparatory School. Born in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire on 27 January 1888, Phoebe was the eldest of five children of Frederick Hall, a builder and house decorator, and his wife Kate Smith who married in Northampton in 1885. 

Phoebe attended schools in Northampton and Blackpool and was then prepared for a teaching career at Blackpool Pupil Teachers Centre and Sheffield Training College. After the deaths of her parents, she married Corporal William Holroyd, a soldier with the Royal Garrison Artillery, at St. Paul's Church, Pinstone Street on 7 April 1917. William became an incorporated insurance broker after the war. They had one son, Bill, on 24 July 1920.

During the 1930s Oakwood Collegiate School was geared mainly towards preparing pupils for examinations to gain entry to public schools and to secondary technical schools in Sheffield, Derbyshire and the West Riding. It had special classes for those pupils working to gain scholarships and was justifiably proud of its results in that regard. 

          Advertisement 24 April 1937

The 11-Plus exam was introduced in 1944, when under the Butler Education Act the schooling system in the United Kingdom was rearranged. All children aged between 5 and 15 were entitled to free education, attending Primary School up to the age of 11 and then moving on to Secondary school.

Oakwood seems to have been at its busiest in the Fifties and early Sixties when Michael was there. Some teachers names we have seen include Mrs Cope, Mrs Swift, Mrs Fretwell, Mrs Skelton, Mrs Wilde and Mr Beal. Although it gained a reputation for being a bit of "a crammer", it was nevertheless well thought of by its former pupils judging from the comments we have seen. 

The infants were taught at 22 Devon Road before moving up to the main building at 74 Norwood Road. It was quite a journey from our side of Sheffield for those that had to make their way by public transport although the school staff met buses which passed their way and at times even escorted pupils from the City Centre.

Phoebe was still at Oakwood School when well into her seventies. In later life she lived at 98 Whirlowdale Road, Millhouses. After her death on 9 March 1973 at the age of 85, there was no one in her family with an interest to carry on the school and it appears to have closed soon afterwards.

We would like to hear from anyone with memories of the school and, of course, we are always keen to see class photographs which we know were professionally taken. 

November 2020