Category: School publications

The many and varied school publications which have been produced over the years are particularly revealing about the life of the school. Ranging from school newsletters and magazines, to programmes for extra curricular events and activities, they give a true flavour of a moment in time.

Headmaster’s Notes to Parents – 1960.

Here’s the 1960 Headmaster’s Bulletin  to Parents, again, kindly provided to us by a former pupil who was at the school between 1958 and 1962 and who got in touch via this website.

Headmaster’s Notes to Parents – 1959.

Here are the pages that comprise the 1959 Moor Allerton School Bulletin – a piece addressed directly to parents from the headmaster at the time Mr K. T. Tibbs (see point M on the fourth page: “Under no circumstances should this, or any similar paper, be given to the children to read for themselves”). The tone is very formal and direct, but it’s interesting to see that some issues change little over the decades, namely the cost and durability of school uniforms!

This item was kindly provided to us by a former pupil who was at the school between 1958 and 1962 and who got in touch via this website.

How do you get an elephant in a matchbox?

Well, to find the answer, you’ll have to browse the pages of these two ‘Friends of Moor Allerton’ magazines produced in 1981 and 1982 respectively.

Collating together news of the school, reports and accounts of events, original writing, poetry and crossword puzzles, they also contain ‘The Legendary Moor Allerton Jokes Page’ wherein you’ll find the rib-tickling answer to the question posed in the title of this post.

School-boy humour indeed!

Moor Allerton News – Read all about it!

In the archive, we have three editions of ‘Moor Allerton News’ dating from 1976. This is a magazine written and produced by a small group of pupils and circulated throughout the school. The highlights displayed here show the magazines contained a wide variety of school news and news from the wider world, topics relating to what was being studied at the time, sports reports, quizzes and competitions.

The writing and production is of a very high standard. Apologies for the quality of the reproductions here. Remember, there were no PCs with desktop publishing programs, so everything would have had to have been typed out on a manual typewriter and cut-and-pasted before being photocopied! An interesting read, and a great record of the times.

Good work Michael Joy, Paul Dixon, Richard Dean and all your contributors!

 

Another 1930s Sports Day Programme

This programme is from 1939 – the final one before the school was closed temporarily during World War II.

1950 School Magazine

1950_School_Mag_Image“Many great writers and thinkers have first expressed themselves in their School Magazine, and have no doubt that there are boys at Moor Allerton now, of whom it will be said, “He used to write for his School Magazine”.”

So writes headmaster Mr. W.S.V. Oliver in his foreword to the 1950 edition of the revived Moor Allerton School Magazine, reproduced here in full. A real labour of love, with a fascinating range of articles, reviews and opinions.

Do you have any copies of other Moor Allerton School Magazines? Perhaps you could scan and upload them here or email them to us at [email protected], or alternatively, if we could borrow them we can scan ourselves.

School Magazine from 1936

1936 School Magazine ExcerptWe may be used to keeping up-to-date with all school activities these days via text, email, Facebook, Twitter and websites like this, but it wasn’t so long ago that the printed page was the only way of the school letting parents and friends know what was going on. We’ve unearthed an early example of the school magazine which dates back to 1936. It’s a fascinating record of the times, providing insights into the popular extra-curricular activities of the day (stamp collecting was apparently the talk of the playground, and there are some humorous, not to say surreal “Things we want to know” on page 4. Judging by the comprehensive round-up of sports reports, Bruce house was being well and truly beaten by Cromwell in both football and cricket. Come on Bruce!

Browse all the pages of the magazine below.