Kenilworth School- Moving On and Closure

 Tomorrow Kenilworth School will open at its new premises. Smart, sleek and modern. This will be KS's 5th incarnation. The old site was a grammar school in 1961. Then they built a high school next door in 1965. Then they merged them into a comprehensive comprised of two schools (a blue one and a red one) in 1977. And then in 1990 they merged them into one.

The new site promises sophistication, modernisation, professionalism and above all ethics and standards. It's posh, it's big (I live near to an international airport terminal that is only slightly smaller) and it looks awesome. 

On Wednesday 6th September 2023, 62 years after Kenilworth School first came into existence the pupils will walk through the doors to a new school, a new headteacher and a new era.

3 years ago me and 27 other ex-pupils of KS from the years 1977 to 1990, wrote a book. A compendium of stories. Memories of what life was like "back in the day". All the royalties go to Northleigh House school in Hatton, a school for vulnerable children. 

One of the reaons I wrote this book was to finally exorcise my personal demons over the miserable and lonely 4 years I spent at Priory Hall (the blue one) from 1983 to 1987. The school now is superb, getting 'Excellent' ratings from Ofsted and earning a similar reputation that the original grammar school had in the 1960s and early 70s. However, the school from the "lost years" featured in the book was appalling. Badly run, badly organised and still in the very final years of corporal punishment, which some teachers excelled in (looking at you Pancho Jenkins).

I was far from the only one who hated that school. The majority of stories I received as submissions featured bullying, racism, sexism and staff who usually veered between apathy and brutality.

We called the book '6 of One' as a two-finger salute to the attitude of the time; which was that no one was a victim. That you must have done or said something to make people want to hurt or taunt you. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other".

In 2014 and 2022 I went back to the school to present book talks (I'm now an author, with 17 books self-published on Amazon) and the 2022 one gave me the most closure. I was finally able to walk around the school with a member of staff and see it for what it was. A shabby, small and non-threatening place that my memories and fear had made much, much biger in my head. I also got to show an audience of 100 kids a photo of the Deputy Head of my era and state that I "hated her guts".

I made certain in 2023 that copies of '6 of One' were sent to ex members of staff from the school. My former headteacher, another deputy head and a PE teacher. I also got a mate to attend the farewell festival in July at the school's old premises and hand out copies of the book to teachers and staff from the era it was set in. 

He managed to give away 4 copies to some very old people.

The reason I wrote the book and the reason I made certain that as many people involved in the school as possible knew about it was because I knew that eventually things would move on. There were rumours for years that the school was moving to bigger and better premises and I didn't want what happened to become a "nothing". Simply an old building that would be sold off and bulldozed to make way for a housing estate where, within one generation, people would forget there had once been a school beneath their feet.

Me and the others who went there needed to feel that what we experienced had some kind of acknowledgment. I didn't want Kenilworth School to simply evolve, like a caterpillar into a butterfly, and the bad stink it had created at Leyes Lane for many years to be confined to history and then forgotten.

I got my closure. The book was well received and while the royalties are small, a deserving and worthwhile cause benefits from that money. 

The teachers who are still around from my time know how they were perceived (I've received feedback from one teacher who wasn't happy).

And our voices were finally heard.

I genuinely wish the new Kenilworth School the very best. I hope it shines consistently and that the "lost" era recorded in "6 of One" is never repeated.

Lance Manley- September 5th 2023