Papers of Jessie Frances Harrison (nee Knight)

The papers of Jessie Harrison follow her teaching career from her teacher training at Avery Hill to her employment at Huyton School in Liverpool and onto her years spent teaching in a Forces school in Singapore.

They consist largely of handwritten notebooks covering teacher training, school practice, class records, pupil lists, lesson plans and syllabus information but also some typescript examination papers and employment-related papers. Her specialist subjects were geography, mathematics and science and the collection includes pupils' workbooks in these subjects, many of which are illustrated.

Jessie Frances Harrison (nee Knight) attended Avery Hill Training College in Eltham from 1931 to 1933. She did her teaching practice in London at East Lane School, Bermondsey and Gordon Boys School, Eltham teaching junior school children and older ones up to the age of about thirteen. She was subsequently invited to join the staff of Huyton School; a new show school near Liverpool where she taught for over ten years including the duration of the Second World War.

She stopped teaching in 1947 when her daughter was born and in 1948 went to live in Singapore where her husband had a new job as superintendent engineer for the Blue Funnel Line. The local Forces school was short of teachers and asked her to join the Alexandra Grammar School at Gillman Barracks. She was a "locally engaged" teacher, which meant that she was not required to travel to other Army bases and not entitled to a pension. She taught physics, maths, geography and Religious Instruction for a decade until she left Singapore for the UK in 1959. Her pupils came from Navy, Army and Air Force families.

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BFE - Records of the British Families Education Service / School Children Education Association