AFTER more than 250 years, Daglingworth School’s bell was rung for the last time on July 18, 1986, as it fell victim to declining student numbers. 

Not even 18 months of negotiations between school governors and government authorities could save a school with just nine boys.

Yet when the Standard visited the school on its last day, everyone was in good spirits. The boys were making the most of the disruption, with mischievous pranks and playing with the taps of the beer barrels ready for a party of ex-pupils that evening.

Even though they couldn’t save their own, the governors managed to secure places for the boys at another village school – North Cerney. 

Headmistress Margaret Hartmann, who had been headmistress since 1974, expressed a widely-felt concern about the permanency of the closure.

“It is sad when a village school like this closes, because if the situation ever changed, the school would not be re-opened,” she said. “It will probably be sold off, possibly as a house.”

And evidently concerned about a developing pattern, the reporter saw the tolling bell as “announcing the death of another village school.” 

This worry about small schools being shut down and its effect on communities is still ongoing. 

But it’s not all bad news, last month Standard Nostalgia looked back on the saving of Southrop C of E Primary School in 1991. At present, Southrop and North Cerney are both still thriving.