Random thought that just popped into my head about Grange Hill

[helloisitmeyourelookingfor]

How come 1980s Grange Hill the school had its own swimming pool?

Is this a thing London schools had in the 80s???

My primary school - 1980’s had its own pool. Secondary School had its own pool until about 1993 and then both pools were shut and filled in.

My north London state secondary school had its own swimming pool 🏊‍♀️

My primary and secondary did not have swimming pools.

In the last year of the juniors we went to another primary school that did have a look and in secondary only the remedial class went to a local secondary school that did have a pool.

If we wanted to learn to swim we had to pay for lessons in our own time. As a result I wouldn't be able to swim to save my life so I don't go into water deeper than a bath.

"Did have a pool". ffs

Well I am shocked -went to school in Yorkshire then Manchester and I've never known a state school have a pool

We used to have to walk 2 miles in a big crocodile for swimming lessons and the swimming gala 🤣

Mine didn't, but my dad taught in one that was built in 1970 and it did

SE we had an outdoor pool in primary in the 80s. School is still there, pool isn't.

I was in London until my first year of secondary school (80 to 81), and Wiltshire onwards (82 to 85)

I can’t remember having a pool on site in London, but we did in Wiltshire.

Only a guess, but perhaps schools would generally share local facilities, making more populated areas to be less likely to have a school with a pool and either sharing a schools pool or using a public pool etc?

PS in Wiltshire the pool was (and still is) school grounds, but a separate building acting as both the schools pool and as a public pool

My primary school in Warrington didn't have one but we walked to a neighbouring state primary which did. It was a bit manky tbf, was sold off for housing some time in the 90s.

A lot of the state primary and secondary school round here (suburban north London) have their own pools, and they look as if they’ve been around for a few decades. The facilities at my private secondary school were crap in comparison to a lot of the local comps’.

My primary school didn't have one, but we were bussed to the local public pool for lessons as part of the curriculum. My secondary school did have one but my DD is now there and reports back that it is no longer in use.

I was at primary in the 90s. In year 4 we swam at another local primary school's pool; it was dingy and concrete, with changing cubicles around the edge of the pool and one very dank, spidery toilet. The teachers would whip the curtains open if you took too long to get changed, potentially exposing you to everyone in the pool and on the sides. The school was built in 1896 and the pool looked as though it hadn't been upgraded since!

Then in year 5 we swam at a local (state) secondary school's pool, which is also where I had private swimming lessons. This one was much less manky although it only had communal changing rooms, no cubicles.

I went to school where Grange Hill was filmed and it didn't have a pool. And I know the school filming then moved to and that didntbahve a pool either.

My primary school had one, way back in the early 1970s: I wished it didn't at the time, it was unheated and we were expected to swim in it from early May onwards: It was flipping freezing:

Snap! I think it was the communal changing rooms and the fact it wasn't heated.

I can only remember it being used a few times a year, but everyone could swim so we must have been all doing swimming lessons privately (heated pool, loved it!)

In the 1990s our state secondary school (Somerset) had a central "wildlife area" that was actually a filled in outdoor swimming pool overgrown with brambles, so they must have been pretty common in the 1970s?

So basically, children in Thatcher's 80s Britaim had it better?

Now, I wasn't expecting to hear that!

My school has its own swimming pool, built in the 1960s. So did my son's. Both very ordinary comprehensives.

My secondary school and another down the road had pools in the 80s - both indoors. And a local primary had an outdoor pool.

Our school had a pool, it was freezing and I only remember swimming in it a handful of times.

My primary school in the West Midlands had its own pool.

Late 60s/early 70s - ordinary East Midlands town, at least one primary did, as did the boys’ grammar

And we had free milk every day until she took it.

Halcyon days. Thatcher just started us down a road which we are now careening down out of control. I wonder if even she'd think, "steady on now; food banks and pensioners freezing to death? That's a bit far."