History of SMAB

St Michael-at-Bowes CofE Junior school

‘An Inclusive Christian community building on firm foundation for successful lives.’

St Michael at Bowes was first opened on 23rd November 1896 as St Michael’s Church Day School. The school was opened by the Honourable William Frederick Danvers Smith MP and Reverend A.C Almach, Vicar of the local St Michael’s church. The school was set up to provide Christian schooling for local children within the parish.

Interestingly, the original school building was built on the site which Tottenhall Infant School inhabits today. Both the infant school and St Michael’s shared the same grounds with the land which the current school is built on was a common ground used as the schools playing fields from time to time.

St Michael’s Church Day School was home to both Infant and Junior children schools. The school had two main buildings, a single floor Edwardian building, and a two floor Georgian design building. In the early days, the junior school was situated in the Edwardian premises, and the infants in the Georgian building. During the years this changed so the Edwardian building became home to Infants.  In fact, up until the new Tottenhall School premise was constructed, they still continued to use the old Edwardian school!

 

In the 1970 the land neighbouring the school was bought by the London Diocesan Board for Schools with plans to build fresh and up to date premises for a new junior school to continue the work of St Michael’s Church free school. The new school was named St Michael-at-Bowes Church of England Junior School.

The work was completed in 1972 and the school in its new site, was officially re-opened on 24th March 1972 by Reverend Alan Rodgers, Bishop of Edmonton. Since then it has continued to grow, providing Christian education to the community as a whole.

In 2004, work on the new block began giving the school a larger capacity for teaching children from all around the local community. The school still continues to grow today! The development to expand the entrance on Tottenhall road and there is further work to develop the teaching, learning and resources space inside the school.

Our building and local area have certainly changed over the last 123 years with thousands of pupils passing through our school’s doors every year but our mission has not; St Michaels has been a landmark of the community. We hope and pray that our clear Christian ethos of care and success will continue long into the future.