Our school has a wonderful history, closely linked into the growth and development of Hampton Hill itself.

In 1867, the Vicar of St. James’s Church, Revd. Fitzroy John Fitz Wygram, finding only 13 children out of a population of 1100 attended any sort of school, made a grant of land in Mill Lane 'on trust for the education of children'. There were to be two schools, one for boys and one for girls. The school cost £315 to build!

The Boys School was where the Greenwood Centre is now, in School Road, and the Girls and Infant School were opposite, where Sterling Office Supplies was housed in the original buildings until flats were built in 2011. Teacher’s houses for the Headteachers were built at the junction of School Road and Windmill Road in 1886.

The school day was from 9.00am - 12.00pm and 2.00pm - 4.15pm and children would write on slates, share books and learned much by repetition. Scripture and church history, needlework and writing were important subjects. Children left school before their eleventh birthday and had, on average, four years at school.

There is a vivid and descriptive history of the early days of the school which can be found at The Parish Church of St. James - Hampton Hill. It highlights tensions between the church council as schools and funding seem to have been a continual problem.

We are lucky to still have the log books from this time with many wonderful anecdotes, including the school being closed for a variety of holidays for Empire Day and the end of World War I, and a half day closure when W. G. Grace played cricket on Twickenham Green in 1912!

Various Education Acts brought greater uniformity to school, curriculum and inspections and greater control by local Education Committees. In the early 1900’s teachers payment by results had stopped and inspection reports talked on 'individuality and enterprise' in the infant school rather than 'orderliness' and 'good marking'.

In the 1920’s the 'tussle' between the Church and Education Committee continued and culminated in the opening of a mixed senior school in Windmill Road in 1928 – the site of our present school.

Over the following 50 years the school went through many highs and lows and changes of intakes. There were entrances in Windmill Road and St. James’s Avenue, a well known air raid shelter and school allotment.

The school roll varied greatly but by the 1970’s had grown to over 400. We have found newspaper cuttings which show that the school’s situation was mentioned in Parliament!

The flat roofed parts of the school were added in the mid-1970’s to give a new staffroom, hall, kitchen and storage which released space in the main building for more classrooms.

Since the end of the 1980’s the school has undergone further transformations in adapting the building to create specialist facilities such as a library, computer suite, cookery room, music rooms, art centre and inclusion rooms.

In the late 1980’s the school roll had fallen to 230 but in the following years the roll increased to 360+.

Since the millennium, the roll has been up and down, but, from 2011/2012 the school has returned to being oversubscribed.

The caretaker’s house, adjacent to the school in Windmill Road was converted into a community centre in 2009 and quickly became the Children’s Centre for Hampton Hill providing a wide range of services for families and children up to the age 5 years. It was renamed ‘The Norman Jackson Centre’ after Norman Jackson VC, a former parent of the school.

We further developed our very positive and longstanding relationship with Carlisle Infant School when we federated in 2014. This has been a very positive step, supported by key aspects such as pupil transition, curriculum development and shared governance.

We don't stand still and are very excited that a joint funding project with our school association means that we were able to open our new library in 2018.

In 2019 we introduced our enhanced SRP Garrick Garden provision for pupils with SEMH needs. A very positive addition to what we are able to offer.

In 2020/21, like all schools, we faced the challenge of COVID 19 and lockdown. We are very proud of how our school community responded to this.

In 2021/22 it was lovely to reintroduce a wide range of opportunities for our families that make HHJS special, as so many had been impacted on significantly by the pandemic. This is ongoing work. We now look forward to further developing our federation with Carlisle Infant School which will be an exciting priority for 2023/24.