Dame Ellen Pinsent Primary School

General information

LOCATION

Dame Ellen Pinsent is a primary school on Ardencote Road in Billesley

HEAD TEACHER

The Head Teacher is Denise Fountain

NUMBER OF PUPILS & STAFF

It has 151 pupils and around 50 staff.

TYPE OF PUPILS

It has pupils with a range of special educational needs, including autistic spectrum condition, speech and language difficulties and moderate to severe Learning Disabilities.

AGE RANGE

The school has pupils from ages 5-11

THE OLDEST

It is the oldest of the schools we’re working with.

Early days

It opened in 1901 in Little Green Lane in Small Heath.
It was called Little Green Lane Mentally Defective School.
That name changed to Little Green Educationally Subnormal School.

There were 9 pupils when it opened, and the Head Teacher was Miss Florence Clay.

Ellen Pinsent

was the Chair of the special schools
sub-committee at Birmingham City Council from 1900-1913.

She came to the school very often during that time.
We can see records of what she did from the logbook.

Moving to Billesley

The school has changed a lot since the early days.

The name changed to The Dame Ellen Pinsent School in 1961. Dame Ellen’s daughter, Hester Adrian, attended the opening of the new school, along with the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and other important people.

It moved to Billesley, where it is now.

The school buildings there have changed a lot since it opened.

Problems

There were two floods on the site.

One was in the summer in 1996, but the second one meant that pupils had to study in other schools until the water damage was cleared up.

Boys and girls

Until 1992 it had pupils from age 5 to 19.
Girls went to a different school aged 11 – Collingwood school in West Heath.
When Selly Oak school opened, both girls and boys went there from 11-19.

Facilities

A new build extension was opened on Monday 6th June 2016.
It is named “The Ellen Building“.
It has a computing room and cooking room. The classrooms are large and airy.