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THE EDWARDSVILLE TRUANT SCHOOL
The Edwardsville “truant
school” or South Wales and Monmouthshire training school was
built in 1893 and took in boys from all over South Wales and
Monmouthshire.
There are printed records of the rules and
regulations of the school dated 1896. The timetable of the
truant school is introduced and the system of punishment
detailed. For a first offence of truancy, the pupil will be
detained at truant school for three months. School attendance and its enforcement
were a problem after attending school became compulsory in the
1870s. The school was intended to solve the problem of boys
roaming the streets. Parents of children sent here had to pay a
weekly amount for the maintenance of the child but often argued
that the child was beyond their control. To send children to a
residential school where they would probably be retained till
they were nearly16 years of age, appeared to be a very drastic
and expensive remedy for mere non-attendance. However, these
were similar to a borstal and contained ‘problem’ children or
the children of ‘problem families’. At first the Truant Schools
were not pleasant places. They smacked of the prison rather
than of the school and the daily regime was quite tough. These
schools were never used for girls. Gradually the school became
less strict, leading to the adoption of more enlightened
methods. When it ceased to be a school, the building was used as
an old people’s home but the building was
demolished in the late
1990s. After the school
building
was knocked down houses built were built on the site. The
records of the Edwardsville Truant School are now held in the
Glamorgan Archives in Cardiff, but they can only be consulted if
the entry is 100 years old because the information in the book
is regarded as being of a confidential nature. |
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