Staff Rooms

Staff rooms: some comments

From the time of the school’s extension in 1960, the main staff room had been located on the first floor, next to the deputy head’s office and overlooking Higher Ardwick. It was very small and was of a size which made it more suitable for use as an office. In addition, there was also a “quiet staff room” which was located on the ground floor of what was John Rylands’ former house and facing Ardwick Green Park. Both staff rooms had toilets nearby. Since the latter staff room was in a part of the building deemed to be off-limits for pupils, it was ideal for teachers wishing to get on with quietly marking, writing reports, preparing lessons or just relaxing at lunch times.

The same could not be said, however, of the main staff room, which was small, congested and totally inadequate for the requirements of a large staff. It lacked basic facilities such as running water and a sink, as well as having insufficient space for storing books and materials. It was also easily accessible, with pupils frequently knocking on the door at certain times of the day and often asking for teachers who were not there. A consequence of this was that some teachers preferred to spend their break and lunch times in their own rooms, especially when there was running water available nearby. This, arguably, led to a fragmentation of the staff.

By 1973 change was in the air. The main staff room now became the office for the newly appointed second deputy head and the staff room was relocated to Room 1, one of the English rooms on the ground floor and facing the yard. Although bigger and better in some respects, this room had serious drawbacks. It was too accessible for children, with some actually spilling into the room from the nearby corridor; it was affected by noise, from above, outside and from the corridor; it lacked certain facilities; and it was some distance away from the staff toilets and cloakrooms which were on the first floor near the entrance to the hall.

Following a lively staff meeting to discuss the issue, a decision was taken to relocate once again, this time to the first floor to the room previously used for Geometrical and Engineering Drawing (GED).  It was large, spacious and airy, and had a fair-sized stock-room. It was most suitably situated as a staffroom. It had drinking facilities and storage space for books and other materials. It also had space for a new innovation – pigeon holes for staff – making communication between individuals much better.  There was space for a proper notice board on which, among other things, details of staff absences and substitutions could be displayed. Gone forever was the ancient practice of the deputy head having to send hand-delivered ‘chitties’ to staff asking them to cover for an absent colleague. Another advantage was the fact that all staff were now expected to visit the new staff room each day to check the substitution list. This would undoubtedly lead to an improvement in communication and relationships among the staff. The new staffroom’s spacious stock room and dark room were intended for use as a ‘resource centre’ for the staff of St Gregory’s and for neighbouring schools (if they so desired). In the event, other schools did not use this facility. In a letter to the Chief Education Officer in May 1975, the school outlined the problems of the staffroom provision for 42 teachers being utterly inadequate and that the former GED room was now being used. A request was made to the CEO to consider granting the school an allocation of furniture and furnishings “that would give us parity with other maintained secondary schools of equivalent size”.

There were two obvious problems with the choice of this room. The first was the fact that it lacked privacy as it was overlooked by pupils using the nearby stairs: putting up large posters on the room’s internal windows quickly solved this minor drawback. The second problem was the fact that pupils could now access staff from two doors: this was solved by discouraging pupils from knocking on the doors. 

Previous  Next