By Dr Letters, Librarian & Archivist and Mrs Critcher, Part-time Archivist

Our celebration of the second national #SchoolArchivesDay began with the discovery the day before that Googling ‘School Archives Day’ brought up NHEHS. Amazingly, it also brought up a photo of our archivist, Mrs Critcher. AI has learnt what we already know, that the NHEHS archive is of national importance in the history of women’s education!

Dr Letters and Mrs Critcher, our archivists, wanted to use School Archives Day to emphasise the range of ways our archive can be used. A display of articles and illustrations contributed to the school magazine long ago by students who are now staff caused much amusement.Your review of the school play, or place in the U14 netball team, might be on display in 30 years time.The archivists made a display showing the authors who are alumnae – including Bettany Hughes OBE, Penny Vincenzi, Jamilia Gavin, Konnie Huq, Sarah Hagger-Holt, Ewa Jozefkowicz and Eleanor Steafel – to tie in with the National Year of Reading. 

As ever, the most popular feature of School Archives Day was the display of old school photos, particularly the whole school photo from 1994. The photo features a number of pupils who are now staff. The then Deputy Head Girl, or Mrs Collins as we know her now, was easy to identify standing behind the Head’s wooden throne. Mrs Critcher is there in her third year of teaching at NHEHS (with 29 still to go in the maths department and 3 more in the archive). Current students came along to spot their mothers ‘back in the day’. Staff came in to spot daughters, sisters and friends. The continuing relationships between mothers, daughters, aunts and grandmothers has always been a lovely aspect of our school. 

Our archive and library rep Tessa devised a challenging quiz based on our digital archives. This was well received and keen entrants came to the Library to puzzle out the answers. House points have been awarded to entrants and the winners in KS3 and KS4 win a private tour of the archive. Well done to all students who entered.

Our archival treasures were on display so that students could get close up to the history of our school. These included most of the procession objects, which are normally locked away. The school boater and felt hat were also on display (students expressed doubts about wearing those – some of us remember it well) with the old school doll. 

Our lunchtime event was well received – if you want to join in the fun, remember you can access the school’s digital archive at https://www.nhehsarchives.net/ or through the QR code.

Finally, Dr Letters and Mrs Critcher would like to emphasise that engagement with the archive can have a very positive impact on student outcomes. One of our former archive reps was asked about her role in a university interview and turned this into a positive exchange with the interviewer. Our archive can take you further than you might think!

Quotes from School Archives Day:

‘That does look like her!’

‘So sweet.’

‘Great to see Mrs Collins there… Mrs Eastwood… I cannot…’

‘How does Mrs Collins have exactly the same hair?’

‘Mrs Collins looks the same.’