About the School, Past and Present
Welcome to St. Thomas' Infant school which is a Church Foundation, grant aided by the Department for Education and Skills, and maintained by the Local Education Authority.
The school was opened in 1869 to provide "for the education of children of labouring, manufacturing and other poorer classes of the District of Brentwood in the principles of the Established Church".
The school was enlarged in 1883 and a new school was built on the site of the present Health Centre in Coptfold Road in 1914. As the population of Brentwood grew, once again the school became overcrowded.
The foundation stone for a new school, the present one, was laid by the then Bishop of Chelmsford in 1967. The school changed status becoming Aided instead of Controlled and the Duchess of Kent performed the opening ceremony in October 1968.
Since then the school has grown in size and more recently has developed its accommodation.
There is now a purpose built Early Years Unit which has been up and running for the past 7 years. It is a large, stimulating learning environment with its own outside play area. It is a wonderful setting for young children to start their school career.
In January 2002 we saw the removal of the last remaining demountable classroom from the school site and it was replaced by a new brick built classroom for Year 1.
Perhaps our most ambitious project in the recent past has been the construction of a purpose built library, complete with beautiful stained glass windows designed by one of our governors. The standard of reading is something of which we are all proud at St Thomas' and the beautiful new library gives us a central point where we can keep our wide ranging collection of books.
The Junior school to which all children normally proceed is on the same site.
