Fitzjohn's Primary School

Fitzjohn's Primary School is a community primary school in Hampstead, London. The school was established in 1953. The school took over the school buildings and some of the grounds that were previously part of the estate belonging to the Royal Soldiers' Daughters' Home. There is also a nursery school which opened in 2006. The school is authorised to have a maximum of 230 pupils, including the nursery intake.HistoryThe Royal Soldiers' Daughters' Home was established in 1855 to provide a home and education to daughters of Crimean War veterans. This Victorian institution continued as a home and school until 2012 when it merged with another school.The post–World War II baby boom resulted on increased pressure on class sizes in the Hampstead area. However despite infant class sizes of up to 60 there was stiff resistance to the establishment of new Primary Schools as set out in the local authority School plan, particularly from other local schools. However, despite this opposition Fitzjohn's Primary School was opened in 1953. It replaced the Soldiers Daughter's Home school and took over the Home's schoolrooms, schoolhouse and chapel. The Home's former school buildings provided classroom accommodation for the infants school. A two storey building, that was part of the original estate, also became part of the school and was used as an assembly and dining hall. A new single-storey block comprising three classrooms and ancillary buildings was built to accommodate the junior school. Over the first sixty years of the school there have only been five headteachers. The first headteacher of the school was Miss Mandeville. Because of the school's Hampstead location it has benefited from being able to attract well-known figures from the literary world, including the poet Ted Hughes who discussed poetry with a class in the late 1970s.