Catalogue description Board of Education and predecessor: Elementary Education, Higher Elementary School Files

The Board of Education recognised in the Minute of 6th April, 1900, a class of public elementary schools, known as higher elementary schools, to give a four years' course of instruction to children between the ages of 10 and 15 and to provide a graduated course of elementary science, for which the schools were to receive a higher rate of grant.

The 'Cockerton Judgment' of 1901 that the London School Board had acted illegally in providing higher education out of the rates, occasioned a strict supervision of the scope of higher elementary schools

A number of applications for recognition of existing schools or the establishment of new schools as higher elementary schools were rejected under Article 110(7) of the 1901 Code of Regulations for Day Schools (Cmd. 513) as "not necessary having regard to the particular locality". By 1905 only 39 schools had been recognised, of which 8 had become secondary schools and 1 had reverted to its previous condition as an ordinary public elementary school. Only 6 higher elementary schools were new schools, the remainder were conversions from public elementary schools.

Following the introduction in 1919 of the provisions of Section 2(1)(a) of the Education Act, 1918, concerning the establishment of central schools, the board withdrew their regulations for higher elementary schools and separate grants under Article 42(a) of the former Code of Regulations were no longer payable (The Provisional Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools in England, 1919) (Cmd. 258). Most higher elementary schools in existence in 1919 sought recognition as central schools or secondary schools and for a year or two a few sought authority under Section 8(5) of the Education Act, 1918, re-enacted under Section 26 of the Education Act, 1921 to continue arrangements for senior scholars.