Historic building recording by P Davenport of COT ahead of partial demolition revealed the mid-19th century origins of the school and recorded four main phases of development between c 1860 and 1958. Some of these developments were most probably undertaken in response to the introduction of various Education Acts; in particular the 1880 Act that saw the school almost double in size soon after its introduction, and the 1944 Act that might have prompted the further increase in size by the addition of extra classrooms soon after that date. The former Act made attendance at school compulsory to the age of 10 while the latter enforced the division between primary education (5–11 years old) and secondary education (11–15 years old). A subsequent watching brief by T Brown, also of COT, during the construction of an extension, revealed a shallow ditch that produced a small number of post-medieval pottery fragments and a pit or ditch that contained ceramic building material of late post-medieval or modern date.