AS students receive their exam results in the next two weeks thoughts many of us will be looking back to our own school days.

These vintage images capture moments from life at one of Colchester’s secondary schools going back to the 1940s.

The St Helena School opened in 1938 and began life as two schools - one of the boys and the other for girls.

But the site dates back even further than that - to Roman times when it was home to a temple built in 90AD.

Archaeologists discovered its existence ins the 1930s, but the secondary school itself was opened in Sheepen road, opposite the Colchester Institute by Kenneth Lindsay, who was parliamentary Secretary for Education at the time for Education.

Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister at the time and Europe was about to be plunged in to the misery of wartime once more.

In those days, education in Colchester was controlled by the Colchester Borough Education Committee, which was chaired by Alderman Alex Blaxill, the mayor who would later give his name to another Colchester school.

With the schools being separated by gender, the headteacher for the boys was a Mr H Hepburn Reid and the girls were kept in line by Miss M Lucas.

Other than a few shared facilities, the two groups were kept strictly separate in their educational instruction.

The two remained separate until 1961 when Mr Hepburn Reid oversaw it becoming co-education and after 25 years as a headteacher, he retired two years later.

A reorganisation took place once again in 1977 and St Helena became a mixed comprehensive for youngsters aged between 11 and 18

By this time it had become part of the Essex Local Education Authority.

It undertook another reorganisation of secondary education in the town in 1987 and St Helena School reverting to taking students between 11 and 16 with the opening of the Sixth Form College on North Hill catering for A-levels.

Marking its 80th anniversary this year, its Golden Jubilee in 1988 was celebrated with a visit by Kenneth Baker, who was the Education Secretary at the time alongside Kenneth Lindsay, making his first return to the school since he had opened it in 1938.

Although the original buildings from 1938 school still stand, new facilities have been added as well as minor structural maintenance.

Two major building programmes have brought added capacity, so that an original capacity of 720 has now increased to over 1000. In 1976 a new block was constructed comprising general classrooms, science laboratories and art rooms.

In 1991 a Sports Hall and technology rooms were built.

l Do you have any vintage images you would like to share with readers? Contact us on 01206 508186.