Education, Page 2 - Kibble, A Lasting Legacy. Residential, secure, education, fostering, social enterprise, training for young people and youths.
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This approach parallels that at Rossie Reformatory where, during the winter, they delivered a series of popular lectures ‘on interesting subjects by gentlemen in the district and from a distance’.2 The Rossie booklet goes on to say that these lectures were also well attended by the farmers, ploughmen, cottagers and female servants of the neighbourhood – a very early example, perhaps, of such an institution fulfilling an adult and community learning role.

Letter of application for a teaching post

Letter of application for a teaching post

This is a letter of application for a teaching post from David Marshall, 1889.

Religious instruction was another subject area that was given prominence at Kibble; the minutes of an Education Committee meeting in October 1910 record that the new scheme of religious instruction had been in operation for some time and had been very favourably reported on by Mr Love (Superintendent). The committee agreed to continue the scheme of instruction and to have an examination of the work done towards the end of the session.

(Kibble: Minutes of Education Committee Meetings 1910-1914, Minutes of 5th October 1910)

This course of instruction was, of course, in addition to attendance at Church services every Sunday. In Kibble’s earliest days, boys went to Church twice on Sundays. Some local residents, even today, can still remember seeing the boys walking to Church in orderly lines on Sundays. It is not clear from our records when this practice came to an end; however, one of our oral history interviewees, William Anderson, who was at Kibble in the late 1940s and early 1950s, remembers attending Church every Sunday morning. He does say though that he doesn’t remember having any other religious instruction or Bible study in the school.

(William Anderson, Interviewed 24th May 2006)

Education: Kibble towards the mid-twentieth century

During the twentieth century one of the most notable changes, both in the wider reformatory schools system and in Kibble specifically, was increased specialisation of staff. This is, of course, indicative of greater curricular variety and specialisation. Many of these modifications began with structural changes to the system as a whole. From 1928, for example, convictions were no longer to be recorded in Juvenile Court and use of the word ‘sentence’ was to cease. In addition, Reformatory Schools were re-designated as Approved Schools (Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ Association, 1930-1950, Minutes of Meetings, 11th November 1928 Minutes) and some other terminology was subsequently altered to reflect these changes; in 1933, the Scottish Education Department (SED) recommended that the terms ‘headmaster’ and ‘headmistress’ be adopted in place of the long-used term ‘superintendent’.

(Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ Association, 1930-1950, Minutes of Meetings, 19th January 1933 Minutes)

2‘A Visit to Rossie Reformatory, by a Dundee Resident’, from Montrose Standard, January 5th 1872, pp. 6-7

(Kibble: Minutes of Industrial Committee Meetings 1905-1928, Minutes of April 1914 meeting)

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