50th anniversary celebrations at Ridgeway Infant School, Littleover

A FORMER teacher and her daughter have revisited their former school as part of its 50th birthday celebrations.

Olga Bowen and daughter Philippa had not been back to Ridgeway Infant School, in Littleover, in more than 40 years.

But the pair, both of Chain Lane, Littleover, visited yesterday to share their memories with today's pupils.

Recalling how she got a job there, Mrs Bowen said: "I came to put my daughter's name down to come to the school and the headmistress had a vacancy and asked me if I would take it.

"I said yes, on one condition, that I did not have my daughter in my class."

Mrs Bowen taught five- and six-year-olds from 1968 to 1972 before moving to Dale School, Derby, where she was head of the infant department until she retired.

The 88-year-old said: "Teaching was very different in those days. School was much more formal and strict. We did not have any helpers in the classroom, it was just the teacher."

Her daughter Philippa, 49, started at the school in 1968 and stayed until 1970 before going to Derby High.

Miss Bowen, who works as a business adviser, said: "If I was going to get in trouble there was no way I could get away with it with mum being at the school. I wasn't treated any differently but everybody knew she was my mum.

"I remember when it was summer and the weather was nice we would sit outside and read stories. And we'd have blackboards with chalk in those days.

"I've still got two or three friends from the school that I still keep in touch with."

The school actually opened in September 1961 but, due to Ofsted inspections and five new teachers starting, the celebrations were delayed, so yesterday pupils and staff wore fancy dress costumes from across the decades.

Organiser Emma Nicholson, a year two teacher and history leader, said pupils would make a time capsule as part of the celebrations.

"The children have made worksheets about themselves to put in the capsule so that in another 50 years the school can open it and see what we did," she said.

The pupils also took part in a fashion show and the teachers performed songs from the 1960s through to the 1990s.

Miss Nicholson performed a "mash-up" of 80s songs from Wham's Jitterbug to Annie Lennox's Sweet Dreams with some of her colleagues.