Hyde Park Junior School

Hyde Park Junior School (HPJS), founded in 1904, is a coeducational junior school located on Hyde Park Road, close to Mutley Plain in Plymouth, Devon, England. Catering for around 360 boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 11, it is housed in the same building as its partner school, Hyde Park Infants. The school's catchment area extends across part of the suburbs of Plymouth including Mutley and Mannamead. History Hyde Park School is built on the site where, in the 1590s, Thornhill House stood, which was occupied by Sir Francis Drake. Drake's Leat also ran past nearby. The school building was designed by Henry John Snell (1843–1924), who was responsible for a number of Plymouth's 19th century buildings. Hyde Park was the last school designed and built by the Plymouth School Board before the local authority took over responsibility for education in 1903, and it was officially opened by the Mayor of Plymouth on 27 May 1904. Upon opening the school had the capacity for 512 infants on the ground floor, 480 girls on the first floor and 430 boys on the third floor as well as two classrooms in the basement and a large playground with covered sheds. During the First World War, Hyde Park was used as a hospital and convalescent home. In the 1920s and 1930s, the school continued to run as three separate schools (infant, junior and high) and it was common for there to be 50 children in a class.