On Friday 16th May 2025, St Augustine’s CE High School will be celebrating its 155th Birthday! We were founded in 1870 by the parish of St Augustine, Kilburn, through Fr Kirkpatrick, the first vicar, and Mother Emily Ayckbown of the Community of Sisters of the Church. St Augustine’s was officially opened on 16th May 1870 with just seven boys as its first students, with the high school specifically opening in 1884 as an all boys’ secondary school.
Mother Emily was born in 1836 and from an early age demonstrated a strong social conscience. She challenged the wealthiest to think about those less fortunate. When there was an outbreak of cholera in England, Mother Emily set up an isolation hospital to nurse the sick. Mother Emily also founded the Church Extension Association which helped the poor, by feeding and providing basic education to children. By 1893, Mother Emily had established 8 schools in London, one in Liverpool, one in Croydon and one in York. Mother Emily extended her work to helping the homeless, the poor and established orphanages in Kilburn. She believed that a child properly nurtured stood a real chance of embarking upon a happy and creative life, something that we continue to provide for our students now.
(Below) This is a picture of St Augustine’s in 1906.
(Below) This is one of the earliest photographs that we have of our students from 1905. This was the boys cricket team and although a lot has changed in the last 155 years, our character has remained the same.
Our school was originally established to educate the local community. A year before it officially opened, the National Education League began campaigning for free education for all. Their goal was to eliminate child labour, and their efforts contributed to the passing of the 1870 Education Act—Parliament’s first clear commitment to addressing inequality in education.
In 1876, education became compulsory for all children. However, parents were still required to pay school fees. This was an unpopular policy, as it dealt a double financial blow to families: they lost income from their child’s labour and had to cover the cost of schooling. As a result, many parents continued to keep their children out of school.
To address this, the government abolished school fees in 1881 and took over the funding of education. From then on, children between the ages of 5 and 10 were required to attend school. The school-leaving age was later raised to 11 in 1893, and again to 12 in 1899.
The Education Act of 1918 was the first to propose that young people should stay in education until the age of 18. However, this goal was not achieved at the time due to the financial constraints following World War I. The current structure dividing education into primary and secondary stages was established in 1951.
Finally, in 1972, the school-leaving age in England was officially raised to 16—the same year the Education (Work Experience) Act was introduced, marking a significant step in connecting education with practical work experience.
(Below) A picture of the Junior Boys Football team of 1958-59.
Since 1870 the school has been rebuilt twice. In 1969 building work started on creating a new school for the community, and the school was then officially reopened after a 4-year project.
The current school was then rebuilt again in 2009 and continues to educate and serve the community to over 1200 students in the Primary and Secondary Schools. Throughout our 155 years, St Augustine’s has continued to uphold the Christian Ethos that it was built on. Over the years, our school has grown into a diverse and flourishing community, and we are proud to honour its rich history through various celebratory events in 2025.
During 2025, we have marked our 155th year by having a variety of activities and events that our school community could get involved in. Our staff and students have completed the following:
- Seen archive footage and learnt about the history of the school.
- 155 hours of kindness – Students and Staff have volunteered their time to lead events, support activities and develop their leadership totally 155 hours! This has included collecting 155 items of clothing to donate to the charity Shelter, which staff and 6th Form students have been raising money for and completed the ‘Walk for Shelter’ event in December 2024. Year 10 students have been collating 155 items of food to deliver to a food bank in our local community.
- Students have also been involved in designing a new prayer to celebrate our 155th Birthday, led collective worship, run charity days and staff and Year 4 and 5 students have also been involved in cake decorating! Key Stage 3 have designed a new prayer to celebrate our Birthday.
- Year 7 have been challenged to read 1,550,000 words on accelerated reader this year, sports day in July has a special 155m race this year and we are waiting for confirmation of 155 flowers to arrive for our students to plant around the school!
- We have also had a special badge designed to celebrate our 155th Birthday, a special event which is being led by student leaders with VIP guests on Friday 16th May 2025 and our Year 9 students have been involved in some exciting drone footage!
