That is a very helpful answer Joy. I seem to recall reading through the log books and manager's reports for the school and they record the inspectors'reports there. The dates are 1873 to 1906 and the exempt appears for well over half of the children. The school catered for canal boat children and itinerant labourers' families so I guess attendance was not very good! Some children left after a only a few months, very few stayed longer than 4 years on the books. However as the comment comes where for other children the teacher records the child leaving for another town or school,or left to work . I am still wondering a how the exempt statement relates to the other entries. Best wishes Gill Sent from my iPad On 19 Aug 2013, at 15:15, Joy Langdon <joy.langdon@btopenworld.com> wrote: > What were the dates when these comments were appearing? Between 1863 and 1890 (I think these dates are right - it was a very long time ago I was studying the History of Educaton) there was a "Payment by results" policy for teachers. There was a final exam conducted by School Inspectors to assess whether the children had achieved the required level of knowledge. Maybe children who were absent a lot were exempted from the final exam because they recognised that the best teacher in the world can't achieve good results with a child who isn't there. > > Joy > > From: Gill Gladwin <maygladwin@gmail.com> > To: Lynda Burke <lynda@chetwood.org> > Cc: "CHESHIRE@rootsweb.com" <CHESHIRE@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, 19 August 2013, 13:19 > Subject: Re: [CHS] Fwd: Education in the 19c > > Thanks for the reply Linda,but what do you think they are exempt from ? An exam,or further attendance. > The age of pupil is usually 14. > Any illness is usually recorded. > Gill > Sent from my iPad > > On 19 Aug 2013, at 07:19, Lynda Burke <lynda@chetwood.org> wrote: > > > >> ------------------------------- > >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >