ABSTRACT
The Sheffield School Board undertook, through the offices of the Chief Constable, its own enumeration of children of school age and, basing their calculations on this and the 1871 Census returns, it became evident that further school accommodation was necessary in the Attercliffe-Carbrook region. The National School was the first to sample the tremendous social and educational difficulties presented by the area. There was considerable opposition to compulsory schooling that manifested itself in frequent confrontations with irate parents and parental connivance with children to encourage truancy. Hundreds of parents did send children, for both the National School and the temporary department provided by the School Board were rapidly over-subscribed and had to close their admission registers with something over 400 children on roll; though a large proportion were infants as was customary elsewhere. Until the gala opening of Carbrook Board School in 1874, Carbrook National School had to cope almost unaided with the Carbrook and Hill Top children.
