Students and staff across Benenden looked back to the year of the School’s foundation for clothing, food and lesson inspiration today.
As part of the ongoing celebrations of Benenden School’s Centenary, the School turned back to where it all began, when the three Founders opened their new establishment in 1923.
The day began with a Prayers in which Mrs Price, in an irreverent manner, talked the School through some rules that would have been in place at the time, such as: ankle length skirts, no make-up, silence in the corridors and moving aside to let staff pass in School buildings. Some of the alarmed younger students were relieved when they realised it was all good fun!
Costumes straight from the roaring twenties could be spotted across the School, with tubular dresses, knickerbockers and sweater vests making a comeback. Special menu items leant a Jazz Age twist to mealtimes, as students have relished a taste of the early 20th Century.
Meanwhile, teachers in their anachronistic outfits took a leaf out of the textbooks of the Années folles, with some eschewing modern technology in favour of the more primitive ‘blackboard’, and others employing teaching methods of the time.
An exhibition put together by members of the STEM Department gave students an indication of the sort of Science equipment that might have been available to students before Physics, Chemistry and Biology were even taught as individual subjects.