Tennal School, Balden Road, Harborne

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Date:1847 - 1984 (c.)

Description:Tennal’s roots are in the 19th century when Birmingham’s first ragged school was founded as St Philip’s Free Industrial School in 1847. As a ragged school, free education was given to poor children who would not be able to afford it.

The school moved to Gem Street in 1850, and finally to its ultimate home of Balden Road in 1902. In 1873, girls were moved out and the school became for boys only.

In 1902, it was renamed Harborne Certified Industrial School. In 1925, it was renamed again, this time as Ansell School.

In 1933, Tennal as it was known then, became an approved school. As such, boys were sent to the school by the juvenile courts to serve a period of time after being convicted of an offence.

In 1966, a classifying school was planned to run in the Tennal premises alongside the approved school. The classifying school was intended to house the boys prior to their sentencing. With the change of structure brought about the 1969 Children’s Act, the plans for the classifying centre were modified to become an assessment centre.

New buildings, forming the new assessment centre, were added to the original approved school building and the centre was opened in 1972 by Sir Keith Joseph, the then Secretary of State. The complex was at this stage known as the Tennal Community Home and Assessment Centre. The assessment centre was a regional resource taking in children from all over the West Midlands.

The complex included 26 houses (most of which were occupied by members of staff) workshops, craft rooms, a sports hall, a swimming pool, gymnasium, hall and a hard court area in addition to the seven self-contained residential units.

The Assessment Centre included four units: Sergeant House was for juniors – aged 11 to 14 years; Knox House housed the boys of the middle age range and Yates House was for seniors.

Additionally there was the secure unit, Appleton House, based in the former sick bay of the approved school and was opened in 1975. Seven boys could be housed in the secure unit.

A former member of staff on the secure unit:
“You are faced with a secure unit where you’ve actually got seven young children, all the doors are locked. The bedrooms they slept in had bars on the windows and a steel ceiling, steel floors - it was quite a dramatic change you know. One thing I actually enjoyed a lot about it was that it was only a seven bedded unit and we had a very good staff ratio. I think we had about four care staff at any one time which meant that you got a lot of individual time with young people. The young people that came there were quite often in crisis. They hadn’t been contained in any other kind of accommodation, some of them may have been quite self damaging, but in that setting, without the ability to disappear and do all sorts of terrible things to themselves and to other people, we were able to sort of engage with them and I felt that we moved young people forward quite positively.”

On the community home with education (training school) side Gilbey House had 15 beds and, as a smaller unit, was able to provide more intensive care for those boys who needed it. York House was for 12 to 14 year olds and Ansell House was for 14 to 16 year olds.

In all, when it opened the complex could house approximately 155 boys in its seven residential units - 75 12 - 15 years olds in the training school and 80 10 - 17 years olds in the assessment centre.

In 1981, Birmingham divided its residential child care into districts with each having a centre taking on the assessment and placement functions for the whole district. Yates House became the South District Centre even though Tennal itself was based in the Central District.

Tennal closed in 1984. The Martineau Teachers’ Centre moved into the premises.

The South District Centre, however, which came into being in 1981 (and had beds for 12 boys and 4 girls), was still based at Tennal when the rest of the complex closed. In 1986, plans were made to move it to Beechenhurst in Selly Oak (which could accommodate 9 boys and 3 girls).

In January 2000, a police investigation (Operation Camassia) was instigated following a number of complaints about the abuse of children at Tennal in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result of the investigation which lasted a number of years, several former staff members were convicted and a number of victims were offered financial compensation.

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Image: Tennal School, before the new buildings were added in the 1960s.
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Source: This history was compiled by the Birmingham Children's Homes Project, an initiative to explore Birmingham City Council-run children’s homes between 1949 and 1990.