Photograph of a school shopping (or counting) class in Albert Road School, Saltaire in 1925. The photograph is taken from the back of the classroom. It shows a class of 22 girls looking towards the front of the class where a girl is standing in front of a table. The table has several sets of grocery items arranged in stacks. The girl is presumably counting the objects. A teacher stands at the side of the class next to a blackboard where she has written the results of the counting.
As the population of Saltaire grew, the Factory School on Victoria Road (today the Salt Building) became inadequate for the number of children requiring an education. The local school board opened the Albert Road Board Schools in 1878 to cater for 815 younger children. The original Factory School remained in use as the High School.
Children at the Albert Road schools were taught in mixed classes of around 40 children, although boys and girls were still seated in separate halves of the room, and corporal punishment was forbidden.
At the time, the Shipley and Saltaire Times reported that people were doubtful whether this new approach to education would work. Shortly after their opening, the same newspaper printed a report on the schools and retracted their earlier criticism.