The Humble Beginning

In spite of the difficulties of pioneer life, the school started on January 22, 1943 on a happy note with discipline, hardwork and dedication to God’s purpose as the guiding principles.

There were fifty-one girls in all, grouped as: preparatory, Forms 1, 2 and 3. Water was fetched from the stream half a kilometre away, until the first well was sunk in 1946, a second one was added in 1950. The students prepared their meals, kept the compound clean, scrubbed the floors of buildings they made use of and in fact, did all the manual jobs in the school. The kitchen, the dining hall and the chapel were of mud walls. The chapel which was then the main building in the school, had dwarf mud walls, a thatched roof and mud seats. These mud seats were so rubbed and polished on staurdays, that the girls could sit on them without getting their white church uniforms stained. The first boarding house, clock house (renamed Crowther House in 1954) contained three dormitories, two box rooms, a teacher’s room and a matron’s room while the class room block contained as Assembly Hall (this is the present library) and three classrooms. There was also a house for the principal and another for two teachers. These were built of cement.

A good deal of time was devoted to religious activities, individual quiet time in the morning, morning worship during Assembly, grace at meal and vespers after supper, the regular Sunday morning and evening worships notwithstanding. Yet the school was not like a cloister at all. Grammar school subjects, Mathematicals, English Language and Literarture, igbo in place of Latin (which was later added). History, Geography, bible Knowledge, Singing and Physical Education were taught. Because of limited facilities, botany and general science were taught in place of the three secondary school science subjects, physics, chemistry and biology. Most of the teachers proved extremely versatile in the subjects they taught. For example, Miss Hill taught all subjects except vernacular, singing and needle work. All the staff took part in teaching physical education and gardening.

Physical education periods in the morning and games in the afternoons were boisterous and enjoyable with rounders, tenniquoit, volleyball and the most popular net ball. The girls planted grass and seeding of oranges, grape fruits, soursop, avocado pear and guava mostly brought by one reverend keneth prior.

School discipline was based on the premise that self discipline is the best form of discipline and this was illustrated by an incident that took place early in 1951. Lights out for all the school was normally at 8.45pm one of the House mistresses would go round to wish the girls good night as well as check that no student was absent. Peaceful sleep was then supposed to follow but this particular night it was full moon and then two girls followed by a third and so on went outside the dormitories to enjoy the moon light chats. Even form 1 girls sneaked out to enjoy the illegal fun. Suddenly there was a shout, “Miss Hill O!” Miss Hill who was very light footed had appeared at St. Margaret’ house before anybody noticed. Without any admonition from her, the crowd melted back into their beds. Next morning, Affiong Ikpeme (now Mrs. Nyambi) and other senior girls reported themselves to Miss Hill and the house members imposed punishment on themselves by cutting grass. This was self-discipline indeed.

The painstaking hardword of the principal and staff, the self discipline and self reliance of the students and most of all, the religious moral tone of the school, bore fruit academically in the Cambridge certificate examination of 1951 in which the school scored 100% pass. Academically, the school looked back after that in all aspects of education, high standards were maintained. The school made remarkable progress under each of her principals.