THE 100-year history of a Colchester school has been marked by its staff and pupils with a centenary celebration.

Teachers at the Gilberd School, in Highwoods , wore clothes from 1912 or 1952, the year of the Queen’s coronation.

Lessons were also adapted to recreate life at school 60 or 100 years ago.

Mark Orrin, assistant headteacher, said: “Rather than IT, we held typing lessons and PE lessons, included drills.

“All the teachers surprised themselves by how much they enjoyed the style of teaching, and pupils really got into it as well.”

A mural, created to commemorate the event, was painted by artist Scott Irwin, with help from 30 pupils from Years 7, 8 and 9.

It is now on display in the school’s dining hall, where it will remain.

The school was originally located in North Hill, Colchester, and opened at a cost of about £13,000.

It first served as a home for Colchester Technical College and Colchester County High School for Girls.

In the Thirties, the technical college became the North East Essex Technical College and School of Art.

In 1957, the girls’ high school moved to its present site, in Norman Way, and when a new technical college opened in Sheepen Road in 1959, the art school and day release classes moved there from North Hill.

What remained on the site was renamed the Gilberd Technical School – in honour of William Gilberd, the Colchester-born Tudor philospher and physicist, who first coined the term electricity.

The Gilberd School, as it would later become, moved to a new site at Highwoods in 1985, leaving the way clear for the North Hill buildings, two years later becoming Colchester Sixth Form College.