X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Approved School


Bassingbourn cum Kneesworth

In 1947 it opened as a residential boys school and after being sold to the council in 1968 was known as Kneesworth House Approved School until its closure in 1986.

Hardwicke, Stroud

Hardwicke Reformatory, established in 1852, has been claimed as the first Approved School for boys in the world.



see also

Charles Richard Sharpe

In World War II a number of bombs were dropped on the approved school, a row of wooden huts adjacent to Bourne Woods that may have been mistaken for a military camp; Sharpe was injured.

Joe Machine

In 1988 he was sent to Alston House Approved School, Rochester, for the theft of scrap material, and the following year to Dover Borstal for young offenders, after burgling a greengrocers in Leysdown (Isle of Sheppey).