[2] Until its replacement by Spires Academy school in 2007, the school's uniform of bottle green, and shield showing the white horse of the county of Kent, a coal mine tower and wheat sheaves, with the motto Strive for the Right, remained the same.

[3] The building cost was £12,548 and was officially opened by Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne, an admirer of Rudolf Steiner and a sportsman who competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics.

[4] The stated aim of the school on opening was to specialise in 'practical education, such as cookery, laundry, gardening, woodwork, metalwork and practical geography'.

According to Anthony Sampson, in his book Anatomy of Britain (1965), there were structural problems within the testing process that underpinned the eleven plus which meant it tended to result in secondary modern schools being overwhelmingly dominated by the children of poor and working class parents, while grammar schools were dominated by the children of wealthier middle class parents.

[6] After it opened the school soon became a focus for local community life, being the location for numerous community events, including the Seventh Annual Kent Collieries Ambulance Challenge in 1938,[7] and hosting a visit by diplomats from the American Embassy in London in 1944.

Instead year groups were designated by the first six letters of the school's name, F, R, A, N, K and M, and each class was officially assigned as being of equal ability.