Among the initial editorial staff was pupil Norman Price who later became Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue[3] and obtain a knighthood.

[4] Dr Harold Priestley's book Plaistow Sec: The Story of a School, credits this to Miss M "Maggie" Lamb, MA, an English teacher who joined the school in 1927 and who translated it as "Not to what end, but how" (also translated as "Not by whom but in what manner"[5]), in other words the end does not justify the means or (colloquially) "It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it".

In the 1950s the motto of the County Borough of West Ham, Deo Confidimus (translated as "In God we trust"), was adopted.

Before and during the second world war, pupils and staff were evacuated at various times[7] to (briefly) Wellington in Somerset, then to Weymouth in Dorset, South Molton in Devon,[8] Helston and Newquay, both in Cornwall.

[13][14] Pupils were allocated to one of four Houses – Barking, Regent, Beckton and Cumberland (named after four roads to the north, east, south and west of the school).