Overchurch County Mixed Junior and Infant School opened on the 25th May 1937, however the new buildings for the school were not complete, so Birkenhead Corporation rented the former St Mary's Church of England School's premises. They paid a rent of £100 per year and the trustees retained use of the building for five hours in the evenings each week for meetings. The school moved into its new building on 16th August 1938.

The new building was designed to take 200 pupils, compared to the old school which took 86, it had two Junior Classrooms, each holding 50 children, a Reception Room and a Babies room, these also had accommodation for 50. There was also an Assembly Hall measuring 60ft by 30ft and various ancillary rooms. Outside, there was a 1,935 sq yd playground with a hard surface.

The school was brick built with sand facing bricks, the classrooms, Assembly Hall and Staff Rooms had wood block floors and pitched roofs while the corridors, cloakrooms and lavatories had "Colourphalt" floors and flat, reinforced concrete roofs.

The school was built on a 3.2 acre site. In May 1948 Birkenhead Corporation proposed to buy a further 17.55 acres of land, mostly behind the school stretching back to Manor Drive but also including a 110ft wide strip next to the school. The land was intended for future expansion of the school and for the provision of playing fields. In 1957 a strip of the land along the side of Manor Drive was transferred to the Highways department to enable the road to be widened. In July 1968 Hayfield School was built on part of the land fronting onto Manor Drive.

An extension to the school was completed in May 1950, this included two new classrooms, two store rooms and a drying room. Further extensions were made in 1956, and in 1963 two additional classrooms were added.

On 21st April, 1956, the Ministry of Education approved the building of a new school, behind the existing school. This new school would be two form entry and would take about 480 children, mainly aged between 8 and 11. The cost was estimated to be £70,000.

The new school, Overchurch County Junior School, opened on 5th January 1959. The existing school was renamed Overchurch County Infants School. Due to the waterlogged conditions, the laying out of the playing fields could not be completed until later in 1959.

The Infant School was inspected on 30/31 March 1965. The inspectors started their report with a comment on the location of the school:

Overchurch Infants School shares with the recently opened Junior Department (1959) the most attractive school site in Birkenhead - a rural setting, mid-way across the Wirral Peninsula and close to the boundary which separates the Borough from its neighbouring authorities.

At the time of the inspection the infant school had 311 children on roll, organised into eight classes and accommodated in nine classrooms.

A class from the overcrowded St Joseph's School occupied part of the dining room until their own new school buildings were completed in 1966.

 

 

A Fatal Accident

On the 6th October 1971 three boys, who were pupils at the junior school, returned to the school at about 5.25pm and entered the grounds through a gate on Moreton Road which was not locked as it also provided access to the caretakers house. The boys, Stephen, Gary and Neil, left the path and entered the woodland, which was "out of bounds", to look for conkers. Stephen asked Gary to give him a lift up a tree. Stephen climbed up the horse chestnut tree into the lower branches, which were about 20ft from the ground, he stood on a branch to dislodge the conkers but lost his balance and fell from the tree.

Gary ran to the telephone box on the corner of Overchurch Road and called for an ambulance. Stephen was taken to St Catherine's Hospital but was found to be dead on arrival, the cause of death was due to the spine being fractured and dislocated. Stephen was 12 years old.

An inquest was held on 29th October, verdict : Accidental Death.