When I was a tacker at East Knowstone in the early 1950s I had to travel on the rust bucket school bus to Bishops Nympton, the school "over town" in Knowstone a mile away having closed before I was due to go there.
Originally it had been the Poor House, but in 1853 it was opened as a church school by the new vicar who had succeeded the infamous hunting parson John Froude, and who brought calm to the wild village. Most boys left school at the age of ten and attendance, especially in rural schools, was very irregular. Four entries from the Knowstone school log book for 1875, kept by the headmaster in copper plate handwriting in the form of a daily diary, make interesting reading.
April 25. Weather being fine many children are kept at home to assist in planting potatoes.
June 7. Rather small attendance on account of drawing turf for winter firing. (This would have taken place on Knowstone Moor and Haresdown Common where local farmers had commoners' rights of grazing and turf cutting.)
August 4. Half-term holiday in the afternoon, it being Tithe Day.
September 3. Attendance small, owing to the children being kept at home to aid their parents in carrying corn and gleaning. (Picking up ears of corn after reaping provided the poor womenfolk of the parish with corn for flour.)
Other tasks boys would have carried out were rook and crow scaring in fields recently sown with corn and stone picking in the fields. Young children in rural areas rarely completed five days of educational work a week in the mid-19th century.