Bittersweet memories of Lady Modiford‘s School formed a special one-off exhibition as the school closed it doors to pupils, possibly for the last time.

Families, staff, children and ex-pupils crowded into the school hall to reminisce over their memories of the 306-year-old school to celebrate its history as staff and pupils departed for other schools as the academy trust running it announced its closure.

The pop-up display took up all the hall, comprising newspaper cuttings marking the 300th-anniversary, past black and white photographs of the whole school with stern looking pupils and more recent coloured pictures of outdoor activity days.

One of the more amusing exhibits was an original punishment register which had among its misdemeanours being rude in the absence of a teacher, ‘making dirty comments to girls’, ‘being impudent to teachers’, ‘showing ignorance in the class’, ‘telling falsehoods’ and ‘letting us down’. These commonly resulted in strokes of the cane on the hand of the offender.

One of the displays shows marks a Blue Peter appeal fund collection of £240, while the most unusual single exhibit was probably the metal time capsule excavated from its burial site in the school grounds where it had been buried with school memorabilia in 1994 to mark the 275th anniversary of the school on this site.

Sarah Reid, deputy head, said: “We’re all sad the school is closing and might not be educating anyone anymore. Though we all hope it will reopen to provide education or training of some sort next year.

“Everyone does care a lot about the school because we’ve been such an integral part of the community, as can be seen by the huge amount of exhibits donated here. The hall was also crowded with families with past and current pupils keen to share memories stimulate by the memorabilia.”