We have uploaded here a number of images of the Shirley Road school site taken in 1965/66 by Stephen Lander (JRGS 1959-66) and scanned by Paul Graham (JRGS 1959-65).
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Paul Graham writes: These wonderful photos of the JRGS building and sports fields date from 1965-66 and are courtesy of Stephen Lander, who lent me them for this purpose. Black and white, of course, but they bring memories flooding back. If you wonder why there are no people at all, you have to imagine a warm summer afternoon when the whole school was down at the Arena in South Norwood for sports day, with just Stephen wandering around with his camera, having managed to opt out of Sports Day to stock take in his role of school librarian.

Art Room, playground and
main schoolroom block

Gymnasium, wood and metalwork classrooms from sports field

Main block, Hall, Music
Room and The Mill

Rear of Science wing

Biology wing and greenhouse
from rear Quadrangle

Science wing, Library
and Sixth Form rooms

High-jump pit and Mill Pitch

Oaks Road playing field

Oaks Road sports pavilion

In the early Seventies a series of portable schoolrooms was erected in the JRGS playground to accommodate the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16.

Paul Graham adds: "ROSLA [Raising Of the School Leaving Age in 1972/73] meant that schools had to face a bunch of fifth formers who had been expecting for some time to leave at the end of the fourth form, often with no extra teaching space. Things were a bit messy for a few years."

Cliff Cummins (JRGS 1956-62) adds: "The Ruskin ROSLA block was of a light-weight structure and may have only had a 20-year design life. It was re-designated eventually, I think, as the Ruskin Sixth Form block.
Many new buildings erected in the Sixties and Seventies were of cheap pre-fabricated system builds (MACE and SCOLA buildings!) and have not lasted well. Only one ROSLA block - more substantial than the others - exists today in Croydon, at what was the Selhurst Boys Grammar School site. The only other ROSLA block built in Croydon was demolished at the ex-Heath Clark Grammar school."