IT WAS time for a celebration by these Oxford schoolchildren.

Pupils from Bayswater Middle School in Headington had just heard they had won a British Rail competition.

They are pictured at Blackfriars railway station in London in 1990, with TV personality Keith Chegwin in the middle.

Teams from Bayswater School and schools in Chelmsford, Maidstone and Southampton had competed to see how many balloons they could put into a railway carriage in 60 minutes.

More than 6,000 balloons ended up in the carriage – and the 50 pupils from Bayswater were judged to have contributed the most.

The event was organised to publicise cheap outings offered to families by Network South-East, which ran many of the rail services in this area at the time.

Under the scheme, adults holding a Network card could travel standard class between any two Network stations for just £5, with their children travelling free if they carried a balloon.

Can anyone remember their families taking advantage of the offer, and tell us where they went?

The children pictured here were among thousands who attended the Bayswater School during its 50-year existence.

It opened as a secondary modern school in September 1953 to cater for children from Barton estate, which was growing rapidly at that time.

In 1975, when Oxford adopted a three-tier system of comprehensive education, it became Bayswater Middle School, for children aged nine to 13.

In 2003, when Oxford reverted to a two-tier system, all middle schools became obsolete and Bayswater closed.

Barton Village First School moved on to its site, adopting the name of Bayards Hill Primary School.

The new name, which was chosen by pupils, teachers and parents, did not go down well with residents, who wanted Barton included in the title.

Sue Holden, secretary of Barton Community Association, said at the time: “There’s a lot of bad feeling because we weren’t consulted. You can get a class of six- and seven-year-olds to vote how you want, and they manipulated the children.

“Why can’t we have something that reflects the school is in Barton? It’s part of the community, but no-one can relate to Bayards Hill.”

Ron Holland, headteacher of the two closing schools and the new school, had no sympathy with the complaints, claiming that Barton residents had shown little interest in school affairs in the past.

He said: “No parents turned up for the annual meeting. I’ve asked members of the community association to join the governing body and they’ve regularly declined. They don’t like change and only seem to get involved when they are upset about something. As far as I’m concerned, Bayards Hill it is and that’s the end of it.”

The school was apparently named after a Roman road that ran through the area, although historians expressed doubts about such a link.