It's nearing back-to-school season and many parents across Barrow will be preparing to send their children back after keeping them busy during the summer holidays. 

Photographs contained in the town's much-treasured online Sankey archive show just how different school days looked for children in the early 20th century.

It was only at the turn of the century that young children were no longer expected to work alongside adults, with attendance only becoming compulsory in 1918.

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The Sankeys were a local family that documented life in Barrow in the decades around this time.

As such, their photos, which have been curated in a massive archiving project by Signal Film and Media, give a fascinating insight into school life around this time.

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The gallery shows classrooms were far more bare in comparison to today's with hardly adorning the walls - save for a Tudor History timeline and Map of Empire on a wall pictured in St Paul's school in Barrow in the 1920s.

Equipment was also very sparse with students at the very turn of the century using just slate and chalk in lessons.

Fundamental differences in the curriculum for boys and for girls can been in some photographs.

(Image: Sankey online archive) The genders were much more segregated with an emphasis on housekeeping and motherhood for girls.

This is evidenced as late as the 1920s in the photos of St. Paul's School's where girls can be seen in a classroom taking a sewing class.

Boys are pictured in the same room learning practical skills in order to get paid work. 

The tradition of school presentations and activities go way back which can be seen in the photo Harley Street Wesleyan Primary School pupils in 1910.

(Image: Sankey online archive) The boys and girls are decked out for a school bazaar, possibly around Easter or May Day time.

The girls were two coloured dresses with the boys sporting some sort of smock.

Girls can also be seen wearing pretty dresses and learning to dance around a maypole.

The chaos of a military presentation can be seen at Thwaite Street School in 1917.

(Image: Sankey archive)

Children can be seen hanging off structures and sitting on roofs as the mayor of Barrow presented the Military Medal to 24-year-old Joshua Renney at the Barrow school.

One fascinating image shows a school photo of a class of girls with many of them wearing ruffs. 

The Sankey Photography Archive website is a Signal Film and Media project funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund. All images copyright The Sankey Family Photography Collection, courtesy of Cumbria Archives.