SCHOOLS may be closed at the moment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hop in our time machine and return to the classroom.

Today’s Nostalgia fest takes us to Colchester Royal Grammar School, which has been part of our town for more than 450 years.

We’ve rooted through the archives to find pictures from CRGS dating back to 1910, including prize-winners, Oxbridge candidates and pupils testing out the internet in the 1990s.

This is the first of three special spreads celebrating a school known as one of the best in the country for exam success - and well-known in town for its iconic purple blazers.

The Lexden Road school, called The Grammar School, opened in August 1853, after formerly occupying a house in Culver Street for 314 years.

In 1899, the school appointed its first non-clergyman headmaster, Shaw Jeffrey, who introduced the Latin-named houses and introduced those vibrant blazers.