Elementary Education Act 1870 further acts in 1876 ("the Sandon Act", which gave parents a legal obligation to ensure that their children were educated) and 1880 ("the Mundella Act") made attendance compulsory for children until they were 10 years old, with various exemptions. Many factory owners feared the removal of children as a source of cheap labour. However, with the simple mathematics and English they were acquiring, factory owners now had workers who could read and make measurements. Following continued campaigning by the National Education League, following the Elementary Education Act 1880, attendance to age 10 became compulsory everywhere in England and Wales. In
Raising of school leaving age England and Wales, has been raised numerous times. The first act to introduce and enforce compulsory attendance was the Elementary Education Act 1870, with school boards set up to ensure children attended school, although exemptions were made for illness and travelling distance. Since then, the age has been raised several times, most notably to 15 through the Education Act 1944 and to 16 in 1972, along with the addition of so called "ROSLA Buildings" built as part of a school expansion scheme to cope with the extra number of students and Middle schools, the latter serving the 8-12 or 9-13