SUBJECTS, FORMS, CLASSES
Latin, Biology, Geology & Geologists, Chemistry, History, Woodwork, Religious Instruction, Serbo-Croat, Streams/Forms
NOTE The subject ‘Music’ is treated under Music, Bands, Instruments
...to seek clarification on Language choices. I have
previously asked if anyone could explain why, though I was in the German set, I
could remember, early on, being taught some Latin. From the various replies, I
was persuaded to accept the scenario of placement in Latin in year 2, and at
the end of the season being 'relegated' to German. I am however, not totally
convinced, and continue to pursue a less ignominious solution. To this end, I
notice from my 49/50 Alumni that German was not an option for the '46' intake,
but was for the '47', which means it was added to the syllabus in either '48'
or '49'--doesanyone know which? If '49', its possible that some 47ers did Latin in '48', and were
then given the OPTION to change to the recently introduced language of the
"vanquished". If this is not the case, I can only assume that I must
have spoken Latin in a previous life...perhaps as a Roman Centurian,
or, as I can now only remember the conjugation of the verb-"To Love",..a renaissance
Poet/Philosopher. (Eric Barker)
If I remember rightly, I was put into 2L1 in the second year
whether I wanted to learn Latin or not. I think the second year classes
were 2L1, 2L2 and 2S and 2F(?). It seems that the
duffers were assigned to 2f! I wish I could have learned German instead of that
stupid dead Latin!! (Graham Shuttleworth)
I departed
Hare Hll in 1946. Up to that time (and during my
stay) French, Spanish and Latin were the only languages taught. (Well, English
was also taught). One could either choose Latin or Spanish. For some unknown
reason I opted for Latin. (Geoffrey Styles)
By the early
1960s it had changed some, but not massively. French was taught to everyone
from 1st year to 5th year inclusive; in the 2nd year one was obliged to choose
a second language from Spanish, Latin and German. I chose German but I do not now remember
why. At the beginning of the 4th year it was possible to opt for a third
language, but only if the school felt you had some sort of bent for languages.
Russian was certainly one of the possibilities, I believe a late bid for Latin
was the other but I'm prepared to be corrected on that if anyone can remember
more clearly. I also believe that the
teaching of Russian was purely due to the presence of Aubrey Pope, about whom
much has (deservedly) been written on this list.
Several of my
contemporaries took the option of doing Russian; I clearly remember being
taught by one of them how to write the phrase "f*** off" using the
Russian alphabet instead of our own! Some of my fellow 63ers will doubtless be
able to hazard an intelligent guess at who might have felt it necessary to
teach me to do such a thing... (John Bailey)
LATIN
After 2 years of Latin, it was suggested that my time might be
better spent doing something else. OK. I was a poor Latin student, well,
actually any sort of student. Nevertheless those two years give me some
understanding of language generally for which I will always be grateful to
Michael Bull (one of the easier sets of initials to forge if you were on
report, although I could also do Alan Pender.) MGB might be pleased to know
that I also bought (a year or two ago) a Latin dictionary which I used at work
to send entire Emails (in Latin) to my
How can Latin be for Today? Quite easily.
There is a (small) group who regularly communicate, written and oral, in Latin.
They are mainly found in the
Latin for Today - wow, that brings it all back. I well remember those lessons with MGB - apt initials, because even with those built up shoes, he was only the height of one. I don't remember much Latin though. Latin is not right for someone with the attention span of a gnat, like me. I can't wait until the end of the sentence for the verb - I've lost interest by then. I needed to know up front what is going on. Anyway, Caesar always seemed to be laying waste fields. I was never sure how, or why, he did this. (Although thinking about it, this was part of Caesar's Garlic Wars and it is filthy stuff). I remember him telling me off for turning round and speaking. I said I didn't. He said I did. I said I didn't etc..etc. I said I *was* speaking but hadn't turned round - I just blurted it out. Anyway, the subtlety of this went over his head (....too obvious, you saw that coming, I know) and so he ordered me to see him outside the Staff Room at lunchtime. We met. "You'll never make anything of yourself, Coathup!", he said. "Thank you, Sir.", I said, and we parted. I was never sure what he hoped to achieve by telling me that. He may have been right - but there is still time. Like others, I have valued the little Latin that I took in. It has enabled me to see the roots of many European words, and to make typos beyond my wildest dreams. Anyway, why did DIC have FUR and his BACk, and was it, indeed a FACt? (Phil Coathup)
I have in front of me one of Brodie's
Classical Translations Caesar: Gallic War Book V. I am sure you will not want
all 32 pages of it but if anybody is interested in 'The Argument' (a sort of
half-page precis (now there's a word) and, say, the
first page of translation, I would be happy to oblige. I'll give you a taste.
Sentence 1 Lucius Domitus
and Appius Claudius being Consuls, Caesar, when
departing from his winter quarters into
BIOLOGY
ALL frogs are gruesome, and so is the revolting practise of cutting their guts out and then immersing them in a formaldehyde bath for the amusement of grotty little schoolboys! (You will now understand why I didn't join the Dim Jim Hardy group (or was it Mr. Onions) after a year or so of utter boredom inflicted by Dan Reekie in Biology. (David Gregory)
It was a gorgeous summer's day. There were just six of us
who detached ourselves from the normal German lesson and proceded to sit in
the sun on the playing field with the German assistant, to get some rather
more informal and interesting German tuition.
Interesting was, I suppose, the right word for it. Since, in this particular
German class, somehow the conversation turned towards sex. In my experience,
the average fifteen-year-old boy is very interested in sex, and we were no
exceptions. At twenty or twenty-one, our German assistant was someone rather
nearer our own age than the typical school master, and rather better in tune
with our particular interests. I'm quite sure he could still remember what
it was like to be fifteen. So, during a part of the lesson we learned some
of the right (and wrong) words and phrases to use in getting a young German
lady into bed. It was a much more interesting lesson than Jim Hardy's sex
education classes, addressing, as it did, the practicalities of "how
to get there" rather than "what to do when you've arrived."
I think that's what was so memorable about it, even though the German assistant's
name still escapes me. (John Phillips)
GEOLOGY & GEOLOGISTS
Through the RLS e-mail list, I contacted Michael Ridd (47 intake), retired world-wide oil-prospecting
geologist with Shell, and through him heard about another old classmate - Ian Rolfe (47-intake) - who was a singer in the RLS choir but
also became a geologist (speciality: early fossil arthropods, whatever they
might be)- did Ph.D. at Birmingham Univ. with post-grad. studies
at Harvard etc., curator of the
RLS and John Reekie in particular,
produced a remarkable number of former pupils whose careers were based on
geology, and I have often wondered if any one has actually tried to list them.
My first degree was in geology and I have been teaching A-level geology in
schools and colleges ever since. Other OLs in geology
I am aware of are:
Norman Snelling: became a professor I believe working
on isotope dating?
Alan Wright: taught and researched at
P. G. Llewelyn; I believe he worked for one of the
big oil companies?
Roger Ellis; a mining geologist and now editor of a mining
magazine. There must be more, and perhaps colleagues know other details
of those I have remembered. Roger was at RLS from 1954-62 I think, which must
have been John Reekie's last, or last but one year.
The others I mention are much earlier but I do not know the years. (Bill
Groves)
GEOGRAPHY
Martin Stilwell wrote: "I am off to Gothenberg
in the morning. Sad to say I've no idea where that is other than
I don't know what Sus knew of
CHEMISTRY
Around the mid-60s the Chemistry lab was repainted an awful
yellow colour. It did not last very long because the Kipp's
apparatus that generated the H2S was left bubbling quietly overnight. Instant
chemistry lesson in a means of detecting, presumably, lead in paint, giving the
awful yellow an uneven greyness. I do not recollect it being an improvement but
it gave it some more character. So was it you John that provided the new decor?
Recent stories about H2S abuse are quite horrendous and would give modern
safety-conscious people apoplexy. Whilst you can smell the stuff it is at low
concentration. At higher concentration you fail to smell it for the short
duration of the remainder of your life.
My recollection of lower sixth was having pickled skin on my fingers from the
formaldehyde that the dogfish for dissection were preserved in, which was
permanently coloured yellow from the conc. nitric acid from chemistry.
As for room 23, it must have been built as a laboratory but never put to that
use and I would venture to suggest that there may have been some drains common
to those rooms that were not of the best construction. (Peter Robinson)
I have been very interested to read the anecdotes concerning room 23 and the chemistry laboratories. I can recall that they were in very close proximity and that one could always tell when we "A" level students were making smells. If I recall these moments were rare as we seemed to drift from one titration to another and wondered when the excitement would induce heart failure. Having said that I then proceeded to college and centred on chemistry and defining molecular structures of glycoproteins. It can only mean that the excessive number of titrations I performed failed to numb my senses. Either that or I am a sad fellow. (David Green)
"A day at the races" I think it was Colin Sinclair
and Chris Boivin.
These two partners in crime feature in several incidents I
remember. I still don't know why (or
how) they came to be unsupervised in the large chemistry lab with a jar of
sodium metal, while the rest of us were busy with more conventional tasks in
the in the small lab next door.
For those who weren't on the science side at school, the element sodium is a
shiny white metal that is kept in jars of oil.
The reason: if you drop a *small* piece onto water, it reacts
sufficiently vigorously to melt the sodium into a little blob, which usually
catches fire as it hurtles round on the water's surface, burning with a yellow
flame, eventually giving up the ghost with a small pop. I guess boys are just
competitive. That's the only explanation
I can see. It turned out that the two miscreants had started to amuse
themselves by seeing whose piece of sodium ran a better race around a lab sink
filled with water.
Don't ask me how you tell whose sodium horse is winning the
Of course, we all rushed into the big lab to see, much to
general amusement, a pair of sheepish grins and the evidence of their activity.
Jet Morgan was not as entertained as the rest of us.
I guess you can say this incident definitely ended with a bang, not a
whimper. There might, of course, have
been the odd whimper after what I assume to have been the inevitable visit to
the headmaster's study. (John Phillips)
HISTORY
Someone asked: "Gents, this was my major bone of contention with the RLS. History lessons! How did that archaic curriculum survive into the 60s?"
It's very easy to slag off RLS History lessons and curriculum - particularly if one is on record as being disenchanted with all things RLS. The fault, if there was one, of course, lay not so much with the school as with the examining boards who dictated what was to be examined and therefore what was taught. Today all can be laid at the door of the National Curriculum and the various examining boards.
A possible explanation for the exclusion of the events of World War II from the '50s and '60s syllabus could be that it was just too recent. It seems to be deemed that a decent passage of time has to pass before events can be considered "history". For what it is worth, the events of WWII and the Vietnam War now appear in most modern history courses.
Personally I would have been happy to have learned something about World War I whilst at school (although that is an opinion that has the benefit of hindsight - I think I agree with Derek and Steve that such a thirst for extra-curricular knowledge would have been rather limited in the teenaged Maltby). It didn't even get a mention in school history lessons, though Webber managed to make the Napoleonic wars exciting and we did enjoy an
animated discussion about whether Montgomery was in the same class as Wellington when it came to generalship, so I followed the examples already cited and followed my own interests to learn about WWI, then the Boer War - mainly to satisfy myself about my grandfather's and uncle's whereabouts and exploits.
History is such a huge subject! Getting larger all the time! 'Tain't possible to devise any syllabus that is going to please all the pupils all of the time, but the posts on this subject all indicate that some sort of interest must have been kindled for further individual study to have taken place. Perhaps that was the legacy of the RLS and its better history teachers?
As a footnote I found the Tudor and Stuart period thoroughly fascinating, Henry's wives/children and all, but this era might never have happened for all the examining boards' interest! Happily it does feature as an A-level course! (David Maltby)
I too used to find History as taught at RLS extremely boring, because it ended around 1850 unless you went on take History A Level. Also after 5 years of "Crotchache" Critchlow and Dan Guy's "shut up and copy this down" attitude my approach to the subject was, shall we say, somewhat less positive than it is nowadays.
I thought the school did us a major disservice by telling us nothing about either World War. Like many adults at the time, my Father refused to talk about WW2 in any detail and couldn't understand why I was interested. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, so far as my school year went, he appeared to be the only father who had ever left England or seen a German, let alone been shot at. As I have written on this list before, this was the first time I realised how "different" my family was from the families of my colleagues.
The result of this was that once I had left school I started studying the WW2 period for my own interest, and this eventually reawakened my interest in History as a whole. So now I am full of useless facts about National Socialism and I don't have an exam paper to write them all down on!! (John Bailey)
In the 1950s, the O Level History syllabus that we studied covered 1760-1914. The First World War would have added a tremendous volume of material to study and, in the 50s, war memoirs of the Second World War were being published and there were considerable arguments about what was done, or should have been done. We did not then know about Ultra. It is true, of course, that all periods of history are subject to revision but there tends to be a greater degree of change in recent history than that from more distant times. I think it would have been difficult to have taught the history of the Second World War, together with enough from earlier periods to explain the background, to O Level standards in the 50s. (J. Alan Smith)
As someone who read History at
After leaving university I taught History including a spell at RLS. The syllabuses taught in schools throughout the 1950'60' and even into the 1970's reflected the intention of an academic study of past times. Those who wish to study current events are very welcome to do so but the study of history requires a historical perspective. A classic example of this has been the ever moving commentary on the Soviet Revolution and its consequences. At what time is it possible to make an historical judgement on events and when are we merely commentating on events so recent that each individual's bias is reflected in the teaching given. The study of history is an academic training which has great merit it does not need to cover the last 100 years to justify its place on any curriculum. (Ken Saxby)
Have read recent war- and history-related threads with interest. I failed 'O' level history, partly thanks to the awful teaching (I wont sully the list by naming this individual), but British political history from 1763-1914 is not of itself an especially enthralling subject. However, while 20th century history would have been of more immediate relevance to us, I doubt whether we would have received an objective, or balanced view of events. Even today, ill-informed public opinion still has it that the Germans are an arrogant, vicious race of tyrants bent upon World domination; how much worse were these stereotypes in the two decades following WWII, when many of us were at school?
So, to take a concrete example: would we have been taught
that
Do you see the problem? Let's not forget the truism: "The first casualty of War, is the Truth", and that the fog of lies and propaganda put out by all sides takes a long time to dissipate. Does anyone know the real causes of the Falklands War? Anyone want to reveal the truth on the Israel-Palestine affair? Heard any good Sept 11th conspiracy theories lately?
Sadly, we have to wait until it's long past before we get a decent chance to understand world events. (Martin Jacobson)
Ken Saxby wrote: "The study of history is an academic training which has great merit it does not need to cover the last 100 years to justify its place on any curriculum"
True, but without the last 100 years it loses significance and completely fails to live up to the reasonable levels of expectation (and interest) of both the majority of pupils and their parents.
We're still comparing apples and pears. Can we meet in the
middle? You're a fifties pupil who took history at
In my original post, I illustrated History fitting in with Geography and Current Affairs to teach me about the world in which I found myself and in which I was starting to grow up.
Here are the apples and pears. You've stated your goal and acceptance of the curriculum. But my goals (and others, it seems) were very different. My goal was to understand and prepare myself for the world in which I would live and grow up. These were also my parents wishes, and we all had high expectations of a reputable school like the RLS.
I came from a modern progressive junior school where these subjects were taught, and left the RLS to return to a modern progressive technical college where I excelled academically free of the RLS claustrophobia. On top of my 'A' levels I also took obligatory English and Gen Studies, plus additional evening studies in French, German and Art & Crafts, found time to gain an open Oxbridge scholarship, and had a lot of good, healthy testosterone-loaded FUN, wearing my clothes and hair as I chose.
In other words, I found an education establishment which lived up to my expectations and where my hard work and self-discipline were rewarded free from unnecessary repression or humiliation. I was treated like an adult, not a schoolboy, and responded as best I could as a growing adult.
It's in this context of reasonable mid-'60s expectations that I feel History teaching at RLS, along with Geography and Current Affairs, was an abomination, not least due to the (still unnamed) teaching staff.
I don't agree with Martin Jacobson’s opinion. Especially looking at the wider issues of Commonwealth, Empire, Atom Bombs and even WWII. Enough time had passed to merit a try. Just trying to teach these things would have provoked debate to feed our souls - like this board the last days. To not try is a cop-out. To ignore current affairs because it's too difficult is to further encourage bigotry and ignorance. You have to start by trusting the ability of students to make up their own minds and to try to teach them objectivity. That's not so difficult.
I hope that my other posts give the balance of what I feel was good RLS teaching, and I took the best of it with me so I've no bitter regrets. I just wish I'd gone to a co-ed school. Not the RLS's fault. My fault! (Ian MaCauley)
It's correct that the syllabus for 'O' level history would have been dictated by the respective Exam Board, affecting particularly 4th/5th forms.
However the syllabuses for forms 1-3, I suppose, would have been less constrained, and could possibly have focussed on other eras. For example, it is debatable whether we should have started with the stone age (Gaffer Kittle) in form 1, with its limited relevance for the modern era.
Later on, even in 4th/5th forms, some summarised treatment (a few lessons only) of the first half of the 20th C. would have been instructive.
Of course, as we all know, the quality and enthusiasm of the teacher is of prime importance, in any subject.
When Weber joined RLS as our history teacher, it was like a breath of fresh air.
However, even he acknowledged the syllabus constraints, and regretted that there was insufficient time to take an alternative approach.
Many of us have found an interest years later in some of the subjects found boring at school. I think one reason for this is the vast improvement in the quality of books in terms of content and presentation ( and also TV progs.) To-day's ' popular' history books generally make fascinating reading, as indeed do a wide variety of publications on other subjects. I assume therefore that current skoolkids have much better text books than we had in our day. (Terry Turner)
It seems to me that the majority of postings on this thread
aren't totally happy with the service provide by RLS. For 5 years from 1964 I
was lucky enough to be taught history by Alan Guy. Year one was not so hot as it mostly dealt with foreigners (
I particularly enjoyed the O level syllabus (1760-1914) (Yrs
4 & 5). To me the 20th century is/was not history; it is/was current
affairs. As 1066 And All That says (I think), History ended with the death of
Queen
Now don't get me wrong; I wasn't very good at history and only just scraped the GCE. In the 6th I did sciences.
However, Alan Guy planted a seed in my head and for many years I've read history books for pleasure - mostly the old GCE syllabus period but also the Great War & WWII.
If it hadn't been for AGG starting me off I would have missed one of the things that has given me so much pleasure in life. I will always be grateful. I was sad to hear of his death as I would have liked to have told him this. (Robin Hackshall)
My experience of history is mixed. I think I was quite good
at it at my junior school and it was a fovourite
subject, but like RE, the writing of essay after essay did nothing for my love
of the subject - in fact destroyed
it. Interestingly there was some major screw-up with the History Exam at the
end of the third year - most if not all the questions were not actually taught
that year - I leapt from my normal bottom 5 placing to first place.
End of 2Q - 25th D - Capable of a far better result. His work is very irregular
- RTG
End of 3C - 1st B+ - (although it followed a
10th and 7th that year) An excellent result. He has a very sensible approach to
work now (I know I didn't, I needed to leave school and go to work for that -
MLS.
(Chris Fribbins)
KLS praises the history syllabus as being an ideal prep. for academic studies, and this is probably a fair comment. However I think this misses the point of recent inputs on this subject. After all, the percentage of pupils going on to study history at University would, I suspect, be relatively low. The question is whether the syllabus could have been more relevant and inspiring for the majority of pupils.....in my view, it certainly could have been. We all know the academic argument that 'recent' history should normally not be addressed. However, I agree with several listers that the 20th C should at least have been touched on. Pleasing to hear that this approach was changed later.
One could equally argue that the language O/A levels were an ideal prep. for higher study. However the usefulness of the approach adopted for languages at that time is debatable. It is now generally recognised that there was too much emphasis on grammar, and not enough on the spoken lang.. How many of us could get by with spoken French after 5 years at RLS, and an O-level? (at least we knew our Fr. letters).
I realise that my remarks would apply not only to RLS, but to most Grammar schools of that era.
My main point remains that the quality of the teacher is paramount.
Put another way:
Good syllabus + good teacher: best
Poor syllabus + good teacher: second best
Good syllabus + poor teacher: third best
Poor syllabus + poor teacher: worst
Ideally teachers should come into the profession with experience from outside academia, or should spend some time away from teaching. I know that that has practical difficulties, but some achieve it.
Staying in teaching for 30 + years (sometimes in the same subjects) must lead to staleness, with resultant neg. consequences for pupils. Those teachers staying at the same school all their professional lives would, in my view, be most likely to be the stalest. In fact staying in any job for a long time has its problems...it's just that in teaching the long term effects are more significant for others.
One of my memories from the last RLS reunion was discussing our teachers with older old boys....hearing how good certain teachers were in their time, and thinking… yes, you're probably right, but by the time I reached them, some of them were well past their sell-by date. (Terence Turner)
WOODWORK
John Hawkins wrote: "I think woodwork was only compulsory for first year, not an obvious subject for a school intended for the intellectually gifted!" This is what I had always thought John, although I dropped woodwork at the earliest opportunity. Quote: "Metalwork, however, which was taught in the adjacent room of the old gym is a different matter." After I had finished education, I felt slightly cheated that we had not had the opportunity to do metalwork, so I was amazed to read the post from Ray So when did the school stop teaching metalwork? I'm not envious of you older lads however, because if I had been at the school when metalwork was taught, I would probably have had to do boxing as well, and I don't think I would have survived. (Vince Leatt)
I found myself in Mr Tidyman's (Ed: correct spelling 'Tydeman') woodwork room, with twenty odd strangers, confronted by a bench, a vice, a saw, a chisel, a mallet and a wooden rod with a nail through it's end. To one side there bubbled a pot of Merlin's brew that I was told was glue; even though it smelt revolting, did not have the word GLOY written on it, and was not in a bottle with a rubber tip with a slit in it. However, after only a couple of days at the Lib, my mind was already adjusting to expect the unexpected, so I was not totally traumatised. It was announced that we were to make an Egg Rack to take home. I remember putting my hand up and advising Mr Tidyman that we already had one. He instructed me that we were about to acquire a second; and under his expert tuition we did. I took the work of art home and my parents, perhaps out of pity, or perhaps out of pride that for once their son had actually done something constructive, made use of it. When I left home I took it with me (or perhaps my parents gave it to me to take away - I can't remember) and I have used it ever since. That it should now present itself, albeit in photographic form in an electronic database, for the entire world to see via a global network of computers is staggering. I just wish that I had made a better job of the joints. it isn't truthfully mine. That's not to say that I nicked it! It rightly belongs to me. It's just that I did not so much make it, as have it made. Quite by chance I discovered something, which, throughout my life, has proved to be one of the many important lessons that I learned at that wonderful school. Whenever Tidyman told us what had to be done, I asked him to show me how. The lamp is as much his as mine! (Richard Stokes)
The British education system, other public institutions, and
businesses have all been plagued (my view) over the past 30 years or so by an
inexorable tendency to replace simple terms with ever more verbose, drab,
politically correct substitutes. (I suppose that I should call it 're-branding'). So, for example, what used to be a
'dustman' is now a 'domestic refuse collection operative';
the person once called 'Matron' is now the 'Director of Nursing Services' or
some such;
'exams' are now 'assessment tests' (those closer to the Education system than I
may correct me on the detail, but you see my point). More pertinently, at
school I took woodwork and others took metalwork - terms which are simple to
understand and describe the content succinctly. At some time over the last 30
years woodwork, metalwork, painting, pottery and so on became subsumed under
'Craft, Design and Technology'.
Imagine my amusement on visiting my local Secondary School one evening to see two doors - one marked 'Craft, Design and Technology (Wood-based Activities)' and the other 'Craft, Design and Technology (Metal-based Activities)'. (Andy)
I also have the xylophone I had in woodwork one year. Shame that one of the aluminium keys is missing, perhaps I'll make a replacement. I believe my mother still has the teapot stand and book rack I made. (Ian)
Woodwork lessons: I believe the Woodwork master was always away because his wife was very sick. Consequently all Monday afternoons for the entire first year were spent reading a personal book in the woodwork room. It took me at least 20 years to overcome my fear of DIY- which perhaps was an advantage. (Harvey Liff)
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION (See also under G.H.R Newth)
In one of my sixth form years, around 1962, GHRN taught Religious Instruction. His lessons were held in the main hall and each week he talked about a different religion - Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism, Muslim etc. I don't know if this was something unique to GHRN/RLS, but at the time it was a different approach and, as I recall, was well received. I don't remember if the pupils who were excused assembly and RI attended, but in retrospect, there was probably no reason why they shouldn't have. (Peter Cowling)
So far as JP Coles was concerned there was no religion other than Christianity. Derek Reynolds (RE Teacher for 25 + years and several other things as attested to in the archives) seemed to think that mention of any other religion constituted an act of blasphemy which was likely to land you in Coles' office for insubordination if you weren't very careful. (John Bailey)
In my Sixth Form RI lessons (1956-59) George Newth concentrated on Christianity. I remember
someone asking, "Shouldn't we learn about other
religions?" to which George replied: "There are places called
libraries containing things called books." (J. Alan Smith)
I remember GHRN for Religious [i.e. Christian] Studies (Andy Lee)
STREAMS – FORMS
...the selection of second language (and thus, which class we went in) was made dependent upon our skill in French; the more able had a choice between Latin & German, while the less able did Spanish. I don't know whether ability in French is a good indicator of general academic
ability, but the school certainly behaved as though it were: the 'S' classes were generally regarded, and treated as the dregs. The separation between 'G' and 'L' tended to be between boys with 'Science' and 'Arts/Humanities' leanings, so claims of academic superiority of one
over the other should be treated with caution! Oh, except for one thing - the Universities had previously often put Latin 'O'-level as an entry requirement, so previously, boys wanting/expecting to go to University would have had to choose Latin. Thankfully, this archaic requirement was being dropped while I was at school, so I was able to choose German. (Martin Jacobson)
...strange things were already happening to the school class structure by 1965-66. Whilst the traditional 5LGS and 3LGS existed (no F forms - what happened to 13+ students?) the fourth form were designated 4ABC - what was going on? The first year were 1PQR, why? was this different to 1ABC? and this was continued into the second year 2PQR. Can other members recall the reasons for these changes? (John Hawkins)
Surely the Blue Book will confirm that there were four
streams - Science, Arts, Maths and Modern.
I took pure maths, economics and British Constitution and was allocated to
Modern. Since boys could choose almost any mix of subjects, they must have been
allocated to the stream of their majority subjects, i.e. a study of science and
maths would depend on whether there were two science or two maths enrolments.
Perhaps there was also an intention to even up allocations between the four
streams. I can only recall it being relevant for morning roll-calls. (John
Hawkins)
6th Transitus class: Transitus embraced those who obtained insufficient O Levels to pursue the A Level course that they aspired to. These boys formed 5E in 1960-62 under Newth, but were elevated to 6T by Coles to enjoy the privileges of black blazer and no cap. What happened to them after the December resits? (John Hawkins)
Andy wrote: There *was* a 6th Form Maths in addition to the Science and Arts streams. One to me: I am not entirely sure about this - but of course the timetabler of that era lives just down the road and I will pose the question later in the day. My recollection was that whilst there had to be constraints to an entirely free choice in the 6th form, these did not constitute streaming because people could often be fitted into subjects of their choice. Stan had dinner with us this evening - in good form as ever. The time table was constructed from the individual selections of students and achieved a high level of fit. Very few of you should be able to recall having to change your A level selection because could not be accommodated. Any appearance of streaming reflected a difference in the wishes of the student - not a predisposition to streaming. (Bill Broderick)
I thought that the School ceased Sixth Form/'A' Level studies sometime during the late 70s/early 80s. (Andy Lee)
The very last Sixth Form left in 1992. At this point almost
all classes were shared between RLS and the
SERBO-CROAT
Serbo Croat (DGMs
message of
QUIZZES
In the early and mid fifties the School had a written General Knowledge Quiz one yearly. Two hours or so were dedicated to this examination and although it was marked, these grades were not applied to one's report card or anything like that. I recall there were at lease a hundred questions and many of them were quite difficult. They were not the usual type of test enquiries but more of a MENSA type interrogation. One question I remember to this day is "What were the three (or was it five?) graces?". The Arts students all listed Greek or Roman plays etc. but the correct answer was Ford's line of vehicles (which were probably Popular, Consul, Zephyr etc.) What this test achieved (whether planned or not) was to boost the confidence of many of the "under-achievers" and prick the bubble of some of the more pompous "I always get 10 out of 10" types. The results were listed on the notice board some weeks later laughter and jeers greeted the scores. Some of the boys perceived as "dim" would display amazingly good marks while others who shone in algebra and geometry would be way down the list. These tests gave me the first inkling that I wasn't as un-intelligent as my Report's would have it. I've never been asked to provide an answer to "If a = b+c, what is a?" However, the problem of using three planks to get to an imaginary island in the middle of a swimming pool has encouraged me to solve difficulties with limited resources available, many times. (Mike Merry)