mrmaundamemberofstaff'searlymemories

Mr Maund - a member of staff's

memories.

Soon after this website was set up I was contacted by David Maund who was a member of staff at Copthorne from 1956 to 1959. This led to David later sending me the first draft of his recollections of the school. I found his piece a compelling read and I learnt much about the school I was entirely unaware of. The finished draft appears below.

“Sssh! Sir’s Asleep”!

I waited at the bus stop and the letter in my pocket, grandly signed, W.L. Chinn, Director of Education, read, “You should report to Copthorne Secondary Modern Mixed School, Head Teacher Mr L.F.Hall, at 8.45 on 4th September, 1956”. Just ahead of me in the queue was a young girl in pristine school uniform accompanied by a woman whom I took to be her mum. The young girl was wearing what I later came to know as a Barrs Hill Grammar School uniform. We were, both of us, on our way to a new school. I remember wondering whether her thoughts might be the same as mine, a touch of excitement, of apprehension, what would it be like? It was her first day in a secondary school and mine as a qualified teacher in my first job. How was it for her and where is she now after 52 years?

For me it began some months earlier when I couldn’t get a job in my native Herefordshire. There was only one job going and I didn’t get it! So I applied anywhere which wasn’t a large metropolis and yet was still within striking distance of home, Herefordshire. So it was I went to an interview in the “Office” which was what we called the Education Department of Coventry City Council. “Well” said this small, besuited, northern accented, bright-eyed man, “we’ve got several jobs teaching geography, I think Copthorne would suit you. The Head, Mr Hall, and his staff get on very well, I think you might like them”. This was the fortunate circumstance and the bright-eyed man was, I learned later, Robin Sykes, Deputy Director of Education and the person responsible for staffing the Authorities schools. I was to meet him later in two other formal situations but this decision was the most fortunate one that launched and set up a career.

There were a mixture of secondary schools in Coventry in the post war years to 1974. This was down to two major factors, first being the marked growth in the city population and the second the philosophy and belief in the power of education which informed the policies of the Labour controlled City Council. After all education was then considered to be a national system locally delivered under the provisions of the 1944 Education Act which secured secondary education for all for the first time. Broadly, in Coventry in 1956 there were three types of secondary schools, the selective, the secondary moderns and the comprehensives. Of these two were direct grant boys schools, Bablake and King Henry VIII, neither under the control of the Local Authority although they bought 90 places each year in each, accessed via an 11+ entry examination. To balance this were two, Local Authority controlled, girls grammar schools, Barrs Hill and Stoke Park, offering a total of 180 places and also requiring success in an 11+ examination for entry. Some of the secondary modern schools were of long standing too, Broad Street, Frederick Bird and Barkers Butts had a fine record of producing first class rugby players and feeding the City’s engineering industry with skilled labour. Copthorne, opened in 1951 as a new school and may be seen as an anachronism given the Authority’s new policy of building Comprehensive schools that was to see the Woodlands and Caludon Castle schools open in 1954.

The population of the City had been growing rapidly and steeply since the turn of the century based upon the demand for labour from the expanding engineering trades. Even during the depression years of the 20s and 30s the local economy remained relatively buoyant in the face of depression and unemployment elsewhere hence the movement of labour to Coventry. The post war baby boom added to this, in 1931 the population was 144k but by 1951 it was 214k and growing, school places had to be provided and schools had to be built.

The Labour Party became the ruling party in the City Council in 1937. One of the fundamental beliefs of the Labour Party, nationally and locally, was in the essential power of education. They saw it as empowering the working man, as opening up opportunity and effecting upward social mobility. At first in the 20s and into the 30s access to grammar schools was seen as the way forward and hence the opening of Barrs Hill and Stoke Park and the purchase of places in the Direct Grant schools. The natural doorway to this was the 11+ a test which purported to determine those capable of benefiting from a selective education. However, it became increasingly apparent that faith in this test was not always justified, children fell through the net, some developed later, some failed later – it was not fool proof. This realisation, the increasing numbers of children and the move towards secondary education for all lead to political debate and the gradual emergence of policy. Even before the war the Council was contemplating the educational design for the City and this was based, at least in part, upon ideology and not mere pragmatism or expediency. The aim was that children should go to the same type of school, one which served their neighbourhood and offered equal opportunity to all; this was to become the comprehensive school.

But, after the war, there were immediate problems to solve. The northern edge of the City needed a secondary school, Barkers Butts was over-crowded, Coundon Court was not yet open and in any case that was a girls comprehensive school. The result was Copthorne where some accommodation was available in a disused industrial hostel, there were excellent playing fields and temporary classrooms could be erected quickly and cheaply. It was a temporary solution to an urgent problem, the longer term aim was to build a Comprehensive school on this site, demolishing all but the main administration block and rebuilding from scratch. It never happened, events, in the form of the location of children, overtook the plan. Copthorne opened in September 1951 with an overspill of pupils from Barkers Butts and a first year in-take.

L. F. Hall in 1957

The Head was L.F. “Les” Hall, but nobody called him Les. He was a big man, in rugby terms a second row forward, he had a large and distinctive nose and wore glasses which made his eyes larger than they were. He had been, by all accounts, the very effective deputy head of Broadway Secondary Modern Boys School. He had real presence and authority, he was unfailingly polite and courteous to both staff and pupils and had a few but deeply held views about how both teachers and children should behave. In my first year he came into my classroom, politely asked me to step outside and told me not to sit on the teachers desk in front of the class and not to take my jacket off. All this done conversationally and without any touch of authoritarianism – he was “The Boss” to us all.

The design of the curriculum was his but based in the conventions of the day. The school was streamed but with the possibility of mobility based on achievement. The most significant mobility was the 13+ examination instituted by the Authority, partly reflecting the increased questioning of the test but also the emergence of comprehensive schools which offered a full range of educational opportunity. The 360 ‘selective’ places in Grammar schools could not take up all those children who were successful in the 11+ and the comprehensive schools, also streamed at this point, had classes of selective children. Thus children who succeeded at the 13+ went to a comprehensive school to join the ‘grammar’ streams. Copthorne took this developing notion of equal opportunity a step further. There was an ‘S’ class who were given the opportunity to stay on for an extra year (the statutory school leaving age was then 15) and take what was then ‘O’ level GCE.

This innovation was the Boss’ idea, not all secondary modern schools did this and it was not without controversy. Schools were staffed according to type of school and age and numbers of children attending. This resulted in the comprehensive schools being staffed at an average of one teacher to fourteen children whilst the secondary moderns were staffed at 1:24. The ‘S’ classes were generally small by the time the children opted to stay on or leave, and thus by the 4th year the class may have been about 20 pupils. This was even worse for particular courses, thus in my first year I had one pupil for ‘O’ level geography and in my 3rd year six pupils. The cost of this in terms of the size of other classes was significant and it had to be balanced out. In the 1950s the school leaving age was 15 but pupils could leave in the term of their 15th birthday and so pupils left at Christmas, at Easter and also in the Summer. In the Christmas term of 1958 there were a large number of Christmas leavers, in fact 96. These were divided into two classes of 48 each without regard to the classes they had been in for the three previous years. This presented enormous problems, of accommodation and, for the teacher, a large range of attainment from those who might have done ‘O’ level to those whose grasp of reading was tenuous. I had one of these classes for an English lesson; I read them, without irony, “Escape from Colditz”.

There were children whose attainment was low and they found themselves, in this streamed situation, in the ‘R’ class. This stood for ‘Remedial’ as Special Needs was then referred to. These classes too were generally smaller, around 25 children whose main difficulty was low attainment in reading and since the curriculum relied upon literacy they were significantly disadvantaged. They were taught, for at least Maths and English, by their form teacher but for other subjects by specialist teachers. In 1956 I taught 3R for geography. Their form teacher was Doug Evans a humorous man who co-produced the most wonderful pantomimes. I had no training in the teaching of children with learning difficulties and generally, I suspect, they received a watered down version of the mainstream curriculum – they certainly did from me. It has to be said that I was not an instant success with this class. But even now, as I reflect, I have a deal of affection for this experience. On the front row sharing a double desk were Peter Payne and June Vinyard. Peter was small and wiry but with immense good humour. He came from a large, warm and loving family and, despite his learning difficulties had the confidence that such a background can bring. June was his friend and he teased and tormented her on a daily basis. June, on the other hand was a very big girl, very big indeed even at age thirteen. She had a real presence and commanded the class. Peter she treated with apparent contempt, some times holding his head in an arm lock in response to some tease. I remain grateful to June for she saved me as I struggled for the attention of the class. “Shut up you lot”, she said or perhaps roared, “I like him, I want to listen to him”. They did and I had no further problem, thanks June, it’s difficult to believe that she’d be 63 or so now.

There was little or no curriculum discussion, it was largely taken for granted. ‘O’ level was taken from the Joint Matriculation Board Syllabuses and the rest was written by the ‘senior’ subject teacher. The Boss kept a copy in his office and also collected a weekly record book from each teacher. I never had mine queried and wondered what function they performed. I also rewrote the geography syllabus when I became senior geography teacher after Barbara Knowles left at Christmas 1956. She had gone to the USA during that Summer holiday, to stay with relatives, she came back with a ring on her finger and the beginnings of an American accent to announce her impending marriage to a farmer from the Mid West. Hence, aged 20, and two years out of school myself I was teaching ‘O’ level geography and rewriting the syllabus!

So, Copthorne was effectively a compromise between educational policy and the demands of economics related to significant population growth (The Authority went fully Comprehensive in 1974 when the grant was withdrawn from Bablake and King Henry and Barrs Hill and Stoke Park became comprehensive schools). It was also, in curriculum and organisational terms, a reflection of its times – but it had a quality, perhaps even a special quality, which both children and staff felt, at least in the mid to late 1950s. Such qualities are difficult to define but they almost always stem from the leadership, the Boss. Whatever the personal faults of L.F.Hall, and there certainly were those, he was a constant figure, of real presence, respectful of children and staff and unfailing fair and consistent. The catchment area too contained many aspirant working class parents, often skilled workers occupying their own houses. The children were straight forward and cooperative, they liked the school and the interpersonal relationships were excellent. This extended to the staff too, they were friendly with each other and with a balance between experience and youth, they too liked being there. There were social events, the staff Christmas party with Des Lamb’s odd odes in which all were recognised with humour. The Pantomime was a highlight with several very talented children. From memory Sonia Putt later appeared on the London stage, Arlene Newman in the pantomime at the Hippodrome and the juggler, Paul Foxwell, was the son of a circus family. All members of staff contributed to this in some way, it was a social event.

Sport too was important and a whole range of staff contributed to this and the chief figure was Des “Daddy” Lamb. He was a larger than life person, penetrating of voice, booming laugh and with immense commitment and enthusiasm. He had a very interesting background, brought up in India with three brothers he was in the army at the outbreak of hostilities with Japan and was captured at the fall of Singapore and survived the privations of a Japanese prisoner of war camp for the remainder of the war. Afterwards he came to England, weighing less than ten stone, and trained as a teacher. He had been, before the war, a fine 400 yards runner and continued to train even though gaining weight! In the school’s first year, with only nine boys in the fourth year his relay team got to the final of the Coventry Schools Championship.

Des Lamb in 1957

At certain times of the year he had the boys running on cross country in which he joined with great enthusiasm. But it didn’t stop there, in lunch time runs some of the girls joined in and then, quite amazingly, some of the staff. Such enthusiasm was infectious. Other staff took on sports coaching; Helen Bamford introduced Scottish dancing and held sessions in the hall at lunch time. Arthur Bloxham coached the under 13 soccer team, who played a passing game far in advance of their years, but Arthur had himself been on the books of Coventry City and also, with Tony Buckingham from Caludon, coached the City Boys under 13 team. In 1959 Arthur broke his leg keeping goal for Courtaulds in the final of the Coventry Evening Telegraph Cup. It was a serious break and ended his playing career. Arthur and I coached the cricket team, that is anyone who cared to join us on the school field at dinner time. Pupils of all ages joined in and batted and fielded, Arthur and I did most of the bowling. In the Winter, once a week, I took a party of boys to the indoor nets at the Brooklands annex of the Technical College. This was an evening session and Nancy Wells, Deputy Head and Domestic Science teacher, used to cook me a meal in school and charge about 1/6d (7p today).

Arthur Bloxham with broken leg, wife Joy with him.August 1959

The consequence of all this cricket training was that the under 14 team reached the final of the Under 14 Shield, we lost but we were a good team, accurate bowlers and great fielders as a result of all the dinner times spent on the school field. It was an excellent achievement when it is realised our limited resources compared with the comprehensive schools. The boys were enthusiastic and committed; one boy brought his lawn mower to school to prepare the square for the semi final, we had no groundsman.

Looking at the team photograph, to my shame, but 50 years later, I remember only two names, the dedicated scorer on the back right was Barnett and I don’t remember his first name. Cross legged on the left is Ron Steele, I remember him because he had just moved from Canada where he’d played baseball and never cricket. He was a magnificent fielder with a long fast flat throw. Oh, and he had the accent too. Later I believe he played Rugby for Coventry. I recognise all the faces, they were a fine bunch of people and these memories make my point that Copthorne had some special quality.

Under 14 Cricket Team 1959 (the author is on the extreme left)

And then there was the Boxing.

My only acquaintance with boxing was from the radio commentary of Stuart McPherson on famous fights. Bruce Woodcock and Joe Baksi, Ray “Sugar” Robinson and Randolph Turpin and of course Don Cockell and Rocky Marciano. In Coventry boxing was not only thriving in numerous boxing clubs but also in schools. The president of the English Schools Boxing Association was the Head Teacher of Broadway Boys Secondary Modern at which the Boss had been Deputy. In Copthorne, in 1956, John Jones, the English teacher was Secretary of the Coventry Schools Boxing Association and he ran the boxing club in school. More over there was an annual inter House boxing championship. A ring was erected in the Hall and qualified referees and judges officiated at these finals. It was an event and so staff supported it and children and parents attended. As for me I found myself, without ever consciously making a decision, attending a course to become a judge conducted by Alec Clemson, President of the English Schools Boxing Association – I qualified!

John Jones in 1959

I was never entirely comfortable with this role although I officiated at some of the schoolboy tournaments locally. For some years boxing was popular in the school and we even had a national champion, Freemantle. The point is that it was another activity that involved staff, pupils and parents.

Coventry had a boarding school used for the secondary age sons of families which needed boarding education. This was at Cleobury Mortimer, in the countryside of south Shropshire, and in the Summer holiday schools were invited to take parties of children there and the Boss was in charge for two weeks of this period. In consequence in the Summer of 1957 I found myself there for a week. Known universally as ‘Wyre Farm’ from the local forest, it was, socially, a wonderful period. There were other schools there too so there was opportunity to meet other teachers and children, to develop, in a different setting, relationships with children. For the children there was the experience of communal living, experience of different environments and more informal relationships. We went on trips, to Malvern, the Long Mynde and Habberley Valley. We enjoyed an open air swimming pool; we played cricket and tennis and went on walks.

At "Wyre Farm"

From the left: Christine Jones, Janice Youngjohns; Peter Bull, Jennifer Gibson, David Maund; Tom Jones.

From Left back: David Maund; George Lee - Front Helen Bamford; Jan Edwards. The dormitory can be seen in the background. Pupils sat beside swimming pool.

At the end of the week there was a series of sketches, songs and presentations in the school hall. This latter was organised and masterminded by Doug Moxon, teacher at Keresley Grange Primary School, just across the school field from Copthorne. With him was his fiancé, Gwenda Pugh, teacher at Hill Farm Primary School also in our catchment area. As a result they knew some of the Copthorne pupils whom they had taught previously. Doug Moxon was a talented teacher, he had an excellent manner and children related readily to him. One of the ways in which young, inexperienced teachers learn is from those they work alongside and I learned immensely from Doug Moxon. Of course the down side of this is that if the wrong model is observed it can have negative effects, I was lucky.

Doug and Gwenda were also exponents of country dancing and we were introduced to this at Wyre Farm, importantly out of this grew the Country Dancing Club at Copthorne. It was held one evening a week in the Winter and was run by Doug and Gwenda for pupils from their schools and also from Copthorne. It was typically popular and well attended.

We were not a particularly well-qualified staff in today’s terms. Only Jim Crossley had a degree although Reg Lewis had a five year art qualification and Marion Ford a specialist music one. The rest of us were either two-year teacher trained or ‘Emergency’ trained. This latter was open to men who had served in the forces and was aimed to redress the shortage of men teachers produced by war and low salaries. Those who did this, such as Harry Jenkins, Des Lamb, Vin Barr, had an intensive 13 month course. At this time there was no drive to have a graduate profession so many who wanted to teach, including myself, Jan Edwards, ‘Rene Jones, Eileen Goodwin and Barbara Knight, did the two year teacher training course. However this was about to change as Comprehensive school systems began to spread and higher education expanded. Teachers salaries too began, very gradually, to improve. In my second year at Copthorne two further graduates joined the staff, Dennis Ward, a scientist, and George Lee to teach English and French.

Teachers’ salaries were poor in 1956. I was on £400 per year which amounted to just over £30 per month when tax, National Insurance and superannuation was deducted. We received our salary in a rather unusual and, with hindsight, a very dangerous way. Then monthly salary was paid direct from the ‘Office’ by cheque. The ‘Office’ messenger delivered the cheques to the school. Nancy Wells received these and proceeded to get us to countersign them. She then set off in her car to Lloyds Bank on the corner of Coundon Road and Moseley Avenue. There she collected the amount of each cheque in cash and set off back to school. Once there she arranged the cash in individual piles on the table in the staff room. As we came in at break time we collected our pile of notes and coin and signed for it. Now it can be seen how very vulnerable Nancy was following the same route every month at the same time. But it was in an era before widespread payment straight to bank accounts and therefore a service. Much was about to change, salaries were increased in October 1956 and I went up to £450 per year but, more importantly, female salaries were set to fall in line with male ones. Up to this point women were paid less and this was a bone of some gentle acrimony in the staff room as die hard members of the all male NAS attempted to justify the unjustifiable. Finally though there was to be a restructuring of the whole salary scale with the introduction of above scale payments for particular management functions. For the first time the harmony and good relations between staff was under threat and it could have had a long-term effect upon the school and its morale.

To this point a picture has been painted of an extremely harmonious institution with high involvement of staff, pupils and parents. In John Jones’s words “a very intimate place”. The restructured salary scale threatened all this because of its potential to set teacher against teacher. John Jones had been in the school since its inception, he was lead teacher for English, established and ran the library and had been heavily involved in school drama productions and trips abroad. He was also responsible for the very popular and regular evening visits by both staff and pupils to the productions of the Midland Repertory Company held in the technical college theatre. He had expectations of receiving the additional allowance for English. In the event, after interviews, the position went to Jim Crossley, a teacher for only eighteen months or so experience. John left for a school in Nuneaton and Jeff White and Doug Evans also left, affronted that their work on school drama had not been recognised. The much respected George Copson also left but this was for a bigger appointment in Essex. Arthur Bloxham, away in 1956-57 doing an extra course in mathematics, became, uncontroversially, head of maths and Geoff Cook, a very experienced teacher, trained before the war, head of science. The rest of us had no expectations and so the whole event was uncomfortable but with no lasting consequences for the school. The conditions locally for the allocation of these new allowances where those laid down by the Education Authority and designed in the interests of fairness and achieving the best candidate for the job. This meant competition developed from an advertisement and a properly constituted interview panel. The principles and procedures were established by agreement between the LEA and the teachers representatives and remained in place until Education Acts in the 1990s gave more powers to school governors.

The new year in September 1957 started with some departures but newcomers particularly Eddie Smale as head of craft, George Lee, Alec Jeary and Dennis Ward. I, in my second year, was in charge of geography, no extra money though!

One final experience worth relating was that my probationary year was over successfully and without trauma, I don’t know whether it was supposed to be but it was a most enjoyable year. Every teacher then, and for more than thirty years after, was ‘on probation’. This period of one year was considered to be an extension of training but very little was done directly to support it. Certainly the Boss called in to my room occasionally for ‘a word’ but never was my teaching watched overtly, he collected my record book and signed it but all my learning was informal, from colleagues but also the children who quickly made you aware of what worked. The Authorities Chief Inspector of Schools, Mr Gray officially visited me. I still remember the day. I was teaching geography to 3B1 in Room 13 in the Hostel block. Apart from very specialist teaching the teachers followed the children rather than the other way round. This had the advantage of cutting down movement at the change over of lessons but the disadvantage that all the resources necessary had to be carried around. I, of course, always needed a set of atlases and a set of text books and the hostel block was some significant distance away from the main block – especially in the rain! I was also in the habit of preparing a blackboard with maps and diagrams to support the topic. I liked loose blackboards so that I could carry them around to save duplicating preparation. All this had to be organised for the visit of the Chief Inspector and 3B1 was a big class – maybe as many as 38 pupils. They were an excellent class to teach, I looked forward to teaching them as I did with many classes. At this distance I only remember two names, Carol Smith and Jeff Lee. Carol was a very mature and popular person as I remember, unfailingly respectful but without sycophancy. Jeff was cheerful, humorous and liked to adopt an air of what would today be called street wisdom. Both were cooperative, willing to be interested but without making their education a major priority. In the presence of Mr Grey the class was excellent and he appeared to go away satisfied.

The label 3B1 and its position in a streamed school gives a false impression of the size of the school. The school generally had about four forms of entry, that is 120 pupils per year group. Of course, though, children are not born in convenient groups of thirty and so the entry numbers varied and the entry of September 1954 was exceptionally high and produced six classes in the third year. There must therefore have been something approaching 180 pupils. This would make the entire school a variable figure around 500 pupils. In such circumstances a teacher might know all the pupils in the school and this supports John Jones’s remark about its intimate nature.

Copthorne may, in many ways, have been a school of its era and of local circumstance – but there were other qualities. From the 1990s interest in what makes a good and effective school gathered pace and it is interesting to reflect on the findings from research into effectiveness has produced compared with the Copthorne that I knew in the late 1950s. The leadership was clear and teachers knew their roles and not only followed but also contributed to the ethos. Clearly there was no curriculum discussion and no in-service training of staff, no National Curriculum and little professional discussion.

There were staff meetings but these were conducted by the Boss and mainly of an administrative and organisational nature, for example the organisation of Sports Day or the drama production and of course the collection of coffee and tea money! It was a small school by the standards of comprehensive schools and this permitted a great amount of less formal interaction between staff and pupils but they were promoted by the school ethos and produced a deal of activities for pupils to be involved in. The staff just involved themselves in these. This produced confident relationships and a confidence among the parents that the school was doing well by their children. To this day I still have friends from those years, teachers and pupils.

In 1956 they were in 3S!

In 2004 from back Left Dave Warner, Denis Barden, Harris 'Haggis' Roberts

front: Brian Fannon, Jennifer Tolley nee Gibson, Irene Maund nee Jones, David Maund.

One of the major findings from school effectiveness research is the essential need for clear leadership and this was certainly given by the Boss. Both pupils and staff knew what was expected of them and the Boss was always to be seen around the school. For a newly qualified and young teacher it was a positive learning experience. In personal terms it set up my career and the lessons I learned about how to interact with pupils stayed with me throughout. All this may perhaps be summarised by an incident in the Summer of 1958.

It was a hot, still day in that Summer, a second year class were having a geography lesson in Room 5. All the windows were open, the children were working quietly and the teacher, as I recall, was attempting to mark some books, seated at the teachers desk. Next thing was the voice of Ian Robbins, seated immediately in front of that desk, “Sssh! Sir’s asleep!”

David Maund

Pembridge, 2008.

Dr Maund began his career in Copthorne in 1956, aged 20. He married M. Irene Jones, a history teacher in the school from its inception, and they left in 1959. He worked in three further schools before going to the then Trent Polytechnic to train teachers. He returned to Coventry in 1971 as General Education Adviser to the City Council. He became Senior Education Adviser in 1988 and retired in 1992. He and Irene now live in north Herefordshire.

This article is the Copyright of the author, D.J.Maund. It must not be reproduced either in whole or in part without the express permission of the author who may be contacted through Paul Buttle on the website's contact page.

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