School Subjects and Exams

School Subjects and Exams

Subjects

The following is a list of the subjects which are recorded as being taught at Copthorne in 1962:-

Art

Music

English

Science

History

Geography

Mathematics

Religious Instruction

Physical Education (The sexes were taught strictly separately!)

Housecraft (This included Cookery and Needlework. No boy in my time (1958 - 1963) as far as I remember, touched these subjects.)

Commerce (This was taught in the fourth year and included shorthand and typing - this subject wasn’t taught exclusively to girls but almost.)

Technical Drawing. (Boys only - a subject which appears not to exist in schools now.)

Handicraft (Again boys only. Metal Work and Woodwork - for me metalwork might just as well have been called ‘filing' - my unhappiest hours at Copthorne!)

French (In my time at Copthorne only the “top class” took this subject. A few pupils took it to “O” level.)

I still have my third year timetable for ‘60/’61 which gives an indication of how much time was devoted to each subject. There were four periods in the morning and three in the afternoon - thirty five periods all together. Eight periods were given to English, four periods to maths, two periods to Art, two periods to History, two periods to Geography, two periods to Science (a double period), two periods to RI, two periods to PE, one period to Games and one period to Music. Metalwork took up all Tuesday afternoon and Technical Drawing all Wednesday afternoon.

In September 1970 a radical change was made to the timetable - each day had four periods of seventy minutes - two in the morning and two in the afternoon, There was an hour and a half for Lunch but the morning and afternoon breaks were only ten minutes long. School started at 8.50 for ten minutes registration and assembly was between 9 and 9.20. School finished at 4 o'clock

Exams.

For a good part of its life as a secondary school the main exam taken by boys at the school was the Pre-Technical Certificate which was issued by Coventry Education Committee (illustrated above). It was taken by pupils at the end of their fourth year. There was also a Pre-Commercial Certificate taken almost exclusively by female pupils at the end of their fourth year.

The existence of these two exams led to the sexes being taught almost completely separately in the fourth year. In 1962 there was one completely female fourth year class which seems to have been composed of girls who were going to leave at either Christmas or Easter. There were two "technical classes" which were all male and a "commercial class" of 27 pupils which included only two boys. A fifth class - 4S - whose pupils were likely to stay on for a fifth year - was the only truly mixed class in the fourth year - though it had a ratio of more than three to one in the girls favour.

I have not yet discovered for certain in what year pupils first took these “Pre-Tech” and Pre-Commercial examinations, but I one remark made to me leads me to think it could have been as late as 1957. The Pre-Commercial for certain was last taken in 1967. This was due to the advent of the C.S.E. (see below). Few pupils took the Pre-Commercial in 1967 - city-wide little more than a hundred took it - and for that reason the school decided not to continue with it. The Pre-Tech. could not have continued much longer. The numbers taking it had dropped from "about 1,110" in 1966 to approximately 350 in 1967 and numbers were predicted to be less the following year. The school magazine for 1968 strongly suggests by 1968 the Pre-Tech. had also gone the way of the Pre-Commercial.

The two other main examinations taken in the school were the General Certificate of Education and the later Certificate of Secondary Education (illustrated below).

If you have any information that would improve the information given on this web page, especially regarding when the differing types of examinations were taken, please email buttlekeswick@hotmail.com or write to the address given on the Contact Page

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