Photos from 1976–1977

The photo on this page shows Form 3A from the academic year 1976–1977.

Back Row: Stuart Robinson, Paul Watts, Roger Chisnall, Alison Diedrick, Jennifer Pryor, Janice Kelly, Karen Shirley, Annette Radley, Karen Willis.

Top Middle: Maria Cortes, Karen Fenn, Jennifer Swan, Helen Shawyer, Deborah Baker, Shani Abey, Isabel Jones, Carol Garrad, Jane Leonard.

Bottom Middle: Mr McLeay, Allen Moxham, Gerrard Soverall, Christopher Snell, Mark Lucas, Susan Woolley, Karen Corney, Susan Seed, Jill Sandland.

Bottom Row: Graham Johnson, Timothy Budd, Nicholas Budd, Andrew Downe, Mrs Saunders, Julie Stacey, Beverley Coaster, Suzanne Mays, Angela Sharp.

Apologies to those whose names may have been spelt wrong. Particular apologies to Annette Radley for having taken several years to notice that her name had been left out.

Comments from Graham Johnson:

This is the class photo that I referred to as a 'disorganised farce' on the 1974–1975 page. There had been no advance warning that photos were going to be taken. One moment we were in a lesson, the next we'd been called into the school hall. There was no real opportunity for the pupils to smarten up, or indeed any attempt to have smartness imposed upon them. Two class photos were taken and I knew that I'd blinked in one of them, and sure enough that was the one used. It is an awful photo so I shudder to think how bad the other one must have been. As it was so terrible neither I nor my parents wanted the photo so it isn't in my collection. This copy was taken from Facebook where Alison had uploaded it and Helen had identified everyone in it (which was just as well as there were a few I just couldn't recognise) and I've made a token effort to try and get some sharpness into it.

What the photo does show when compared with the photo of 1R from two years previously is a quite significant change in the makeup of the class. The initial streaming of pupils was based on English and Maths tests in the first two days at school, with 1R being the top performing pupils. At the end of the first year some pupils will have been moved up from 1L into 2A to replace pupils dropping down into 2B, reflecting their overall academic performance over the year. Unfortunately I can't remember which changes happened at that time and there doesn't seem to have been a second year class photo taken to remind me. However I do seem to recall there were quite a few changes at the end of the second year between the A and B forms (I certainly can't recall if anyone moved up then dropped down again). There are thirty four pupils in each photo which was also the maximum capacity of many of the classrooms. Debi Baker had joined the school in the the second year and Mark Milburn had left, and that leaves twenty-three pupils from 1R who remained in 3A. In 1R there were fourteen boys, in 3A there were eleven. Having odd numbers of boys and girls was never an ideal situation with a lack of spare seating as boys tended to sit next to boys and girls next to girls.