Long before I came to Hatch, I was an avid reader and writer, especially outside school (although we often liked to play on top of the old air raid shelters). When I joined the juniors at Caldecott, some of my contemporaries were almost illiterate. One friend scrawled up CHIT.
Most much preferred to listen to someone reading a story, rather than have to turn pages in a book so as to look for any pictures in it. We could speak fluently enough although some tended to include three swear words in each remark. The Caldecott primary school addressed literacy and numeracy, then concentrated on keeping our attention without strenuous tanking up with a lot of learning. Music for most was just singing or hearing girls attempting to play recorders etc.
Seniors went off to various schools, mostly in Ashford (boys and girls being in different schools then). Each class had numerous children. Interacting daily with so many contemporaries from outside Caldecott widened our world. I found that I did well in subjects that interested me, especially if the teacher was any good. My shortcomings in other subjects were not very obvious as few of my classmates were at all scholarly. Sporting prowess was highly regarded in schools, but I had no interest in P.E. / games etc., nor in woodwork.
Most of us only came to music classes up to the third year as we spent the time gaping in astonishment at the idea that we might wish to learn such stuff as quavers which, to those without "proper" musical talent, would be of as little use as Sanskrit. I eventually learned EGBDF and came third in my class for the final exam, indicating our abysmal standards. Likewise, we had art classes up to the third year. I could not paint a straight line. My "still life" painting had shapes and colours that were nothing like the fruits on display, perhaps abstract equivalents. Later paintings of mine were murky, influenced by publicity for the Yardbirds at the Crawdaddy Club. I was also third in my class, so devoid were we of artistic talent.
French went in one ear and out the other until I was in the fifth year. Our text book seemed to have been written in about 1930. Even for GCE O level, we desired to speak French almost as little as to eat snails. I somehow managed to get grade B. When I did meet French youngsters, they rocked with mirth at my vocabulary which was that of their elderly grandparents.
I had little interest in O level Physics, Chemistry or Biology. The Biology teacher had dealt with a previous Caldecott boy that kept losing the exercise book until the teacher attached a block of wood to it. I learned nothing from dissecting frogs etc. The teacher criticised my drawings as too small. Oddly, Biology was one of my grade A passes for O levels, which must have surprised the teacher.
I was in the Sixth Form "Arts" for A levels, taking the standard History, Geography and Lit. I also oddly took Pure Maths, even though lessons clashed and so did the final exams (I took one secluded in a little room just with a teacher, then returned the exam paper and was sworn to silence). After leaving school, I studied at University for a law degree, supposing that it might come in handy for when I practised as a lawyer. My brother Chris was later in Sixth Form "Sciences", hence his A levels were Pure Maths, Applied Maths, Physics, Chemistry. He eventually got a law degree at the University of Kent (although mostly interested in radical left politics), later becoming a civil servant.