I wonder which of us from our various eras at Caldecott were sleeping in dormitories or had personal space / bedrooms, whether for one or shared with a contemporary, which generally became the trend.
In my early years at Hatch (before family-type groups there) each set of children had a communal playroom, with dormitories for up to eight children often not close to the playroom. For instance, boys of age 10 or more would sleep in the upper stories of the West Wing, not otherwise used except sometimes for a quick change of clothes when required.
Extra space came in early September 1962 when the second part of the Colt House opened to include six tiny single bedrooms (only one had an electricity socket to plug in a small record player), a cramped dormitory for six boys aged 14, plus a flat for Joe Marshall (not looking after Colt House boys then), his wife and their children. The single rooms were near the Colt House playroom but too small for personal use other than sleeping. In the mid-1970's each pair of three single rooms was altered to sleep two boys with four boys sleeping in the dormitory and two boys sleeping next to the main entrance. Other changes came in 1980 (space for two girls) and 1983 (when the four girls and six boys in the Colt House soon vacated it in an exchange with the family-type group from Lacton Hall (which then became Hornbeam group).
Carpeting was provided in the main house to give a more domestic touch.
In summer 1983 the dormitories in the old Nursery (Garden House) were converted into bedrooms to sleep one child or two, many being rather older than had been typical when my brother Chris had arrived there aged 5.
Doubtless the trend applied elsewhere. For instance, I remember that about 15 children had lived at Lacton Hall, but by 2010 there were only seven children in the Mayfield group living there.