Woodlands School

They weren't all bad teachers. Some were quite good Bernard Tranter was IMO the best one there. He looked after me very well as a very shy fuzzer in Cresswell in 1965/6 as my form tutor, and in Geography lessons. Lofty Lee always treated me well too - contrary to his reputation. Jim Wilkinson was a wonderful art teacher. And Tim Hall, a Bristolian, was a decent man too.

From what I know Bernard Tranter would be most people's top choice - he was very helpful and friendly to me when I was there.

I liked Harvey Wyatt as well. He started the same day as Bernard Tranter. Why did he have the nick name Jock?

Harvey was a great bloke as well. Never heard him called Jock - he was from Portsmouth!

No, Bernard Tranter was called Jock

Must have been ironic as he was Welsh!

I never heard Bernard called Jock either.

I remember playing in the Coventry Schools rugby final at Coundon Road for Caludon Castle against Woodlands. We lost 6-3. I think it was 1965 and the fabulous Jack Pilbin was our 1st XV coach.

Mmmmmm, I can only speak as I found. I recall sitting in Tranter's class one day and him distributing homework books back to us all after marking. He picked up on one individual's exercise book which was considerably thinner than everyone elses. He made the poor lad count the sheets in his book, count the sheets in someone else's, then frogmarched him to the stockroom to pick up a new one and count the sheets in front of the whole class to demonstrate that pages had been removed. It was clear as day that the lad had been tearing sheets out of his book (and none of us know why, before anyone judges) but this total humilation of this hapless lad, which lasted at least 15 minutes, was deplorable and unnecessary. It was noticeable that as pupils started to grow in stature from, say, the 3rd and 4th years, fewer 'masters' picked on pupils. As I've said before, Woodlands was a cesspit for bullying by so-called teachers.

Not sure when this would have been, but sad to read. I started teaching in 1974, and for the first ten years or so caning was still allowed. In the two schools in Coventry I taught at during this time I came across several bullying teachers. They were poor teachers but their classes were quiet - that was seen as the holy grail in those days.

I guess I was lucky, that I got Bernard Tranter in his early years at Woodlands and I found him to be OK. There were probably 3 teachers during my time there that I did not take to, these being Joe Routledge (maths) Boland (science teacher) & Morgan whom took TD Of these, Joe Routledge was easily the worst, I only had him as a first year, but he left an impression on me for the whole time I was there.

I suppose it's only with the benefit of hindsight that we recognise the bullying that went on, perhaps because "getting a slap" was not unusual at home. I now recognise that the teaching, or more importantly a wider education, was in many cases lacking and perhaps it was the system that didn't help, because there was early streaming, starting with the 11 plus that sent pupils in a direction that we were, in many cases, stuck with for the rest of our lives.

My time at Woodlands...... 64-69

I first met Bernard Tranter in 1991 - times had changed by then. Your school education years are the same as mine, and a few of my teachers had the same traits as some of your Woodlands teachers, though luckily only a tiny few.

Hi belushi, would he have been near retirement then? He would have been at Woodlands nearly 30 years.