Page 2: IntroductionStaffed by a mixture of diocesan priests, Franciscan nuns and lay teachers, most of the pupils were boarders, being educated to O and A-Level standard.
It had a small number of students - around 100, an emphasis on Catholic teaching, the "Magnum Silentium" (Great Silence) that lasted from 9 pm until 8.20 am breakfast the following morning and unusual names for the forms: Rudiments I and II, Grammar, Syntax, Poetry and in the upper school, Rhetoric I and II*.
The lower and middle schools were in the main building, with some modern classrooms on the way up to the old coach house, called Mill Lane, which held the upper school.
There were close links with Oscott College in Sutton Coldfield and Mary Ward Teacher Training College at Keyworth.
Forms I-V studied Religious Knowledge, English, Latin, French, History, Art, Mathematics, General Science, Physics, Geography. The VI form took two or three subjects to A-Level and General Studies. All classes had lessons in Speech Training.
(There's a timetable for 1970-71 in Stefan Lewicki's pages.)
Sports included cricket, football, tennis, squash, cross-country running, athletics and swimming. There were three sports houses, named after English martyr sites: Beauvale, Padley and Lincoln.
The uniform, supplied by D&P School Outfitters Ltd. in Nottingham, consisted of a black blazer with the white swan of St Hugh on the pocket, a green, silver and black striped tie and scarf, and grey trousers.
Holidays were: Christmas 3 weeks, Easter 3 weeks, and Summer 8 weeks.
* From Aristotle's theory of learning. First you learned the grammar, then the syntax so that you could do poetry but the highest calling was to be able to change people's minds just by talking to them, hence two years of rhetoric. (Thanks to P.Gribben for this)
