Some girls became useful members of staff to work in the kitchens, laundry, hospital and as house servants. Boys who showed promise as musicians also stayed on in the nominal role of servants, but more for the purpose of helping them perfect their musical skills. Henry Lazarus was a case in point, for he was taken on the second commandant, Lt. Col. Williamson, younger brother of the first commandant. Lazarus became the outstanding clarinettist of the 19th Century and had his 'Clarinet tutor' published by Boosey & Hawkes. The tutor is still use by budding exponents of the clarinet. It is quite possible that Alfred Phasey, a pioneer in development of the euphonium, was kept back for the same reason. He joined the band of the Coldstream Guards when he was well into his fifteenth year of age.

One other aspect of the retention of some boys beyond the normal leaving age centred on the use of Bell's Madras monitorial system of teaching, in use at the RMA since its earliest days. (Bell's system replaced the almost identical teaching method introduced by Joseph Lancaster in 1803.) The use of some boys who showed a talent as monitors were kept on and probably became teachers although there is no direct evidence that this was the case. On the other hand, by the mid-1820s, regiments were required to appoint a teacher to instruct soldiers who wished to learn to read and write and older boys experienced in the monitorial method would have been a welcome source of 'teachers' for regiments.

In the reverse direction, regimental schoolmasters were regularly quartered at the RMA for instruction in Bell's monitorial system. For how long they remained at the institution for teacher training is not known. They would, however, be very much in the hands of the monitors and, one might suppose, received instruction in reading, writing and the four rules of arithmetic of the most elementary kind. If a formal programme of teacher training instruction was in use its details are lost in the school's historical records yet to be studied.

By the early 1840s, the decision to discontinue the admission of girls to Asylum had been taken, the Southampton Branch (to be the discussed shortly) was closed and the remaining girls returned to Chelsea to await placement in apprenticeship positions. The decision to close the RMA to girls might have had something to do with the soon-to-be-created Normal School for training army schoolmasters. There is again no evidence that this was the case, but neither that it was not a reason for closure. It is, however, on record that in 1842 the Secretary at War asked the Board of Commissioners to answer various questions relating to army education.

The answers returned to the Secretary at War by the board were decidedly discouraging of the idea it become involved in so dramatic a shift in the charter under which the board discharged its duties. This is circumstantial evidence that when the Normal and Model schools were created in 1846 under the command of the Secretary at War the Board of Commissioners was not consulted, but simply instructed to assist in the changes to be implemented.

It so happened that the monitors, who had become so much a part of the monitorial method of teaching constituted an important element in the new teacher training programme. Monitors remained a feature of school life from 1846 until 1920 when the newly-formed Army Education Corps (AEC) replaced the Corps of Army Schoolmasters (CAS). As long as the Normal School existed at the Duke of York's (it was transferred to Aldershot in 1910), monitors were an important part of the teacher training programme and provided the Normal School with a steady stream of candidates for training as army schoolmasters.

When the school moved to new premises at Dover, Kent, in 1909, the Normal School and teaching students in training moved with it. The accompanying photograph, taken in 1909, shows a table of teacher students in the dining hall of the new premises. The following year, 1910, saw the first class of student graduates from the Normal School relocated to Aldershot teacher training at the Duke of York's ended. The second photograph is of the first student teacher class at Aldershot.

By 1939, prefects numbered about one per dormitory for a total of 24. For every day dress, they wore the WWI-style khaki uniform with full-length trousers and peaked cap. One their sleeves they wore the chevrons of a sergeant. The commandant and headmaster selected those boys who they deemed would benefit from further education. By no means all prefects took the teacher training course of the Corps of Army Schoolmasters. Some, such as Archibald Nye enlisted in the ranks at age 18, and the few who passed the entrance examination for Sandhurst received some help from a special fund to assist with expenses during their training.

The end of the Second World War brought changes in school life, [see A headmaster's life]. Prefects were giving tuition to seek entry to university; yet others entered Sandhurst. Philip Roberts was one who remembers the changes well. "One of the key changes during my time was the end of the post of commandant," he recalls. "Brigadier George Laing was the Commandant when I arrived in 1961. Lt. Colonel Robin Benn of the RAEC was the Headmaster. He took over when Brigadier Laing retired in 1965."

Over a period of some years, a public school atmosphere replaced the emphasis formerly given to the military ethos. In common with other public schools, military-style activities were confined to the weekend in the CCF/ACF unit formed at the School. Unlike other boarding schools, however, participation in CCF/ACF training was not a matter of choice; it was compulsory. Introduction of this form of military training provided a separate path for promotion to positions of leadership than that applied to those who became prefects.

On the CCF/ACF side, the military staff chose the boys to be promoted to boy NCO rank: Lance corporal, corporal, colour corporal, sergeant and, a new departure in boy ranks, company sergeant major. On the academic side, the housemaster (an army education officer of the RAEC before a civilian teaching staff took control), the Commandant (whose position was later abolished) and the headmaster selected those for promotion to prefects. The result was that a student could be a corporal of the RSM's choosing, but a prefect as selected by the housemaster.

Tim Foster, of L/Cpl rank here, became Professor of Microbiology at Trinity College, Dublin; Senior Under Officer, Paul Ellender, returned to the school to teach; Drum Major Ronald Dowler joined the RAF and, tragically, was killed in a flying accident (his uniform is now in the school museum); Sergeant-Major Graham Sambrook spent twenty years in the RAF before joining British Airways to fly 747s and Airbuses; Cpl Paul O'Donnel joined the RAF, but has not been heard of since; L/Cpl Graham Chilton retired from military service with the rank of Lieut. Colonel (he has since died). Graham said that during his service Chilton was posted to Dover to run the CCF/ACF and was 'struck dumb' when Major Legge, RAEC, Housemaster of Clive in 1965, presented himself for military duty at the weekend. Chilton had become his former housemaster's boss. Tim Foster's anecdote about his fellow prefects of 1965 was that, having flown Hercules transport planes following Cranwell, Sambrook joined BA and flew airbuses on European routes. His younger brother, Martin, also of Clive House, joined BA straight from school and became a senior pilot flying 747s, a higher rank than his older brother. On one occasion, however, they were together on that same 747 crew: Martin was the pilot, Graham the co-pilot.

Commenting on boy NCO ranks before the changes took place, Ted Grant, who was at the school during the war years, said that colour corporal was a rank, but lance corporal was not. The main function of a colour corporal, signified by a crown above the corporal stripes, was to assist the house matron in her duties of collecting and distributing laundry. The rank carried extra pay to the amount of three pence a week. Each house in Grant's day had two sergeants, one colour corporal and two corporals.

From a simple beginning of seniors and monitors in the early 1800s to the promotion of students to military rank, student monitors, prefects, junior prefects and SUOs, school life took on the complexity of bureaucratic entanglement resulting in a hierarchal mix-match of positions of leadership and authority.