First day at school

1948 . I remember only the smell, a rocking horse and plasticine.

I was five and felt abandoned. I didn't cry but was very unhappy until we were given slates and chalk to draw a cat.
The only heating was a black stove that didn't seem to work very well.

I don't remember it. But i had been in a day nursery from the age of 3. There was more nursery provision in the post war years than at anytime since.

I was 4yrs old my sister who was 7yrs old took me to school my father had died so my mum went to work. I remember getting milk which I liked when it was cold but hated when it was aired.We had to lay in ?camp beds in the afternoon which I didn't like the teacher used to walk round checking to see if our 👀 were shut.

I remember walking to school with mum who was wearing a polka dot dress and was pushing my brother in his pram. My gran came with us. My teacher, Mrs Rennie, was very nice. One boy did the toilet in his pants and we were horrified. I also remember one girl getting belted (Scotland) for being unable to say five. In the course of the session, a boy who stayed close to my house and I decided not to go to school in the afternoon and we played on the local golf course. When we went home, we got such a row as the school had sent the janitor to find out where we were. It was the time before phones.

Our village had expanded to almost double in size due to the building of an enormous Scottish Special Housing Estate, but the new school to cater for that area had yet to be constructed. Consequently on my first day at school 45 of us new pupils were enrolled and squashed into a classroom with desks and seats for 25 pupils. It was absolute mayhem.

A week later a wee girl with a calliper on her leg, having just survived Polio arrived and the Infant Mistress lost the plot and had a raging row with the Headmaster, which we all heard. Consequently 6 of us, who were deemed already able to read, write and count were moved into Primary 2 and a similar number of clever pupils (including my 1 year older big Sister were promoted up to P3.

This worked out OK until we sat the 'Control Exam in P7. I passed and went to the County Academy where I was the youngest pupil in first year (and the rest of the years when I come to think of it)

I can’t remember much about it, but on the second day, I asked if I could go and get a hankie from my pocket - only thing was the pocket was at home, so I walked the mile or more home, crossing what in those days was the main A1 (pre motorway),

Kate that was so cruel!
I don’t remember particularly my first day at school, but I do remember wondering why our next door neighbour ( a little girl a few months older than my twin and I) crying completely distraught. I think she started a couple of days after we did. She was put with my sister and I and we couldn’t help- although we tried to cheer her up. We had both attended nursery school and of course were together, but for the little girl next door it was her first experience without he mother. Her mother tried so hard - with my mother too, to get the little girl settled in and making friends. We just could not make friends with her as she didn’t know how to play and wanted to be alone. I realise now she may well have had autism or similar.
I rather liked school. We had milk to drink- a whole little bottle each- ( as twins almost everything else was shared- half each) warmed by putting the crate on the coal boiler in winter time. When I started there were only 2 classes- infants and juniors, so our infant class was mixed age. The toilets were outside and the toilet paper was hard. We had bomb shelters in the playground, which were later repurposed as cycle sheds. We used to have nature walks -to the fields between the church and castle and we had popular classical music from a record player before assembly as our head teacher liked classical music. And yes I do remember all the teachers names!

WW2 was on when I started school.
I remember being given my gas mask and then shown how to use it. And shown where we had to run to if the air raid warning sounded,- A room lined with sandbags.
We all had to lie down in the afternoon on little rush mats after we had our small bottle of milk.
It's all so clear in my mind, much more clear than what I did last week really.

Oh, your poor little child self, Kate.

People like that shouldn't be allowed to teach. They wouldn't be nowadays. How can anyone think that's acceptable?

I was 5. I was so scared that I wet my pants. The teacher stood me on a chair and said to the class 'Look what this dirty little girl has done'.

I started infants in 1959. Loved it from the start and right through to the end of juniors in July 1965.
Once I went to Grammar School that all changed. I hated it and couldn’t leave soon enough.

I had been at nursery full time (my father died when I was four and my mother had no choice but to work full time). I was entirely happy, could already read and adored Miss Morrell the reception teacher who wore scarlet shoes - incredibly glamorous for 1947! Yes, I remember the outside loos but also the coke stove in the classroom with little damp gloves steaming gently on the fireguard - and this wasn’t the country but West Ealing.

This would be back in 1950, and I remember my first day clearly. It was actually my 5th birthday, and I was upset so the teacher sat me on her desk. My mother had sent me with biscuits in a paper bag for playtime. The desks were all arranged in long rows facing the front, and above the blackboard there was a long frieze with the numbers 1-10 on it. The teacher had a long stick pointer and as she pointed at the numbers we sang the relevant verse from 'This old man, he played one ' etc. I was the first one in the class to read, and remember being sent into the headmistress's classroom to read to her. We didn't have pencil and paper, but little blackboards and chalk where we learnt to write, and did our sums on.

This old man, he played one,
He played nick-nack on my thumb.
With a nick-nack, paddy-whack, give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home. etc etc...

I absolutely loved school, and felt that I had found my natural home. Just as well really as I went on to be an infants teacher, then a junior teacher! Did 30 plus years at the chalk-face.

I can clearly remember being dragged away in floods of tears from my Mum. Parents weren’t allowed across the threshold. I had a very unpleasant woman for my first teacher who laid the foundations for my dislike of school.

Grannybags

I cried too.

I was the youngest of five siblings and had never been anywhere without at least one of them (no nursery or play groups back then) and was very shy.

Hated nearly every minute of my whole school life

I was 5 and hated every aspect of school. I wanted to be home with mum/my siblings. I never "learned to like school" as mum said I would.

Lexigranny I too was an only child with no place to play out except in the garden by myself so school was blooming wonderful

I don't really remember the first day, but liked primary school. Like others, I was very ready for it as at 5 (or long before that IMO) most children need to socialise, but it was a big shock to go from being with mum all day every day to a full week at school.

I do remember my sister's first day though. She ran away, and I was sent to look for her. I was 7! Can you imagine that happening nowadays? It happened more than once, too. She hated school.

Like M0nica, we had outside loos, and they were also awful. There was a canteen/dinner hall next to them, separate from the school building, but it had no kitchen, and the food was delivered from another school who catered for a few in the town.

We didn't stay for dinners though. My mum took us in the morning, collected us and took us home for lunch, then back again and picked us up at 4.00. It was a 10-15 minute walk each way, so there was no time to do more than eat and run - I don't know how we didn't have permanent indigestion. My brother was born the November after my sister started, and after that I took her and brought her home. I was 7 and she was 5. For a week or two, when my mum was in hospital having my brother, we did stay and the food was dreadful. It was never hot enough, and we got liver with tubes in it, lumpy mash and watery veg. The 'dinner ladies' made you clear your plates and more than one child was always sick, which is enough to put anyone off eating.

We did tests on Fridays, and had to sit in order of our score for all of the following week. Friday afternoons were arts and crafts, and I remember learning to knit, one week at a time, with one teacher (no TAs in those days) and 30 children. We spent half the lesson in the queue for assistance, and hardly any time knitting. Miss Green had to start again the following week to remind us what to do, but somehow I did learn and still knit nowadays.

The infants school was downstairs and juniors upstairs, with a different Head. The playgrounds were separate too - it was like having two schools in one building. The school is still there. I moved away, but my sister's children all went in their turn. I'm sure things were very different then.

I don’t remember anything about it at all I do remember I enjoyed school from the start I m pretty sure I didn’t cry
I was 4 1/2 years old and loved going to school I can remember the classroom and the teacher but no other details

I hated it. I remember my mother peeling my fingers off the railings outside and then the huge brass door knob of the school door as I put up a fight to not go. I’d been to nursery school, which was unusual back in the 50’s and had hated that too.

I don’t remember crying. I do remember going into the headmistresses office with my mum before going to my class. I can picture exactly where in the school they were.
The only other thing I remember is story time at the end of the day. We were sat on the floor on a mat. I was next to a little boy who’s birthday was the same day as mine so we must have started together. I remember he was a bit smelly and thought all boys were the same!

I don't remember my first day.
I remember the classroom and the desks with lift up lids and a form (seat) attached. We had two separate playgrounds, boys one side, girls the other. The toilets were at the other side of the playground and very dark inside. I liked school. I had the same teacher when I was 5 and again when I was 7.

I started school when I was three, so I don’t really remember anything about it. However I do remember that my teacher’s name was Miss Stephens and she was lovely. I also remember that when she read to us she used to fiddle with a pencil. Many years ago I recall my mother being amazed that I did remember her because she left after my year in nursery when I went into kindergarten.

I loved school, probably initially because I was an only child with no local children to play with.

I cried too.

I was the youngest of five siblings and had never been anywhere without at least one of them (no nursery or play groups back then) and was very shy.

Hated nearly every minute of my whole school life

Oh yes, the awful outside loos. 😱