First day at school

I cried and cried. In those days there weren’t nurseries and pre-schools to get you used to being away from mum.

My first day at school was fine and I enjoyed every single minute of it. I had been looking forward to starting school for so long.

Our teacher had put a little tin with cardboard counters, red on one side and blue on the other, a reading book, two jotters , two pencils and a book mark with my name on it in my desk, and done the same for every other child in the class.

Our mothers stayed for the first lesson, then left and came back and fetched us at mid-day.

Some weeks later, reality kicked in. My parents had sent me to the council school we "belonged" to, and did not realise that no-one would play with "the doctor's daughter" as any working-class child who did so, would be regarded as a snob in the street they lived in and not spoken to by any of their usual play-mates.

It took until half-way through Primary 2 before my parents' realised this, or rather were told it by the very embarrassed mother who had to explain to my mother why her daughter could not come to my birthday party, and it wasn't until after the Easter holidays that year that my parents found a small private school they could afford the fees at,and the uniform for.

This was Scotland for you in 1955.

I just posted this on another thread but I got very bored in the afternoon. The teacher told us to "put your head in your arms on the table and have a sleep" and she popped out of the classroom. I got up and wandered off to the nearby park where I was eventually found playing on the swings! When my mother eventually collected me I told her I didnt like it and would not be going back.

Needless to say I was made to go back. In the cloakroom every child had their own coat hook with a picture on it. Mine was a green frog.

Looking back on it my wandering off was prophetic. I was never one to blindly accept the rules even as a young child and was always looking for ways to game the system.

Very clearly. Marilyn Miles, our home helps daughter, who was at the school but in an upper class, collected me on her way to school. It was about 200 yards further up the road.

School was large and noisy (or appeared so). I was made to sit next to a boy I decided I didn't like so when I got a book with a tear in it, I blamed him and they moved me.

The loos were outside and disgusting wet seats and a wet floor and the rain ran through it. I found it really unpleasant.

I think my mother walked up to collect me. I was glad to get home. I could read before I went to school and the books I read at home were so much more interesting than those I had been given at aschool.

The bright side is that I only went there for three weeks. We moved from London to Carlisle and I went to a different school, but that is another story

I cried too.

The seats were old fashioned ones, doubles, which lifted up and were attached to the desk.
The girl next to me was a bully, I can still see her face and remember her name.

The teacher was of the old fashioned type, wielding a tawse, we were terrified of her.
I remember one incident, when I had to go to the toilet which was at the other side of the playground and outside. I fell in a puddle and was soaking wet. Instead of asking what was wrong, she screamed at me to get back to my seat.
I also had a milk intolerance, but she forced me to drink it. I was sick everywhere!

Fortunately a few months later, we moved house and I went to a new school, where I was very happy.

77 years ago!
All I can remember is that the teacher, Miss Ross, was very old and wore a hairnet!

I thought that it was just for one day .
When day two approached - I was horrified .
I cried and cried .

I was scared of going to the loo , because there were no doors and there were boys !

The school and the teacher were very nice .
I gave the teacher a lecture about growing plants having identified every plant in the garden -
she was astonished .

I just wasn't used to lots of loud children having not been to nursery and it didn't help being an only child brought up by a grandma in the company of a lot of old ladies .
But as soon as the Art classes started - I couldn't get there quickly enough !

Oh yes, the awful outside loos. 😱

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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'.

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?

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.