What do you recall from your first day at school?

Absolute misery!

I hated every minute of school and was so relieved when I could leave at 15

Me too Grannybags. First day aged 5, I was so terrified 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 was 5 1/2, and dying to go to school. There was no nursery or even playgroup beforehand, just home with DM and two younger siblings. I wasn’t in the least nervous. Almost before I was inside I met the girl who was destined to be my best friend for at least a couple of years.*

We were shown very soon where the loos were, and told that if we needed to go, we didn’t have to ask, we could just go. (In some respects it was a very forward-thinking school for the mid 50s.) Which is why, I remember wondering why on earth one girl wet herself and started crying - why didn’t she just go, for heaven’s sake?

During that first year, it was mornings only, and in the 2nd year, we all had to lie down for naps after lunch - had to provide a blanket and little pillow for the purpose. I don’t think any of us actually slept, though.

There was a daily assembly with hymn-singing, so it was a really Big Thing when you were considered able to read well enough to be given a hymn book. I still remember being so chuffed when I got mine. Until then, we were told to ‘sing it to la’.

*that is, until I was very ill, off school for 3 weeks - and when I came back, she told me she was friends with someone else now.
😰

I can’t actually recall the first day but the infants were all in one class as it was a small village school. My older sister had already taught me what she knew so I was straightaway moved up a group.
We moved house a few months later. Again I was moved out of Reception. I was so disappointed as I missed out on playing in the Wendy house.

I'm the opposite. I loved school from the first day until the last.
It was WW2 when I started primary school, and I remember the corridor being lined with sandbags. We were all given a gas mask which we carried around in a sort of shoulder bag/box.
I remember that we all had to lie down in the afternoon on little rush mats, but I couldn't go to sleep at all.
Mum took me to school on that first day, but I'm pretty sure that an older girl. a neighbour, used to take me to and from school after that.

I can’t remember my first day at all, though I can remember lots about my nursery school days. I was only three when I started.

Absolute misery puts it perfectly. I’d assumed I’d be staying with my older sister - terror when I found I wouldn’t.
I think this thread will keep me in floods of tears.

Not the first day - but I asked to get my hanky and was given permission to go,
Like BL I went home for it, crossing the A1 - which before the A1M was the main road between England and Scotland.
It’s a mystery how I survived!

My first day was a nursery school (council run) as my mother had been very ill and couldnt cope with me - she cast me as the 'naughty one' quite early on. I would have been about 3/4. I met a very strict, tall lady who took me straight off my mother and showed me my coat peg which had a skipping rope on it. I remeber some kind of activity but the name memory is being put t be in the afternoons and the tall ladfy walked up and down rubbing hand cream in. I was fascinated I had never seen my mother use handcream so I assumed this was a very posh lady. It seemed to have been quite a strict regime but I could fully read and write before I went to school at 5. This made me even more of a clever clogs than I was to turn out to be and very annoying to everyone with my continual questioning and a my mother said 'always answering back'. I haven't stopped this. I wonder if would be lableed no with ADHD or similar?

Absolute terror! An only child I had lived an isolated country life until I was 5 when my Dad secured work and housing in an urban area allowing me easy access to a school. I’d never really mixed with other children, saw cousins a couple of times a year, otherwise my life was with my parents and occasional time with farm workers who all seemed to be childless.

In a strange environment, no settling in visits back then, surrounded by other children, noise and a teacher who shouted I was immediately silenced, too afraid to speak.

Things settled eventually, I could read, write and count before I arrived in school and did well academically. However the anxiety in large, noisy groups has been life long. Although I’ve learned to cope and hide my anxiety group situations have never been comfortable. I learned to act confidently, as I suspect many people do. Professionally I’ve facilitated groups, run workshops and forced myself to speak out while never being comfortable with more than a few people. I still hold back in larger groups.

We lived in a small agricultural village and, of course, everyone knew everyone else.

I started on my 5th birthday, after the Christmas holidays. I, too, could read, write and tell the time so I was often given 'errands' and I loved my time there.

However, I changed school at 7 and knew noone. I felt an outsider and didn't thrive at all.

I remember Peter C pulling the brass door handle off the huge door in his attempt to get out.
I can’t remember anything else from that day, but I loved school.

Social anxiety has plagued me all my life so when I started school in 1961 aged 5, I felt completely at sea and just wanted my mum.

I remember we were shown the ropes by an older student and the girl assigned to me was very kind but I felt on the verge of tears all day. I didn’t ever love school and found it an ordeal until I was finally old enough to leave at 16.

I do still have several friends who were at school with me from the start and we still meet up when I’m in Chester.

I remember running home from school on my first day too. I hated it. I could already read and write and it just seemed so pointless plus my little sister didn't have to go. For the first half term I ran away every day if I got the chance. After that I settled down and would walk there and back on my own or with the little boy next door.

There was a nursery attached to the local infants' school and I went there when I was 4, biglouis. My mother worked part-time so it was very convenient.

I do remember having a nose bleed; the nursery teacher put a cold key down my back as supposedly the shock was supposed to stop the nosebleed. She then made me lie on my back but I was choking!
Every day after lunch we had a nap on a little camp bed.

We started in the infants' class at 5+.
I can remember running round the cloakroom (strictly forbidden!) and cutting my head open on a peg and had to go to hospital to have it stitched.

@BigBertha1

That sounds a lot like me. I had the reputation all through school of being a "clever clogs" and therefore a "teachers pert".

I did know basic numbers when I began school but was only ever average at maths. I was always well ahead on reading and writing. I came to hate sport and PE at secondary school although I have no memory of particularly disliking them at a younger age.

I hated it. I was allergic to milk and the teacher forced me to drink it. I threw up all over myself.
She was an absolute witch.

My dad had a contract abroad so when we returned I was late starting at school. The first thing the teacher asked me when we were all sat down was did I have a handkerchief. I said that no, I didn’t have a cold. She said that I should always have one with me. I now have an obsession with always having a handkerchief or tissue to hand and can often be seen frantically searching pockets or handbag to check.

I remember it very vividly - it was heaving with nuns and I was terrified of them - I thought they had no feet and just floated around!

We then went into the chapel which had life sized bas-reliefs of the stations of the cross all round the walls - I finished up next to one and was again terrified.

Hated it all!

I was brought up at a School House as my father was headteacher there a while so as a little person aged 3 I also toddled into the infant class when the bell rang in the playground. I apparently - and fortunately - was very quiet playing in the wendy house and followed what the other children were doing. I never stayed too long and went home when had enough.
I joined the school properly around 41/2 and enjoyed it. My father became head of a secondary school so we left with very happy memories.
I think though I must have been the bane of the caretaker's life at the primary school as I used to follow him round the classrooms after school and didn't stop talking. He bought me a teddy for my birthday - and I've still got it!

biglouis

@BigBertha1

That sounds a lot like me. I had the reputation all through school of being a "clever clogs" and therefore a "teachers pert".

I did know basic numbers when I began school but was only ever average at maths. I was always well ahead on reading and writing. I came to hate sport and PE at secondary school although I have no memory of particularly disliking them at a younger age.

I suffered from a hatred of sport, when older, too. I think it was because of having to stand around outdoors, in flimsy clothes, in all weather's. I'm sure sports mistresses had a degree in sadism.

I don't actually recall the very first day but I do remember being in the infants school........like us all having to kneel on the floor to paint......toilets being outside and having to take toilet paper from the classroom.........the 'dinner ladies' who looked after us during lunch play time........smudgy crayons that were. hopeless to colour-in with.......high ceilings and heavy doors that had glass panels so high I couldn't see through .......assembly every morning including hymns and prayers, plus going to the church next door every week.....the play corner with a Wendy house, dolls pram, play kitchen and very little for the boys.........I can even remember the headmasters name.

Observation: it seems that most of us could read and count before we started school, without having been to nursery.

Probably many more mothers were full time housewives, but with far fewer domestic appliances, non-iron fabrics or convenience foods etc they were not ladies of leisure.

I conclude that most girls are ready to read by age 4, boys usually 5-6, and that early education should take account of this.

I don't remember my first day of school, but do remember quite a bit of my nursery school. Mum had me when she was 33, and I think I was a handful, to say the least, and when I was 2/12, mum had to cope with a new baby. The nursery was quite a way away, but I don't remember how we got here, as we had no car. In my mind it was a lovely place, with rice pudding at lunch times 🤗
I loved my infant school and we also had a nap after lunch, on little fold up camp beds with a blanket, listening to the radio. Maybe it was Listen With Mother.