What do you recall from your first day at school?

My Mom ran the family boarding house in a lovely seaside town. My Grandma was bedridden, and I spent my first three years on her big downstairs bed during the day. We idolised each other and she spent her days teaching me, reading, writing, sums, drawing and poetry. At 3 I was too energetic for this, so Mom asked a local infant school headmistress (her friend) if I could sit in with the class, playing in the corner while the older children had lessons. First day I took Tiddles, my toy koala with me, as a friend. When home-time came I had enjoyed myself so much I screamed and cried when I had to go home. I was so upset, I threw Tiddles in the road, and he was run over by a Ribble Red Bus! I was heartbroken until Mom squashed him back to shape. After that I was never allowed to take him with me. I did enjoy being there though, in my corner. After a few weeks, the teacher realised that I was also absorbing the lessons of the older children, and with Mom's permission, included me in the class work. At home time each day, I would cling onto the iron railings outside the school, crying because I didn't want to go home. As an aside, my best 5th birthday present was joining the local library and having a card of my own. 70+ years on I always have a book with me.

I cannot remember.

Yes, we had to pull out mattresses for the afternoon naps at nursery school. There were slates with chalk to write on/with. Moving up a level, the lift up lid desks were in rows and the ambition was always to be in the first row, so that you were top of the class. Then, the honour of being ink monitor for the week!!

Those ghastly 1/3rd bottles of milk - always warm in the summer and exploding out of the tops in winter, with the birds helping themselves!

Those navy knickers, Witzend! Always having to be worn with white liners in case the dye ran! And which bright spark decided that they would be an ideal place to build in a pocket for one's handkerchief?!

I cannot remember who said it but I agree that gym mistresses had to be sadists. Out there playing hockey, in aforementioned knickers, in minus 4 degrees, with snow on the ground. Legs a weird shade of blue and purple! I hate sport to this day!

Oh, happy days!

First day, well, at infants school -- I think it was called a Kindergarten/garden (?) - I was a bit frightened, and certainly confused. All those other kids! The teachers seemed very stern, but as I turned out to be fairly bright, very quiet and obedient, they seemed OK with me. And as many have said, I could already read and write to some extent when I was 5, that helped.

Secondary school though (Grammar in fact) - oh dear. That was scary, such a big place, what seemed like an army of kids, no clues where anything was, or what was going on!

I went to a local nursery school at 3 - my mother taught there so I was very happy- my brother was also there- I was made to eat carrots which I hated, and threw up all over the place. I don’t think they tried again! I loved school all the way through! I almost went there for fun and to meet all my friends. I wasn’t the hardest worker for which I got into endless trouble. But I did ok in the end and still keep in touch with all of old school and university friends- some have died as we are all 80 and a bit!

It was nearly 70 years ago. I have no idea.

1954 and I can still see the slippers of the girl next to me. I was given a tidy box with a tin of plasticine, a string of large beads and some wax crayons. I loved it! My coat peg had a blue lamb on it. I didn't like the tiny toilets and would not go at school. Luckily I lived almost next door so went home for dinner. Happy days! Unfortunately, later on, I hated grammar school.

I was born in December 1964 and went to a playgroup when I was around three. They were quite a new innovation then and ours was held in the living room of the playgroup leader’s house. This house was a 1960s upside down house, with the bedrooms downstairs and the living room and kitchen upstairs. In the July of 1969, those of us who were starting school in September were marched two by two to “big” school, where we spent the morning. I lived in a large dormitory village near Norwich and there were two classes per year. A brand new primary school had been built a year or two before I started, but the birth rate was so high at that time that there was not enough room for the reception classes, so these were at the other end of the village in what was called the Annexe, round the corner from the old school. The Annexe was a mobile building for the two classes and there was a playground with a big log in it for us to play on. There was also another, smaller building where we had school dinners and indoor PE. This building was rather like a Nissen hut left over from the war - in fact, it could well have been. I loved school from the beginning. I was lucky in that l found most aspects of it easy, especially reading and spelling. The teacher, Mrs Scales, was excellent and experienced. I would imagine that she was in her forties at the time. She was firm but fair and l can only remember being really happy and safe because we knew exactly what was expected of us. We went out for nature walks, holding hands in twos. This was the first time I realise that some children had wet palms rather than the dry, exezma prone skin l had. There were nearly forty of us in the class and the teacher was on her own. It is unimaginable today to take that number of children for a walk with only the teacher today. As we lined up for dinner in pairs, we would be counted out: “two, four, six, eight cherries on a cottage plate,” so learning the the two times table without realising it. At the end of the day, we would sit on the carpet while having a story read to us. I was amazed how many of the boys’ names appeared to be in the story as, while showing us the pictures we would hear: “Once upon a time, David A, there was a little gingerbread boy, Andrew B….” We would then say the home time prayer before going home. It was a lovely, gentle introduction to school without the older children and I can remember crying my eyes out at the end of the year when I realised that I would not be returning. However, the following September, I started my second year of school in the new building and revelling in the new opportunities there.

I came home and cried because I hadn’t learned to read on my first day!

Absolutely nothing about being in school but the first day trip to school, yes. School had April and October start dates. Lived top of a hill that had to be navigated to get onto road to school. Myself and friend, also first day, were so excited at being able to slide on the ice all the way down the hill several times whilst our Mums clung to one another for dear life trying not to fall. Great start and great school.

I ran away on my first day at school! I crossed a main road and ran all the way down a very long road to the sweet shop, I can't remember any more!

I’d been at home with Mum, no nursery or playgroup. I wasn’t allowed to play with local children. I was thrilled to be going to school at last! I had a picture of a pixie on my peg, brilliant! We got to play with dolls and a toy kitchen with tiny pots and pans. My teacher was called Miss Brown, she was about 25 and drop dead gorgeous. I loved everything about my first day, couldn’t wait to go back!

Bawling the place down after getting my finger jammed in the Wendy house!

I had a lousy time at school, failed my 11 + and the teachers just didn't give a dam. Despite this a lot of us made good.
I went into further education in my 40's and trained to be a nurse but had to do an 'Access to Health and Social studies' course first.
Among the subjects we had to study, we had to take English classes and the tutor asked us to write an essay on school memories. Here is a part of my essay (for which I got high marks).

I had really been looking forward to starting school but not on my birthday! I had wanted to stay at home and play with my birthday presents.

My teacher Mrs Isherwood was a stern woman with sharp features and her black hair was swept back severely in a French pleat. The other pupils had started class before me. I vividly recall how she told the children to gather around the blackboard. She had turned to me and said ‘’Excluding Marianne.’’ Being only five years old I didn’t know what she meant so I stayed in my seat anyway. Then she stared at me. I squirmed in my seat unsure of what she wanted. Then I thought she must have wanted me to join the others but as I stood up she yelled ‘’ I said excluding Marianne.’’ So I burst into tears.

I stayed in Mrs Isherwood’s class until Christmas then moved to Mrs Swale’s class. She was really nice. The classroom was pleasant enough with an alphabet freeze around the wall. There were lots of toys that we were allowed to play with in the afternoons. A Wendy house. A sand pit and a water trough with funnels, rubber pipes and bottles. Mornings were spent learning the alphabet and using coloured blocks of different lengths that represented different numbers. The pupils had to make rows of patterns with them and they taught us how many ways there were to make up the number ten.

I didn’t want to leave the nursey unit and move to the main school. The main building was large and foreboding. In comparison to the nursey unit the classrooms were dull and boring. They were bigger than the nursey classrooms with high ceilings. The walls and ceilings were painted magnolia with the odd painting here and there.
The toilets were outside across the school yard. They were damp and cold and smelled musty. There were brick air raid shelters all along one side of the school yard. We not supposed to go in them. They were dark, damp and creepy, a haven for spiders and beetles. They also made good hiding places when we played hide and seek!

I could leave home at 8.55 a.m. and be in time for the school bell when I moved to the junior school because it was literally at the end of the street where I lived. This was a modern building with a low roof and long corridors. This school had the luxury of indoor toilets with two rows of washbasins opposite each other. Each basin had a bar of pink soap (carbolic I think). In the middle and above each row of wash basins were two mirrors opposite each other. When you looked through one you could see the reflection of the other and so on. This was my first experience of ad-infinitum.
Mrs How took us for sewing and craft classes but I represented a problem for her. I had learned to knit at home. My mother used to cast on for me, but being left handed I knitted back to front. It was the same with sewing I used my left hand. Mrs How flatly refused to help me when I made a mistake and insisted I learn to knit like right handed people do. I now knit as a right handed person and can sew with either hand!

In time I became a dinner monitor at lunch times. The meals were always delicious at the junior school. Dinner monitors had to set and clear the dinner tables but had first go at second helpings. I also became one of the school prefects and one of our jobs was to wash all the teacher’s cups and saucers after break time. There was a varied assortment of bone china crockery. My friend Hazel and I used to make up names for each item based on their design or names on the bottom of each piece.

My best friend was a girl called Janet and I was deeply saddened when she told me she was emigrating to Canada with her family.
Monkseaton Secondary Modern or Bygate as the kids knew it as had a terrible reputation. I was bitterly disappointed when I failed my ‘Eleven Plus’ and knew I would have to go to Bygate seniors. ‘’You’ll never survive’’ my brother Dennis tormented me. ‘Bygate is the hardest school in this area and you‘re too soft’’ he chided. He warned me to keep away from Cathy Barns or she would ‘fill me in’ as he put it. Cathy Barns had left the term before I joined but she had been superseded by Jennifer Yates who was nearly as bad. I once had my ears boxed by Jennifer for daring to do a handstand in front of her!

The school building was old with flaking paint, outside toilets again and was very cold in the winter. The main classrooms had glass panelled doors all along the sides of them. The back and front walls were brick. Built around a forecourt there were verandas on either side of the classrooms. The inside veranda had been blocked in with wooden panels and windows. The outside verandas were open to the elements and the North East winds used to howl though the ill fitting glass doors. Radiators had been installed on the inside of the pointed classroom ceilings and were neither use nor ornament.

There was one toilet roll in the girl’s cloakroom. That hard horrible Izal stuff (you know like greaseproof paper). The girls had to take what they thought they needed out to the toilets and God help them if they didn’t take enough!

The desk tops were covered in graffiti. Some in ink and some actually carved into the wooden tops, presumably with a pen knife. The underneath of the desks were made of really rough wood and the girls wore tights or should I say stockings in those days) at their peril because they would always snag on the rough wood. There were usually hard bits of chewing gum there too!

The boys at Bygate were awful. They used to punch or grab the girls as they walked past. They thought it was funny.
During the weeks leading up to the dreaded Christmas Party’s we had to learn to do old time dancing with them. If you didn’t like the person you were dancing with you barely touched them using just your finger tips. The whole thing was a farce. Any boy refusing to dance with a particular girl used to get the slipper off the sports master. The teachers were quite liberal with corporal punishment, usually the cane.
I was delighted to leave Bygate with its disgusting bottle green and yellow tie. It gave me the greatest pleasure to bin my bottle green knickers. Even if I did not learn a lot academically I learned to be tough. You had to be to survive Bygate!

I couldn't wait to start school! So got there aged 4 and 1 week. Thanks to my Mother I could already read as I had played 'school' for months before - where I would go out and sit on one of the stumps left where our gates had been removed for the 'war effort' (dumped in the Irish Sea it turned out) - and do homework my Mother would make up for me.
I was given the first book - the first page of which said 'Ann had a fan', the second 'The man came in the Van'..... exactly what had happened to me! My Uncle was in the Air Force and had been sent to India, from where he sent me a fan! Whack! down came the ruler, sharp end across my fingers... 'Don't turn the page until I say you can' screamed the well-named Miss Beattie... my Mother made it worse by coming in to complain about the wheals on my fingers, so I was a marked woman from then on!

Hated it. I cried all day, didn’t like leaving my Mum. I’d never been away from home before. I was five!
Never really liked school and was glad when I left at 15.

My first day? Nothing!
My second day, as soon as DM was out of sight, I turned and walked calmly back out of the gate. I'd been to school on the previous day, and in my five year old mind, that was enough!
I was scooped up by Mrs Gibson (she had twins in my class) and deposited back in the corridor!
My teacher was Mrs Harrop, she was lovely.
The following year we had Mrs Roscoe, she was horrible!

I started at 4 + 9 months and loved everything except the outside toilets and the metal shoe scrapers outside the doors!. I joined a group of children who waited near the main road for a taxi that took us to school and bought us home again. I think it was 6p a week. I could read and write so didn’t find it at all difficult. My teachers were a Miss Nash and a Miss Pawson who were friends and lived together. They were very kind and gentle ladies, and I thought they were very old. We did PE in our underwear and I remember asking my Mum if I could not wear Aertex knickers on those days as I thought everyone could see through the holes! I passed the 11+ and went on to the grammar school but I always credit the primary school for giving me a good basic education and a lifelong love of learning.

I remember the smell of paint! This was January 1963 and I was just about to turn 5. The school had a beautiful, child friendly room for the reception children, but I never got my "term" in there because it was being painted / renovated. There were little miniature loos, in cubicles with no doors, in case you couldn't work the locks! The floor had red and yellow tiles, in a checkerboard pattern, each with a small animal on it, in the opposite colour (red animals on yellow squares and vice versa). Just beautiful. The smell of gloss paint still transports me back there. Unfortunately, I had to go straight into an enormous class with children who had been there since the previous September and all knew the ropes. I knew some other children and my brother was in the juniors, but I still felt terrified. I was very small for my age and they didn't have a pair of plimsolls (these were provided) small enough for me! We had no uniform but girls weren't allowed to wear trousers. That was an arctic winter with snow on the ground until March! And this was in Essex (later London Borough of Redbridge). The school was a mile and a half away and was on a huge council estate. My parents had chosen it, on advice from a neighbour, because it was a relatively new school with good facilities and forward looking teachers. I have to say, it turned out to be a brilliant choice and eventually, I loved it. At 11, I passed the exam for a prestigious girls' grammar school and then went on to university in 1976, the first one in my family to do so. Happy days....

I started primary in easter 65. I knew nearly everybody in the infants, there were only around 40 pupils & a lot were cousins (including two I started with) or second cousins. On the first day I remember the Lyons coffee tins with the crayons in, someone showing me how to draw a house, and another new starter wetting her pants. We had to go into the "big" classroom for assembly & some of the older girls seemed like grown women to me (they would've been 10-11).My auntie's dog used to jump into the playground regularly & I was the only one who could catch him.I hated school dinners (always sponge made with dehydrated egg & lumpy custard for pudding) but liked the headmaster's war stories & playing tag.

I can remember walking up the road to school holding my mother’s hand.
It must have been after lunch since I don’t recall having anything to eat and we only had one “ playtime”.

I made my mother promise she’d wait outside for me but I was very disappointed when I looked for her in the break but of course she wasn’t there.

On entering the classroom for the first time I was amazed to see everyone playing with toys and colouring. My teacher Miss Woods showed me the ropes She turned out to be a lovely, kind and patient teacher.

There was a little boy with a puddle under his chair who’d obviously wet himself which he did a few times a day.

I met my lifelong friend there we went through school and got our first job together.

I soon settled down to learning which I loved and was extremely proud when I had to take my reading book to Miss Pritchard the head teacher’s room to read to her.
I really enjoyed my time at the little school. I went through the Infant and junior school and left in 1968 to go to the secondary modern which wasn’t that much bigger. Which I also enjoyed. Those were the days.

Aged 5, (in 1968) i was told by a teacher to ''go home for lunch" on my first day- but my mum wasnt there waiting so i tried to remember my way home (luckily we lived 2 streets away) - i found my way but there was no one in (my mum & 16yr old sister had gone shopping, as it was first time they'd been able to without me) so our next-door neighbour, a good friend of my mums's, took me in for some tomato soup- when my mum came home when i'd had my soup, she took me back to school and stayed to tell headmistress i'd been sent home when i shouldnt have- and i was given a school dinner as well! A lot of the time at school i was let play in the wendy-house corner or to paint when the others did reading as i could already read very well.I remember my mum and my sister saying we would be able to have little naps on little beds but we never did.I suppose they must have changed that by then. 🫤

I started school in 1949.In those days you had to wait till your fifth birthday so there were children starting all through the first year.
I started the same day as a boy.When our mothers left us in the hall with the headteacher the boy started crying and made a dash for his mother.The headteacher grabbed him and smacked him across the legs.I must have looked if I was trying to make a run for it as well, I started crying when she grabbed me and threatened me with a smack if I made a move.I was terrified of that woman all the time I was in the Infants school.

I remember being let out into the playground at break time and, thinking it was time to go home, I crossed a busy main road on my own and set off home until someone came to retrieve me. I remember having to draw a cat on my first day and then cut it out with scissors. I cut its tail off by mistake and was devastated.

Granjeanne- i too remember the smell of the paint, it was bright coloured powder paints, and had a distinct 'powdery' smell to it- we had to mix it with water, or dip in a wetted paintbrush to use it- i can also remember the small of the bars of soap at the sinks- it was like buttermilk. And i loved the rice pudding after dinners as it was creamy and served with a lovely big coconutty biscuit.😋

*smell.