Back to School this week (except in Scotland)

As an only child I was desperate to start school. I lived in a road with lots of children and was next to the youngest in age. Every school day I used to stand on the ottoman in my parent's bedroom window and shout a running commentary to my Mum about who was off to school. She must have been overjoyed when it was my turn. At 76 I can still remember my first morning. I was sat at a table with a jigsaw of a shire horse in a farmyard. I was in my element. I have 5 children and 9 grandchildren who have/had varying views of education! Only my 4 youngest grandchildren are still in school. The youngest (9) has gone back this morning as happy as Larry. There will be a more muted response from the other 3 (11.12 &15) tomorrow.

I was 5 and a half before starting school, and was dying to go. Until then I was just at home with my mother and 2 younger siblings, no nursery or playgroup, none of the ‘classes’ that are everywhere now. Almost the most exciting thing that ever happened was ‘Listen With Mother’ - we had no TV until I was 11. And far fewer toys than they all seem to have now.
But IMO that was all pretty normal.

So I went very happily to school, and enjoyed it.

PS, Gdd2, still only 4, will be starting reception tomorrow. But she’s thoroughly enjoyed pre school and has really been looking forward to going to Big School with her siblings. So I’m sure she’ll be fine.

I was more than ready to start school. I'd been going to a little kindergarten just a couple of doors from my house, and could read and write before I started P1. I never looked back. I was an only child and quite academic, so I enjoyed school and did well. My two children were also very ready to start school, as they'd been going to nursery since they were three months old. My GS has just gone into P3 and seems to be enjoying it too, although I think he'd rather be out playing football all day!

I was full time in an excellent local authority nursery until starting school in the term in which I was five, more than ready and delighted to be getting on with real life involving books, music and movement, poster paints and the dreaded outdoor lavatories. Even as a truculent teenager I liked school and remember with affection the friends of my schooldays and many of the staff who taught me.

I was so excited to start my little Catholic primary school.
The headmistress a nun and her merry band of sadistic staff soon put an end to my happiness.
Thank God for one kind and lovely teacher Mrs Melia, she was the only teacher that liked children.
The lunch staff were also nasty.
It was a poor start to my education and things didn’t really get much better.

We had been at Butlins @ Ayr. On the Friday, which was my 5th Birthday, The redcoats brought me a lighted Birthday cake in the dining hall and all the campers sang Happy Birthday.
On the Saturday we went home and on the Sunday I went round to my friend and neighbours house to tell her all about the holiday. She jumped over her Door step and I, (much smaller) attempted the leap, and came a cropper, landing on my head. Doctor came, shaved the front of my head and inserted 5 big black stiches.
So on the Monday I started school. There are no photos of my first day, but suffice to say none of the new pupils wanted to sit beside me.
BTW I still have the bald spot at the front of my head, which is why I have always had a fringe.

Two of my DGS are starting high school this week and the youngest is off to primary. They’re all excited and a little nervous, of course. I can’t wait to hear how they get on.

When I went to grammar school I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I’d just escaped from a primary school where slapping, board rubber throwing, bullying and shouting were the order of the day. The children with special needs always got the worst of it - especially when we had spelling and times table tests every Friday afternoon and the worst performing children (the same every week, unsurprisingly) got their hands slapped with the ruler. My fondest memory is of when a mum at the bus stop outside heard her child being smacked around at lunchtime, charged into the school hall and gave the headteacher some of her own medicine. We were all cheering her on. Thank goodness parents these days wouldn’t just assume that teachers are always right and children exaggerate.

That was my third primary school - the others were fine.

I loved school. It was my refuge from an unhappy home life.
My primary school was near home and I rushed to get there each day. Grammar school later was even better. We had a wonderfully inspiring headmistress whom I have never forgotten. But I wasn't allowed to stay on for A levels, Mum insisted that I leave and start work.

I hated every minute of it.

My main memory from Primary school is being kept in most lunch times, sobbing over whatever food they were forcing me to eat and missing all of playtime (liver and lumpy mash yuck!)

I hated it too - everything about it.

I missed my mum, I hated the food, and I was so timid I was afraid to speak.

To this day, the smell of school dinners makes me nauseous.

I liked school but have no memories of my first day. My first teacher was Miss Little, she taught me again the year before I went up to junior school. We were her last class before she retired.
I didn't pass the 11+ but ought to have. There were so many who passed and insufficient places at the secondary school that they had to be selective and used a cut off mark which I was just below. I thought I was a failure for years until my mother told me she had been to see the headmaster to ask why I hadn't passed.
Today my youngest grandson starts school. He is 11 and has been home educated until now. He has ADHD and a speech disorder. I hope he enjoys school as he is very bright.

I wish your youngest GS well today. First day at a new school is daunting at the best of times.

Our primary school had two intakes each year, in August and February. As a November child, I started in February which was sad for me as most of the children I played with were six months ahead. As I had been attending a little private 'school' run by a local lady,'up the road', I was well advanced in reading and arithmetic. I didn't like the teacher who must have been approaching retirement, as she disappeared after our year. She was quite strict and wore a hair net. Luckily, after another year, I was 'promoted' and spent the rest of my school life as one of the youngest in the class which did me no harm at all.

I liked school and most lessons but not the headmistresses at primary school, both were unpleasant and didn't seem to like children. Some of my teachers at High School were terrifying and very unkind too, others were lovely.

Years later I was at a High School reunion and chatting to a girl who was in my form. She asked which infant school I'd gone to, I told her and said "The Headmistress was horrible, quite terrifying and very unkind". She said "Oh, she's my aunt! She's in a care home now."

She was quite strict and wore a hair net.
The Headmistess at my junior school wore a hair net.
I think the only time I've been hit in my life was by her. Horrid woman.

I loved my first infant school in London but then we moved to live with my dad's parents for a time in Yorkshire as my dad had a teaching job up there. The first day in the new school I was given a slate and a piece of chalk and I could not write small enough to get more than one sum on a page. I was chastised and hated it from that moment on.

It was so bad my mum took me away and I didn't go back to school until we moved. Then I loved it again. A little boy from the cottages at the bottom of our road used to come and pick me up every day so we could walk together.

I went to a village school with one class for Infants, one for Juniors and one for Seniors. My sister was two years ahead of me and each day she came home and taught me what she had learned, so I could already read when I started. I remained in the Infants class but was moved up to a table with older pupils. I was sad to miss out on the play that the youngest children had, but I loved school- except for the awful milk, frozen then thawed by the stove. It put me off milk for life.

Grannybags

I hated every minute of it.

My main memory from Primary school is being kept in most lunch times, sobbing over whatever food they were forcing me to eat and missing all of playtime (liver and lumpy mash yuck!)

I didn’t hate school at all, but your memories of school dinners brought that time back to me so vividly.
I was also the one sitting in front of a meal, I couldn’t eat, because it made me heave. I wasn’t vegetarian, just found school meat minced stewed or sliced, full of gristle and totally inedible or unpalatable.
No pudding until you’ve eaten your dinner! was the constant cry until 10 minutes before the end of lunchtime when a plate of whatever pudding was on the go was plonked down in front of me and I was told to get it down as quick as I could because it was the end of lunchtime.
I loved Fridays because it was always either fish or cheese pie and I liked both of those.

I have little in the way of fond memories looking back at my school days from 1959 onwards. My first school memory age 6 writing practice with a fountain pen using the old fashioned ink wells.

The very stern teacher was strolling along the rows of desks glancing at our work. You could have heard a pin drop.I wasn’t the only child who was afraid of her. I dropped a little spot of ink on the page while she was towering over me. Without saying a word she grabbed my exercise book and tore it to shreds, threw it on my desk and walked out of the class with a slam of the door.

50 children sat in stunned silence wondering what had just happened and I sat there quivering while I tried not to cry in front of everyone. The teacher returned 10 mins later without saying a word and walked round the class with a box of penny caramels and put one in each desk. Then dropped a new exercise book on my desk and still not a word spoken.

Grannynannywanny
I was interested that you were in a class of 50.

I was talking to a teacher the other day and she refused to believe that classes had ever been allowed to be much over 30. In her words "It just never would have been allowed". In other words she thought I was exaggerating or lying. (Not the first or only time I have not been believed by a teacher when I was telling the truth)

My sister was in a class of 54 at primary school and I was in a class of 45 at a grammar school.

Indigo8 I remember having 52 in the class a few years in primary but never less than 45. Secondary school was 40-45.

I hated my first school, I started age 4, the teachers were very strict and children were forced to stand in the corner if they wet themselves.
At age seven we moved and I started at a lovely little C of E school, was like heaven and I couldn’t wait to go every single day.

I know that schools close now due to snow. Back when I went to junior school in a small mill town in Lancashire usually both parents worked so when it snowed children went to school but teachers often didn’t show up. I remember well over 100 children sitting in the main hall whilst the headteacher read Dickens Christmas Carol to us.