Back to School this week (except in Scotland)

Indigo8

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.

When I started teaching classes were mostly 38. I had 39 mixed year group KS1 children in my class, then another one got in on appeal. It’s not really that long ago either.
A few years later, the 30 cap was a great relief.

When I taught in Scotland in the late 60's I had a class 47 11-12 year olds in the mornings and a class of 48 5 year olds in the afternoons. I did that for a whole term before I was given the large class of 11-12 year olds permanently.

Defo not the happiest days of my life, but I did enjoy learning and being with other children, as I was an only child. I loved school dinners! I hated being bullied and hated being physically abused by the teachers who used the belt without restraint. My GC go to nursery happily and come home happy too, which is nice to see and there is none of the religious crap that there was when I was young (fights with the Proddy's and Cathy's up the back lane). I was embarrassed that my family was a bit better off than most of the other pupils' families. I think that was part of the bullying thing.

Re class size, the top infants class reached 72 by the summer term!
The class was taught in the upstairs hall of the Methodist church as the Infants school was bursting at the seams, whilst a new school was being built. There was plenty of room there.

I spent the summer term in a side room, sorting out various resources, together wth the three others ( one was the teacher’s son) who had already done all the work, leaving the teacher to teach the rest. The class kept increasing in size throughout the year.

I changed school at least 7 times, including my transition to secondary school. My dad was in the Royal Navy and he was drafted to a new base every 2 years or so . I spent 2 years at the RN school in Malta, a few months at a village school in Somerset where there were 10 pupils aged 5-11, returned a second time to a school in Morayshire and was bullied relentlessly by a teacher and some pupils in a city primary before settling in an all girl secondary in the same city where I was happy for 6 years. My boy friend from the horrible city school told me with glee that he had met the horrible man who bullied me on a bus years later and had enjoyed telling hime that I had gone on to be awarded an Honours degree in Russian Studies.....