What was your favourite/worst subject at school?

Oh kittylester You have let out my worst school demon. I hated, loathed, abhorred, detested lacrosse. Shivering all afternoon on a windswept pitch once a week, knee deep in mud, wearing the most ridiculous grey skirt-shorts and great heavy boots and being yelled at to "cradle the ball , girl, cradle and run". I am told that lacrosse was invented by Native Americans; I bet they gave it up in favour of something less brutal, like scalping. It is an abomination – and now I shall probably dream about it tonight.

I too 'got' Maths and loved English and History but hated all sciences and sport. Loved 'Domestic Science' until Miss Holmes (funny I've never forgotten her name!!) told me she hoped I didn't get married and have children as they would all starve to death if they had to rely on my cooking. If I only knew where to find her I would introduce her to my 5 grown up kids!

I think my liking and disliking subjects changed a lot depending on who was teaching them. I loved history until I was stuck with a really hopeless teacher in the year when we chose our O level subjects. I was never interested in geography until I encountered a truly inspiring teacher in the same year. Latin always seemed such a tediously logical language, even once I managed to grasp that nouns and adjectives agree rather than rhyme. Sciences were okay but didn't really grab me and I have never managed to grasp the principles of electricity. Languages came easily to me so I enjoyed French and Spanish and I originally intended to study them at university, but again I was so inspired by a particular teacher that I finished up with an English degree.

My favourite subject was English and I hated Maths. My best friend and I would sit in the back of the maths class reading a Victoria Holt novel under the desk. The teacher never seemed to bother with us as we were 'quiet'

I too went to a convent school and though 'ladylike' behaviour was certainly important, the nuns were hugely ambitious for us and stressed the importance of hard work and academic achievement - there was never any implication that because we were girls we should set our sights lower. The fact that I was useless at Physics and Chemistry was seen as defeatist rather than stupidity - I was selling myself short by not attempting O-levels in them. But I knew my limitations and eventually convinced them that I would be better off concentrating on subjects I knew I had a chance of passing!

Usless at Maths and Art! Fine with maths now but still can't draw a straight line even with a ruler and never ask me to hang wallpaper! Loved English and strangely Botany - I think this had more to do with the teachers than anything else. Both tiny little fear inducing nuns! [sceptical]

Yes Artygran - those of us who went to the Academy but left at 15 had to go to night school to do the shorthand and typing which the girls from the Secondary Mod had already under their belts. Three years of Latin has never been much use in Adult life

I have to take issue over the secondary modern system. Maybe we just got a good one but I don't remember any of the teachers being anything but totally committed to us and always prepared to go the extra mile. We didn't like all of them and I daresay they didn't like some of us, but we respected them. We had relatively small classes compared to comprehensives and our headmaster knew us all by name. Many of the people in my year went on to further education, good technical apprenticeships and eventually to managerial positions. I don't remember anyone giving up on us because we had missed out on the grammar school, and many of the girls I knew who had gone to grammar school did less well than me in the long run.

I believed I would be good at chemistry - I fancied myself as a Marie Curie when I was 11. But it didn't take, somehow. Right from the first lesson when the teacher tried to capture our imagination by putting two chemicals in a test tube, so it would fizz and change colour, I forgot to listen to him while I was pondering and trying to picture what was really going on in the test tube!

As for maths - well, yes, i had already had a bit of negative feedback about my arithmetic at junior school so i guess the failure feeling was there. I became a bookkeeper in later life, though this was because I prefer to work alone, not in a team, and bookkeeping is like that. In my last job I did bookkeeping and translating - obviously I like the translating better. I learned to deal with foreign exchange, PUT options, currency futures, hedging, and to use spreadsheets for various processes. It's amazing what you can do when you have to.

My old maths teacher would have been proud of me.

Maths badly taught my dears. It was not you. It was all about tables and long division. Once a child starts believing it is hard and they cant do it then it will be. Negative thinking is really powerful.

Yes, with maths it seems you've either got it or you haven't. My older brother was good at maths and bad at Latin. We tried to help each other, but neither of us could understand the difficulty the other had. Luckily the maths teacher in the middle stream was really understanding, never impatient or sarky, and helped me through, somehow.

One day I was totally out of it, and just couldn't get what he was teaching us. I took to staring at a picture on the wall - it was a print of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. I stared and stared, the teacher kept glancing at me but I was transfixed on the picture - then it fell off the hook on to the floor.

He asked, jokingly, "How did you manage that, Joan?" "It wasn't easy" I said. After that he was still friendly, but always a little wary of me!!!

I (always the odd one out!) totally 'got' maths. I could never understand why others found it so difficult and eventually I was hopeless at 'tutoring' my own daughters because they just could not see what was staring them in the face. I think this is the problem with many Maths teachers. They have never struggled themselves and cannot see what the problems are.

I liked maths because if you got them all right you got 100%, whereas with English, French, etc. you might do very well but no one ever got 100% as the essays were subject to someone else's opinion.

Although I did not like school (too many petty rules) I reckon we did get a good education and had some excellent teachers with an enthusiasm for their subject which was infectious. This was an 'Academy', Scottish equivalent of a Grammer school.

I loved Latin French and German, loathed Physics, feared chemistry and maths, but my absolute deepest loathing was for PE (ie sport). The teacher hated me and I hated her back. The thing is, I was quite fit, a cyclist, and went to judo classes two nights a week, but her nasty attitude was off-putting. The difference between school sport and non-school sport was astounding. In judo and cycling I was encouraged: in school sport I was belittled.

This was at a standard co-ed Grammar School - the kind you went to when you passed your 11+.

I was allowed to drop physics and chemistry, and I got put down to the middle stream for maths, which enabled me to pass the subject - just - at GCE 'O' level.

When Mum and Dad told me I was not allowed to stay for my A levels, even though I got 8 O levels, I fought back a little bit, but the knowledge that I would no longer have to suffer PE probably took the edge off my fight. I gave in and left, and went to work in the civil service, where I was deeply unhappy. My own fault - I should have fought harder.

A bad teacher can have a bad effect on a person's life.

History and English Literature = good. Maths = bad!
Strange so many of us hated maths. It was considered odd in my family as everyone else was brilliant at maths.
I think the education system was poor back then. I too went to the local convent school, where good deprtment and manners were considered more important than academic achievement. After all, we were only going to work until we got married and then we would keep house for our husbands and bring up hordes of children.
I tore up that script the day I left school - still one of the happiest days of my life.

Binary and logarithms (sp) thats all I am going to say

I just remembered how not good "Secondary Modern" education was for the majority of people. Grammar schools were highly selective and my impression is that SecMod schools were really dire. Few facilities, lousy teaching, and school leaving at about 14/15 etc.
Those that go to today's comprehensives get an incomparably deal. Or am I wrong - were there any great secmods out of there?

I loved, and did well in, English, History and Art and was very consistent at maths; bottom of the class for five years running. Maths lessons filled me with dread. I simply didn't get it, despite having very patient, supportive teachers. I did eventually achieve an understanding of the subject - enough to get me through my Army promotion exams - but it was a hard grind.

My favourite subject was English and my worst - hmm, difficult one that because I was lousy at Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Pity because I wanted to be a doctor at one time! I went to a Grammar School but was in the bottom stream for maths and had a string of teachers throughout the school until I hit the O level year when I had a fantastic 'old' man [probably in his early 50s] who was soooo patient. I actually took the exam - and failed - but its thanks to his after school classes I even got that far. I've never let it hold me back though - but I didn't become a doctor!!!

I hated grammar school . I adored infant and junior school but grammar-- no thanks !!. I passed the 11+ on an interview ( I was a borderline pass ) and I have always been convinced it was the wrong decision for me . I struggled to keep up and generally had a miserable time , whereas should I have been sent to secondry modern , as it was called in those days I am sure I would have sailed through in the top stream .In spite of all that I have had a good and happy life .

I hated school. Told I was useless at maths (I was) and science (I was) but loved languages - Frenach, Latin and later on Spanish. I was also quite good at Art. I wish I could hve my time over again with different teachers at a different school - reckon I wasn't so dumb as everyone thought.....

My favourite was Biology and my least favourite Chemistry. We used to have the deputy head "Beattie" a terrifying woman with 1930s hairdo and drawn on eyebrows. I remember her sticking her finger in a test tube and saying "is it boiling yet" It was the only subject I failed at O level...
Several years later i ended up teaching it. Blind leading blind. More years passed and eventually the penny dropped when i dragged DS2 through his GCSE - he got a B! I was quite proud of myself.
Looking back most (all?) of the teaching was dry as dust and would get a resounding INADEQUATE from Ofsted these days.

I was so bad at Maths that I was told it would be a complete waste of time for me to even take the mock O level!!! I'd been put off in my first year of Grammar School by the Maths master - I was not good at arithmetic, trig or geometry, but for some reason algebra struck a chord and I could do it. When the exam results were read out at the end of the term I had done badly in all of them bar algebra where I had got 87%. After doing an Oscar winning performance of a double take after reading out my result the teacher called me up to the front of the class and made me do two of the exam questions on the blackboard. I was so angry at the unspoken implication that I had cheated that I swore to myself that I would not bother trying anymore.

Definitely dyslexic with maths! Awful at French, I was always told that I was worse than my sister which was not very conducive to learning. Loved English and biology at which I was fairly good. I didn't try hard enough at school, I think that I had the idea that because I was at school I ought to absorb the information in a process of osmosis without any input from me

Hated PE and Maths

My favourite was Chemistry,....followed by Geography and 'domestic science' (I had to 'go down' a stream to take Dom Sc as my parents wanted me me to be a D Sc teacher and like the obedient child I was ....)

With hindsight I wish I had done Dietetics or Forensic science......not a lot of careers advice at my Convent School in the 60's.

i loved any sports.Was not that good at woodwork,ended up being a carpenter !!