We all have `em....... Primary schoolday memories,so how about sharing?

I started infants just after I was 5 and remember on the first day wondering why my friend was crying for her Mum - I wasn't bothered. The school was about one mile away and my Mum shared the school run (walking of course in those days) with two other nearby Mums. I remember when I was 6 or 7 I was an early reader and was reading aloud advertising hoardings, street names etc. on the way home and being told I was showing off. I liked my teachers and the lessons but hated school dinners. I missed playtimes when I was quite unable to force the awful food down.

Lucky you lot with nits. I had impetigo.

I also remember the dreaded nit nurse, queueing up to go in, and the children with nits crying as they came out.I was told I had nits ( and didn’t believe it) but turned out I really did. I refused to cry though, being me.

We live in half a converted village Board school and this thread has brought the lives of the former pupils to life. I had never really thought about the minutiae of their lives.

Our front door was the Girl's Entrance and, although our neighbour's 'half' is much smaller than ours, I always envy them their much nicer Boys' Entrance.

Lots of people (including one Sil and one Dil) talk to us about their time at school here but, sadly, no-one we have met has any memories going back before the late 1940s

If we’re going back further than junior school:

I went to a very small nursery school from the age of three, where I remember we practised blowing our noses. Our teacher kept her handkerchief in her knicker leg.

My marvellous, slightly eccentric infant school, not connected to either the nursery or my junior school, influenced me more than any other school I went to.. Again, a very small school. We learnt French and sang lovely folk songs. Sometimes our headmistress would sing to us. She was a professional singer who sometimes appeared on Children's Hour on the wireless. She sang mostly folk songs, and was one of those people who can really put a song across. I was spellbound by the tragic story of Lord Randall.

We also had a wonderful lesson called Picture Study, where we studied reproductions of great works of art. None of your kiddie stuff here. We had Leonardo da Vinci and Dutch Interiors. I kept my book of Pieter de Hooch paintings for many years.

I was still there in the dreadful snowy winter of 1947. Our headmistress heated our milk on the old-fashioned range in her kitchen. Sometimes it would boil over, and the smell of burning milk still reminds me of that lovely school.

My handwriting problem was different from some here. I had dreadful trouble with the looped style, and when I got to junior school and we did Marion Richardson writing I was fine!

I could go on for ever, so I had better stop.

I don't remember ever having a nit nurse but a dentist came once and I had to go and have several teeth out with gas (terrifying!) As an only child who hadn't played with other children before I was completely traumatised by school. But in those days no body bothered, they just expected you to grow out of it because "it never did the rest of us any harm". I do remember being terrified of the man who taught the top class at primary school. He seemed so serious and strict. When I got into his class I found he was lovely and we got on really well together. I was sorry to leave.

There were still big air-raid shelters in the grounds of my infants' school and we were 'not allowed' to go near them.

Yes, I remember the nit nurse.
And the little camp beds in nursery. I remember having a nose bleed when I was in nursery and one of the assistants putting a cold key down my back.

Did none of you have the nit nurse? You can tell what sort of primary school I went to
The best part for me was the pre school (4-5) this was a completely self contained unit where we had our own indoor toilets and a huge fireplace with a real coal fire.
We each had our own little camp bed that was brought out after lunch for our little nap.
It was all downhill after that.

I was one of the first pupils at my primary school. It was built on the field diagonally opposite our house where my older brother and his friends had played.
There was still a large playing field and I have happy memories of lunch times spent "on the field".
I remember the school hall with it's parquet flooring. This is where we had assembly and when it was your birthday you were called up on stage, given sweets and the whole school would sing happy birthday to you. I learnt to read Janet and John and generally had a great time.
We would practice our handwriting by copying news for home from the blackboard and were allowed to draw a colouful pattern around the edge of the page. The head was lovely but excentric. She drove a 'bubble car' and styled her hair like Princess Leyla (Star Wars)
Aged 7 I had to move to the junior school which was a bus ride away. I did the journey by myself as mum was working full time by then. In contrast to the infants school it was an old building with just a concrete yard to play in. There were brick air raid shelters running down one wall of the yard which we were forbidden to enter. There were outside loos and if you needed paper to use you had to go to the person on duty and ask ! You would then be given your 4 sheets of Izal.
The classrooms were each heated by a large coal boiler. The windows were set deliberatley high so we couldn't gaze out, nothing to see anyway.
I was quiet happy there.

Your posts have indeed made me realise my Primary School
days was certainly not too bad at all,it has certainly gone up a few notches in my mind.
I rather think after hearing these tales involving Nuns, I shall never again think of them in the same light!
There was no pre school back then and there was just the one school which took you up to your 11+ level.
Thinking back one of our horrors were the toilets......outside with one set for the girls and another for the boys.......they were not very hygienic and furthermore the boys had spy holes!!
Some of us were big for our age and experiencing our first periods so this was indeed one problem that was very embarrassing for us now almost "young ladies"
This handwriting issue was rife there too hence I was always having my knuckles rapped!
Food Glorious Food........not!
I can almost smell the cabbage now and to this day I have difficulty in eating it...........and yet I suppose in war time we really were very fortunate and never went hungry.

Good old days? Not exactly,but certainly there was plenty to be thankful about.

Infant school:
Fat crayons ( which I loved and once ate some of a purple one)
A sand tray in the classroom
Singing songs
A long walk to school

Junior school:
Still the long walk to school
Lots of singing, both hymns and old songs
Spelling tests and writing essays
Throwing and catching small bean bags
Sponge with pink custard
Lovely teachers

Senior school: shudder!

Same here with the handwriting, Teetime. I'm left handed and my looped writing sloped backwards. That wouldn't do!! We all had to have the same style. That Marion Richardson had a lot to answer for

I went to an East end of London school a huge forbidding place on a main road and all my memories are in black and white of very strict teachers, desks in rows and a tarmac playground. When I was 10 we moved to Essex and I went to a village school. I was miles in front of everyone in all subjects and everyone hated me. We did needlework(horror) and country dancing (quite nice) which were not done at the London school where the emphasis was on the 3 R's. I was only one of 3 who passed the 11 plus (the only girl). They made me stop doing the lovely looped writing I had learnt in London and do a plain kind of writing called I think Marion Richardson - it ruined my writing and I have had a bad 'hand' ever since.

We lived in a small farming village and most days there would be a child missing because they were required on the farm.

The Head was terrifying and the teacher in the year below the Head actually washed someone's mouth out with carbolic soap when he was heard swearing.

I started school on my 5th birthday and was taught by Mys Barraclough. She liked me because I did as I was told and got on with my work. She was then able to send me to the village shop for her shopping - I remember tarantella tomatoes.

At 7 I went to a better school and lived with my Nan and Pop during the week, travelling to their house, by bus, on Sunday night and home again, by bus, on Friday evenings. I had no friends in either place except our next door neighbour's daughter who was the same age as me and who I still keep in touch with.

As a result of the 'better' school, I passed my 11+ and went to a modern grammar school. I hated it!! There was absolutely no humanity there at all. Then the wonderful Mrs Rook came along and I learnt to love words!

I was sent to primary school a year early at just 4 and never fitted in. I can remember standing by the wall at playtimes and wishing they would let me join in the games, especially fivestones. The classes were huge as the village hosted an entire evacuated school ( I started school in 1940). We had big bomb shelters dug into the playground and poppies grew all over the sandy soil that was mounded over the shelter roofs. A favourite pastime was to pick the poppy buds and unfurl the petals one by one.The lavatories were outside and horribly smelly; we weren't allowed to use them during classtime so accidents were sadly common. I remember the boy who lived across the road wet himself and was sent home early in his very obviously wet shorts, so humiliating for him. The teaching standards weren't very high and only two of us passed the 11+. I started at the grammar school 5 miles away only a few weeks after my 10th birthday---and didn't fit in there either. The only thing that gained praise and approval was being sporty and I was a rabbit!

Not many merlotgran- I do not remember any decent ones. At my boarding school there were mothers and sisters- the mothers appeared to be teachers whereas the sisters did the cleaning and cooking. They on the whole were decent but they were not allowed to speak to us or us to them. Most had lovely smiles which made up for a lot because humour was not on the list there.

Lots of nice ones Merlotgran I have fond memories of many of the nuns.My lovely granny also went to convent school and used to tell us stories about the nuns picking up their robes to play skipping ropes and football with the girls .My granny wanted to end her days with nuns because she had loved the ones at school .And we did find a lovely home in a convent for her.Old devil nearly got chucked out for sending the doorkeeper to place bets on horses for her and keeping brandy for her coffee in her bag ....lol.Growing old disgracefully.

Funny (or not) how some of us have awful memories of nuns. I laugh when I see them portrayed as kindly benevolent souls in TV dramas.

I suppose there were some nice ones

I stsrted school after Christmas and it was snowing ,I was 2 months shy of 5.I wore a red sirene suit over my grey skirt that had straps to hold it up and my hand knitted cardigan made by Auntie Jeannie.My teacher was a Miss Watson and she had on a fantastic "sticky out" skirt with loads of petticoats ,the skirt was black with yellow umbrellas ,I can still see it when I close my eyes.I loved primary school .Friday afternoons the partitions between the 4 classes were opened and we had a film .Usually something far too old and serious for our age but we loved it.I remember the Viollette Szabo film "Carve her Name With Pride" and a film about nuns smuggling children out of nazi Germany .Visits from missionaries and little cards to mark up our pennies for black babies.When the card was full we were allowed to choose a name for the baby we were sponsoring.There must have been a lot of little African babies with very Scottish names ...lol.From there I too attended a convent school ,couldn't leave fast enough,left before my 16th birthday ,had my own business at 21 .

I went to a small village C of E school and have mostly good memories of my time there.
Every morning we had bible lessons for an hour this meant learning a verse from the bible off by heart and then reciting it to the teacher.
Every friday the vicar from the C of E church would come in to talk to all pupils who attended church,the rest of us who attended the local Baptist Chapel had to sit in another room and when we asked what the Vicar talked about we were told they weren’t allowed to tell us.

Blooming nuns!!

My mother could not look after me when I was 5 because of an accident so I was sent to boarding school where a cousin about 4 years older was there also. At the end of term the nuns used to put a luggage label around my neck and put me in the guard's van with the parcels. My mother was furious when she picked me up at the station about 30 miles away from the school. In those days neither parent drove.

The next primary school my dad's cousin taught me and I could see the smirk on her face when she gave me 6 of the best on the palms of my hands using a leather strap as was done in Scotland. I never mentioned it at home or I may have received the same on my rear.

Myself and a boy in my class were the only two Catholics in the school and we were allowed to leave whatever lesson to attend church. We both just wanted to get out but did not dare not to turn up at church or there would have been hell to pay at home.

After passing my 11+ I was sent to another boarding convent and we went to church at least x2 day and I could recite the entire Mass in Latin.

We had to curtsy to the Mother Superior but on the whole it was a happy life there.

The nuns finished me with religion and I now only go to church for weddings and funerals. There were at least two priests in the family on my mother's side- my father was Church of Scotland.

I went to a little two classroom infant school when I started age 4 1/2. My first teacher was Miss Little, she retired when I was 7. I used to walk as we lived nearby. I went down the road, around the corner, up the hill and past the old workhouse, then across a field, down the steps and into the school yard. The old workhouse was demolished to make way for a new junior school.
I moved into the junior school age 7. It was very old fashioned, having a separate boys and girls yard on opposite sides of the school. A year later we moved into the new school ?. Mr Bell was the headmaster and we were all a little bit afraid of him. He was very stern, and had white hair and a ginger moustache.
My favourite teacher was Miss Liverick, she taught at the school for only one year as she went off to get married! I had the best results in the end of year exams when she taught me. Happy days.

My adored teacher in Upper 2 (I think that’s Year 5) settling down to read one of my compositions saying with a smile as she read the first sentence, “Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy this!” It was about a girl called Beryl who had a pink velvet dress ? This was 1949 or 1950, when pretty materials were still in short supply.

The next year, top year of junior school, the headmistress taking a lot of convincing that I had really written a poem I had submitted for the school magazine myself. I had. It was rather better than Beryl and the pink velvet dress, though possibly not as much fun.

Envy of a girl (we were all girls) who had hand-written a whole book about a pony, illustrated by herself, brilliantly in my view. I wanted to be her. I was bad at drawing.

Infants school - Sitting outside in the summer sun on the grass listening to a story. Being chosen to be Mary in the Nativity, Head telling my mum I was the best they had ever had and my mum being cross with the photographer who never turned up to record the beginning and end of my acting career. She never forgave him either! Dancing to the hornpipe for all I was worth on my last day and thinking that I'll never do this again!