I’ve been sorting out of some photos and found these old school photos of me. It occurred to me that it is 40 years exactly since I started school. I can’t remember the exact date (well it was a while ago!) as they did phased start then according to age. I’m an August birthday and remember going up those little steps to Miss Barbara’s class and everyone else already being there. Even then I felt the injustice of everyone else knowing what to do and knowing each other – The joys of an August birthday! It was a good time though, I still have friends that I see all the time from my school days. I got thinking though about how much school has changed in those 40 years.
Uniform
We didn’t have a uniform at all in primary school. The photos show some of the outfits that I went in. Just as I was leaving there were rumours that they might think about introducing one. It certainly made the transition from primary to High school seem much more of a big thing though. All of a sudden, to be in uniform was very serious! As a mother, I now shudder at the thought of having to decide every day what to dress the kids in too.
Lunchtimes
We didn’t even eat our lunch on the school premises in those days. Our school canteen was about a 10/15 minute walk across a busy crossing and up a main road. Its amazing that we learnt anything the amount of time we must have lost travelling to and from the canteen!
Speaking of lunches, we had the dreaded School Dinner Inspectors. They probably only came in once a year but it felt much more often. It was a real gamble what was on the menu that day but we all knew that you were not allowed to leave a crumb on your plate if they were visiting. Force feeding at its best.
Playgrounds
This is one that has only recently come back to me but I wonder when it was abolished. The girls and boys had separate playgrounds in our school and never the two should meet! The boys were allowed footballs but it was presumed that the girls wouldn’t be interested (Hmmm!). We played games like Hot Peas & Cold Onions & Tic. It was the 70’s – Bare with us!
There was no such thing as rubber matting and wooden climbing frames – It was concrete flooring all the way. Health & Safety was a mere blot on the horizon.
The School Dog
We had 2 Headteachers – One for Infants & one for juniors. We were in separate building so it made sense to us why. Our infant teacher brought her dog to school with her every day – A completely docile, black labrador who sat under her desk. I didn’t get to see much of the dog but knew it was always there – Suppose that means I wasn’t called into the Head’s office very often!
Smoking
My Year 4 (2nd year Juniors) teacher smoked like a chimney – His pipe was legendary and he often puffed away during afternoon lessons. If you were called to sit on his knee during the afternoon, you knew your lungs were for it. Yes, lets gloss over the fact that we were to sit on our teacher’s knee. Thank God some things change.
Parties
Trampolining Centre? Soft Play area? Children’s entertainer? Nah, house parties all the way with your Mum as chief entertainer and the highlight being Pass the Parcel at the end. (Shock horror, not every layer had a sweet or prize in it either and newspaper was the only way to wrap the parcel)
When you were 6 it was dead easy to know what you were wearing for any parties – everyone just wore their First Communion Dress after they had made it during the May procession.
I could go on for hours now I’ve starting thinking… There were no such thing as SATS, Ofsted was unheard of & we certainly never heard about league tables. Back then, you just went to the school that you lived near. We would have been laughed at for moving to an area just for the school. The majority of us walked to school and back home (this was not always a good thing in the depths of winter!)
Of course, somethings don’t change. Kids starting High School are still required to back their exercise books (When will someone in B&Q realise that is what we all do with the wallpaper samples?) Assemblies are still the place for show & tell & the school nativity will always be the highlight of the academic year. What are your favourite school memories? How has school life changed since you went?
This is a fascinating read! And I love the school photos too .
Aah thank you – I rather like looking back over the photos too x
I was the same as you! That was a trip down memory lane 😀
Gosh you were a cutie – I wish I had photos from when I was a child, or maybe I don’t! 😀
Aah I would love to see a photo of you as a child. Your hair must have been just as amazing. I cannot believe 40 years can feel like it was just yesterday x
It is fascinating to see how styles and traditions change. At primary school we also wore our own clothes. In morning assembly we had our hair and hands checked for cleanliness !! Uniform at High School was a culture shock at first.
It seems that a lot has changed in the past decades. I went to school in Brazil and it was very different to UK schools!
Oh I loved this! I can’t believe that teachers used to smoke! That;s crazy!
We did have a school kitchen and there were a few fires too, I think that’s where I developed my fear of fire, that and the fact that my neighbours house had a massive fire when I was just six. I remember no uniforms but girls were not separated from boys. Your school photos are so cute! I would have been starting secondary school when you were starting in infants.
School memories can be some of the strongest we have….I don’t really recall my early years as much as I do my high school days.
Wow things really have changed, I can’t believe how far away your canteen was and that teachers could smoke in the classroom x
Oh my gosh these photos are amazing!! You were such a cutie!! Funny how the playgrounds used to be separated – I didn’t know that!
Loved reading this post – it’s crazy that teachers would smoke in classrooms around the children!
It is amazing how much school has changed, my primary school didn’t have uniform at the start, then it bought in multicoloured jumpers pupils should wear (as in you could have a jumper in any colour choice you wanted with the school logo on) they only lasted a year I think when we changed to full uniform. I think we were one of the last schools to take on uniform.
It’s incredible to learn of some of the changes that has happened in schools over the last 40 years. Mine was like 15-20 years ago and my teacher then smoked like a chimney too
It’s really interesting to see how much school has changed. Even now after I left 10 years ago a lot has happened from improving school meals and the health and safety has become so much tighter. I remember our teachers going to the house in during lunch and coming back smelling of booze!
it has changed so much , not so great in many areas i feel this is why i chose to home educate , i feel schools were better bac then althugh resources are better now
Wow it’s incredible how much has changed! Loved reading this 🙂 Your school pictures are adorable!
Thank you for the trip down memory lane. I too started school in the seventies. I loved the school milk and taking the register and we also had a teacher who smoked like a chimney! Thank you for linking up to #ablogginggoodtime ????
Wow, it really brings home how much has changed when you stack everything together like that! It’s hard for me to imagine what my kid’s kids will think of as a normal school day!
This was such an interesting post, thank you for sharing. I totally cringed at the part where you mentioned about sitting on the teachers knee. I had to double read that!
You were such an adorable kid! These photos from your school years are great!
I started primary school almost 30 years ago, and we didn’t have uniform either. I took my year 6 SATS, but they were fairly new back then. And I only remember going to parties at peoples houses! I think things have changed a lot in the last 10-15 years. And I’m super guilty of trying to keep up with the Joneses!
Louise x
Ah wow, isn’t it crazy to think teachers were allowed to smoke in the classroom, and bring dogs to school?? Crazy times 🙂
It’s definitely a generational thing! That was my experience through and through. xx
This is so crazy! I only went to primary school about15 years ago and even I that time so much has changed!
I love the photos! I’m so fascinated by previous generations and how they used to live. Something about the respect and honor that elder generations had, it’s truly beautiful. And so much has changed. I’m 28, and I’m appalled by how much the school dynamic has changed since I was in school. Now I hear students address their teachers on a first name basis as a rule. Crazy! #thelistlinky
I loved reading your school memories. These are mine of teaching in a primary school in the 1970s when my class of 7 year olds had no uniform and the little boys had long hair. https://somerville66.blogspot.pt/2016/10/my-classroom-in-1970s-nostalgia.html?q=school
Liz
Great reminiscence! And a school dog – my first school’s deputy head brought his dog to school, I’d completely forgotten. Imagine that now with health and safety!