I remember music and movement in pants and vest. Also music lessons to either a pre-recorded music lesson or something on the radio where we all had instruments like tambourines, triangles, blocks and over the weeks the presenter taught various songs which everyone would sing and children would be told when their instrument was to be played. By the end, we knew all the songs and when to play. They had themes, such as something about Knights, and something based on the Noah story.
I remember ‘apparatus’ which included climbing ropes which I couldn’t do. The floor always felt dirty under my bare feet.
We had the SRA comprehension cards and a Rainbow reading che,es where you went through the colours as you got better. later we had Ginn 360 reading scheme. We also had the ‘A-Day’ maths books 5 A day, 6 A day and you went tip through them. They were in Juniors and you had to do them first thing in the morning when you came into class and just get on and do it whilst everyone was arriving, and then you marked your own using the teacher marking book - I often cheated.
We had outside toilets until the school moved to a new building part way through juniors. They were freezing cold and there were spiders. There was the tracing paper loo paper which no-one liked.
In infants we watched Playschool in Reception on the TV on a trolley. In Juniors we had a VCR room and watched those BBC programmes that started with a clock ticking down.
Inninfants all the teacher were ladies but in Juniors there were 2 men who taught the oldest children and people were scared of having a man. One shouted a lot.
I remember assemblies and still remmeber some of the stories. We did hymn practice and sang songs like Appuski Duski, and used ‘Come and Praise’ which was a hymn book with 72 songs for children. I still know which number some songs were. A popular one aAs ‘Autumn Days’ and that was No4 in the book. Everyone wore long white socks with a hole pattern printed into them.
When we moved to our new building in Juniors we had new tables for lunch - those folding ones that had stools attached, and we had plastic or melamine trays that had a space for dinner and pudding and a drink. We thought those were fantastic. Part way through Juniors, which was actually early 80s, cash cafeteria was introduced instead of old style weekly payment (where you’d brought the dinner money in colourful beaded purse in a string that wore round your neck). When cash cafeteria was introduced they recommended 50p per day. My mum thought that was too much.
A man from a bank or building society used to come in each week so people could add 10p or 20p to their savings account and update their savings book.
Recorder lessons happened at the end of infants. There was a lunchtime club for people who were good at it.
Children walked to school without parents from age 5 or 6. They crossed busy roads and no-one seemed worried. There were worries about strange men hanging around the gates. We had an assembly about not going with them. My mum was always worried about flashers.
We played Dr Who in the playground and boys had parkas and turned the hoods into Dalek costumes. There was also skipping and kiss chase and marbles were banned, as were yo-yos due to injuries!
There was no homework or reading sent home. I don’t think the teachers worked long hours at home…but Incould be wrong, as because I was a small child I was oblivious to that.
We had to bring in old shirts for art lessons which became aprons.