Anyone at school during the 1970s? Memories?

[Malie]

Was chatting to a friend who also went to school in the 1970s. We agree they were quite different to now. Anyone else go to school then?

You start.

no, nobody on mumsnet could possibly have gone to school in the 1970s

I was in secondary school from 1972 until I left after 6th form. Things changed quite a lot during that period, as that's when grammar schools were abolished in our area in favour of comprehensive schools.

When I started grammar school, our education was still very much how it would have been in the 1950s, but the change of system did modernise things slowly, as lots of the old teachers, some of whom had taught my mother, left at that time and also we went from single sex schools to mixed.

Friday afternoons " choose afternoons", whole weeks devoted to Christmas and decorating the classrooms, country dancing at school parties, selling sweets and fizzy pop at breaks afer the school fair, selling crisps at playtimes, being allowed to being sweets in for playtimes ,girls playgrounds and boys playgrounds, the threat of the cane/ slipper ( never used but a lot of tales abounded). Schools are very sterile today in comparison.

Punishments still included the cane or the slipper, or writing lines, and prefects were authorised to hand out detentions.

The showers in the gym were in a long corridor, which we were expected to walk through naked, holding our towel over our heads.

Only 6th form were allowed to wear tights to school, everyone else had to wear long socks

If we were seen eating in the street in our school uniform, that would have been an instant detention

Lots of children went home for lunch

Children were pupils back then, not students

No-one was driven to school by their parents - we either walked or got the school bus

We had a teacher who used to throw things at us if he thought we weren't listening

We either did our homework and passed our exams, or we didn't. There were no "interventions" to help kids who were struggling.

As they say, the past is a different country.....

You went to the nearest school - if it was good - great, if it was rubbish - tough!

Project work 24/7

Christmas prep started full time in September

Tuck shops at break - selling crap!

Why have you started two threads on this?

Music and Movement, warm milk, getting the ruler across my hand, being slapped by a teacher (I will find you Miss Wand) because she didn't like a picture I drew - no point in telling my mum as it was ok to do that, being mocked by a circle of girls and on reporting it being told 'sticks and stones may break my bones....'.
Primary 1971 -75

Are there two threads? I am confused.

Sorry the website server was acting up (so it said) so I reposted. Use other one. Apologies.

I remember Music and Movement!😁

there are two threads

Yes.

Yes so do I, you had to pretend to be a tree swaying in the breeze 😂

TV on a stand in a special area. Once a week to watch an schools programme.

Yes to country dancing, yes to choose afternoons, going in the TV room to watch Picture Box, loved weeks of making stuff like at Christmas, we had weekly nature broadcasts and had to follow them reading from the related pamphlet, our teacher loved to take us on nature walks in the woods by school- quite often
Singing lessons involved sitting on the floor with the headteacher banging on the piano, playing the songs from Ta-ra-de-boom-dia book and us singing along to The Ink is Black, Lilly the Pink etc
oh and assemblies singing from the come and praise book

Oh and in Infant school walking into assembly with various classical playing on the record player - older children were the record monitors - a highly revered position

I remember all this.

My maths teacher used to throw the blackboard rubber at us or lock us in the stationery cupboard for the rest of the lesson.
I also remember science lessons being brilliant. We were given Bunsen burners and chemicals and more or less left to get on with it. In biology we dissected all sorts of revolting smelling things. I can still remember the smell of the rats we dissected every Friday for 6 weeks.
Uniform was very strict and we weren't allowed make up. If we were caught wearing nail varnish we were taken to the science lab and told to take it off with acetone. Wearing make up or a round neck sweater resulted in being sent home to change.

I also remember the lack of help to get better grades. You either sank or swam. Essays were given a grade but no feedback about how to improve.
We were also streamed for every subject from the age of 11ish.

How We Used to Live once a week on the school TV.
Music Teacher Miss Harvey who sang everything during our music lessons, never a spoken word

Resources like counters were stored in golden Virginia tobacco tins - all neatly labelled. I loved the smell - fresh tobacco takes me right back to 1974 when I was 5. Those teachers had one big ciggie addiction!!!

Hated it. Got hit round the head twice in junior school. Teachers were sadistic, no qualms about making you cry. Walking to school alone as a young child. Being bullied by other kids. Being mocked by a teacher for not being able to sing. Being told I was slow. Two boys beating up me and my friend on our way back from school when we were 11. Just hideous.

And those bottles of warm milk you were forced to drink? Boak...

At Primary from '72 to '79 - so peak 70s! I remember Singing Together on the radio (?)with some very dodgy songs when looked through today's eyes. Also Music and Movement to Vivaldi ( pretending to be a flower opening).

Getting the slipper!! Getting sent home for platform shoes ( they were ridiculously high) getting the black board rubber thrown at me by my favourite English teacher. Really not having a care in the world, being told that if I did not pull my socks up I would end up working in the duncky factory (London rubber) spending most of the end of summer term of 1976 at the Larkswood lido avoiding the truancy lady. So pleased I was a teenager then and not now, no bloody Facebook , internet or Mobil phones, we had such freedom, my poor mother did not have a clue what I was up to. O happy happy days

I learnt how to wash up, polish and make posh cheese and tomato sandwiches in HE. I have never forgotten the methods!