Primary School in the seventies (or sixties)

[YellowCardiganNavyJoggers]

If you were at primary school in the seventies what are things that today's children would probably be shocked at.

Here's a few of mine.

Teacher kept 'words on paper scraps' in a tobacco tin. You got called out and you had to read the words of the paper. I still remember the green flat tobacco tin.

When someone wet themselves (puddle on floor) and nobody would own up to it the teacher would take each child into the toilet and pretty much feel between their legs to see if they were wet. Can you imagine them being allowed to do that now.

Teacher was bad tempered and strict. Kids were pretty well behaved and quiet. I was quite scared of my teacher and jealous of the other Primary 1 kids who seemed to have nicer, younger teachers.

School 'jotters' - you know the books you got to write in.

Your dad covering things with old wallpaper. I can't remember what it was exactly - was it books or folders? Or was this high school and I am getting mixed up

The highlight of my day was the milk crate. Oh my god I used to get quite excited to get a whole bottle of milk (and straw) to myself. I was always hungry. Typical seventies child living in cold council house with basic and scarce diet. That bottle of milk was looked forward to each day so much. To this day I still love drinking milk and always have pints and pints of it in the fridge.

Desks with the little pull out drawer underneath. We also sometimes had drawers in a sort of unit with each persons name on a drawer.

Coat hooks outside the classroom with your name beside it and a picture on it. Do they still do this?

Play area in the corner of the room with little cooker etc. I used to love to play on it as we didn't have many toys at home.

Going up to the teachers desk to use 'the big sharpener' on the teachers desk. It was sort of attached to the desk and you stuck your pencil in and turned a handle.

If you were at primary in the seventies (or sixties) what do you remember?

80s child here and remember a lot of these! My job was to collect all the board cloths on a Friday and load them into the washing machine. Imagine letting a 9yo do that now 😂

sixties child here
my school was victorian and had a big boiler thing in the corner of the classroom with a cast iron guard around it, in the winter our teacher would drape our coats over it and put our wellies underneath (pegged together in pairs) so we were cosy for the walk home.

I don't ever remember unking treatment

I do remember getting wet running over the playground to the toilet block though

Yes, remember many of these. Loved the milk and there was always someone who didn't like milk and I got to finish it!

60s at primary school here. I remember the milk. Great in winter when it was ice cold. Not so good in summer. I loved most of my teachers. One teacher enjoyed punishing us too much. She used to hit people across the knuckles with a wooden ruler.
I adored my primary 6 and 7 teacher(scotland). He was very creative and used drama techniques when you would least expect it. Secondary school introduced me to 'the belt'. I was never belted but watched in horror at others being hit on their hands with a 'Lochgellie*. It taught me to be very creative about my missing. 😂

That was me (who didn't like warm milk ) I still don't!
Hated those little bottles of milk, but admit it was a good thing to do.

In the early 80s a number of schools were prosecuted for suing photocopied music. My primary school wasn’t daunted by this - we simply burned the music sheets after using. The Year Sixes would gather up the music, take it to the incinerator, and feed it into the flames. Highly sought after job that all of the budding pyromaniacs wanted to do.

And of course, there was the collecting your teachers’s tea from the staff room.

Blackboards that rotated on a roller with one face with lines and another square pattern. Toilets in a block in the playground, partly open to the air. Getting smacked. “remedial” classrooms for those with behavioural issues or presumably SEN. Doing pe in underwear. .

Are you talking about chalk boards? I'd completely forgotten about teachers using chalk. Do children nowadays even know what it is?

I don't think she was unkind so much as strict and a bit knackered. I don't know what age she was but she looked ancient to me. I'd say 50's but she was probably younger and just a child's perspective made her look older.

Mine was a modern primary so we did have indoor bathrooms thankfully.
I can't remember why but I remember seeing the primary 1 bathrooms as a bigger person and they were so tiny and cute looking.

70s here.

Doing gym in your pants and socks if you forgot your gym kit.

The belt or cane.

Girls and boys being split to do worwork and sewing/knitting. Ditto the talk on periods.

One choice at school dinners. Take it or go hungry.

Toilet roll was like tracing paper.

Little bottle of milk. I’ve never drank the stuff since. Even in coffee.

Blackboard with chalk. Duster often used to throw at pupils for not paying attention.

As above, tobacco tin with words which you used to take home.

The classroom pet. Ours was a hamster.

Lucky! I do have vague memories of there being a bottle or two leftover. Don't know if it was kids off sick of they just didn't want it. I don't know if I ever got the extra one - I certainly would have wanted it but I was a shy kid and not very good at asking for things.

Yes … and the caretaker came and painted them black every term.

We use chalk in my EY setting! Although I said “blackboard” the other day and they all looked at me funny 😂

Went to school in 78 here.

compulsory school dinners that were revolting, no choice what you ate and you had to sit there until it was gone, horrible room temperature milk in mini glass bottles, pe in your vest and pants, buckles or laces on shoes which you had to do yourself, buttoned blouses and a proper tie, again expected to do it yourself. By 7 we had fountain pens which I have never fully mastered, constantly in trouble for mess!

My Dd started P1 in 1997 and she had a tobacco tin for her spelling words, school issue may I add 😂

Didn't the milk used to be slightly frozen on top in the winter or am I getting mixed up and thinking of milk at home on the doorstep?

I can't actually remember if they still used hitting when I was at school - it would have been the second half of the seventies I went. I certainly never got hit but I was a quiet, well behaved child (actually terrified of authority figures but that's another story).
I remember getting lines once but can't remember if it was primary or secondary. It was for something really minor.

I remember being forced to eat school dinners by terrifying lunch room ladies who wore brown dust coats <shudder>

Pupils getting caned n the corridor.

Now chalk is used to draw on the sidewalks (pavement?) in summer. 🙂

🍁 Vancouver

I remember remedial classes although I think it was high school I remember them from.

I certainly remember PE and having those little back plimsol type shoes. You got slip on ones if you couldn't tie your laces yet. The gym was always freezing as well so you got running about as soon as possible.

I went to junior school in the 60s but it was tiny, and private, so things were probably very different. There were 7 children in my class and we weren't all the same age - so some of my classes were shared with my sister who was less than a year younger than me. We were split for French and Spelling, I remember.

No school milk for us. Nearly all of our vegetables were grown in the school vegetable garden so summer was glorious, with loads of fresh tomatoes and strawberries. After school the boarders (seven of us) used to sit on the steps between the front terrace and the lawn to pod peas or beans for lunch the next day. Winter was dire, and I can never forget the bottled green beans we ate every winter. Bread was delivered once a week and was pretty horrible by the end of the week. (It was a boarding school). We had a playground with a few pieces of equipment, but there were no organised games (PE). Instead the whole school, boys as well as girls, had ballet lessons on a Wednesday afternoon. In the summer we all had to walk down to the beach to swim in the sea pool, which was freezing, and then walk back again. The garden was lovely, and seemed HUGE! In the summer we spent lots of time making dens and climbing the big horse chestnut tree in the wooded area to the side of the main lawn. There was also a sandpit at the end of the classroom block. In the winter we had the run of the library, which had a coal fire and we sometimes used toasting forks to toast our own bread. Unsupervised.

After lunch every day the whole school went to collect palliases (thin mattresses) from the pile on the cloakroom, we then laid them down on the dining room floor and had a nap for an hour.

I went from that school to a larger boarding school a couple of months before my 11th birthday, which was a huge culture shock. I had gone from a (somewhat spartan) home from home, to a completely alien and very frightening environment. It was a 4 hour train journey away from home. There were nearly as many girls (it was single sex) in each class as there were in my entire junior school. We had proper games lessons, which were terrifying to me. However I started there with a good grasp of French, I knew how to sew and embroider, my spelling was excellent and I had passed the 11+ and the entrance exam to get into the school. And we did have school milk, and biscuits or something similar, for break every morning.

I forgot the duster. Yes I think the occasional person did used to get it thrown in their direction.

I forgot about the toilet paper. It was literally like the stuff they line baking trays with nowadays. I bet that was well scratchy and uncomfortable.

I wanted so much to go to school dinners but I got told we couldn't afford them so I had to go home for lunch (if you could call it that). Memories of getting an egg and a banana for lunch. That was it. On the odd occassion I had to go to school dinners I was so excited to be able to pick a dessert. I always picked the one that looked like the most food so usually the custard/semolina option rather than mousse or something.

We didn't have a pet although thinking about perhaps some of the other P1 did. Might just have been my grumpy teacher.

I remember getting home economics at high school - sewing and cooking. Don't remember it at primary.

I was primary age in the sixties. I have mostly happy memories, the teachers were no more strict than primary teachers nowadays. The two worst things were the compulsory milk and the toilet paper. The milk was ok on cold days but in the summer, after the bottles had been left near a sunny window for hours, it was warm and had started to separate. Disgusting. The toilet paper was Izal, horrible abrasive stuff. I shudder at the memory of using it.
Apart from the milk and toilet paper, it was a carefree time. No SATs and, as we were in one of the first areas to go comprehensive, no 11+ to worry about. Happy days!

blackboards get painted? What. I didn't know that.

I have a learning difficulty with numbers/maths i was in remedial maths 1st and second year of secondary, i took arithmetic for 3rd and 4th and was in a regular but low set class, it is probably dyscallsia, I have.

I hated the summer warm milk. Vile.

Playing proper children's games at break and lunch, not led by adults. Oranges and lemons, the Farmer's in his Dell, tag (called 'it'), ring a roses, sticky toffee, here we go round the mulberry bush, the big ship sails on the ade-ade-o, skipping games (When Suzy..) clapping games. Children's culture for centuries pretty much lost now.