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?

Year 2 being called Top Year Infants.

I remember school dinners as being rather good, especially cabbage and salty gravy, scoops of mashed potatoes and the puddings were excellent. I even liked semolina and tapioca. The milk was good.

Downsides, some of the teachers were psychos and did like to hit small children.

My primary school experience was quite unusual because it was brand new when I started in 1975. It was an RC school and they didn’t have enough students at first so I was allowed to start at age 4½. I remember my mum had to pretend we were Catholic to get me in, and there were only 28 pupils, one teacher and a headmaster! It was open plan, very modern for the ‘70s and we had all the E J Arnold furniture and exercise books etc, and yes I loved the little bottles of milk! Later my mum got a job there as a dinner lady (mostly to keep an eye on me!), and then we would always end up with school plates and bowls at home, and sometimes those big metal trays of leftover food! My mum always hated throwing away food. All the plates and bowls and trays were always returned to school I should add!

@BigBurratamentioned SRA cards, ive been wracking my brains what they were called. Me and my friend were always vying for top of the class, I was exultant when I finished the lot before him.
When the moon landings happened we were all headed into a double room with dividers opened up to sit cross legged for hours.

Delicious, made from scratch school dinners but you had to eat all the savoury food before you were allowed a pudding. Strict, but nice dinner ladies.

Blackboard and eraser.

After playtime , in the morning, we had to have a little bottle of milk with a straw and a biscuit. I hate milk, but was forced to drink it.

Some children were hit with a cricket bat as a punishment.

Schools stayed open regardless of the weather.

Skipping games at playtime in huge playgrounds. An actual bell that the teacher would ring to signal the end of play.

Doing PE in underwear. Climbing ropes and ladders with a thin mattress on the floor in case you fell. Hobble horse we had to jump over, which I was petrified of.

But we managed. I was 8 and in charge of my little brother, when there was the bus strike1958 we walked, nearly a mile, by ourselves, crossing a main road, to school. Admittedly, traffic wasn’t like today.

In reception class in 1977 ( 4 years old), when a couple of the boys were naughty, the female teacher would pull their shorts down, put them over her lap and stack their bottom- in front of the whole class. Couldn’t do that now!!

Late 60s North London primary school here. There were 48 kids in my class!! Just one teacher too, no TAs or anything. Can’t imagine any parent thinking that was acceptable now?!

Ah...yeah....brings back memories.
Them were t'days!

70's kid, victorian building. Dining hall and toilets outside . The playground was just a concrete space, with a big shed at one end to play in if it rained. The girls playground had the portacabin class rooms . No equipment , we play with shipping ropes and elastics and two balls , and clapping songs.. Or. crying up and down the playground shed -British Bulldog- rings a bell

We walked to school, no parents, but all the kids in the street went to the same school so we walked en masse

School milk, if we had the money we would buy wee sachets of popping candy that we would put in to flavour it - till the dairy complained about the state of the returned bottles and it got banned

Nitty Nora , and school vaccinations and the dentist and eye testing

Some of the dinner ladies were like surrogate mums, they always had a plaster to hand and would yank a loose tooth if needed

We would buy a daffodil bulb at christmas to be planted in a pot and kept under the bed in the dark and would take the resulting bloom back in the Spring for it to be judged and every week we were expected to bring a penny to "feed the starving babies in Africa " You got a picture of a child in return And the dinner ladies refrain was always "think of those starving children in Africa who dont have enough food " when we tried to clear our plates of the cold lumpy mash into the pig buckets

PE was vest and knickers , those big climbing frames pulled out, horses and rings and ropes. We did dance at times, probably the winter. Summers we went to the common to play rounders

We had story time as well, sat on the floor crossed legged in silence . Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was amazing

A lot of time was spent on practicing hand writing , especially when we progressed to ink and cursive writing . And times tables by rote - the headmaster had a habit of coming in to a room and we would all have to stand and rhyme off a table of his choosing

School assembly every day with hymns and prayers

In my last year, we were part of a new teaching experiment , we set our own time table . The classroom was zoned, art, English, maths, science etc and there were work cards to work from Didnt matter what you chose to do, just had to do say like 5 English and 5 maths cards a week. The clever ones also had to help the ones struggling with their reading .

I can remember decimal day, and the lead up to it. We were all given cardboard money in the new coins and spent a lot of time playing shops, working out prices and change using the least amount of coins

We had a wonderful teacher those last two years. The year I left mum and dad divorced and the summer I was sent to an aunties house near where the teacher lived and her and her boyfriend took me out for the day to the seaside

Very very fond memories of the last couple of years there

knocking on the staff room door and all you could see was a cloud of cigarette smoke when it opened.

Same year here
Oh it really held me up, what a silly idea!

Wasn't it dreadful?
Held me up so much, I wish my primary school wasn't part of the scheme, Not all in our town were, just our bad luck!

60s/70s primary SE London. Having a ‘rough book’. Not allowed to use a pen until you could write properly. The telly on a stand and wheels. Morning assembly where you sang hymns. Being singled out in front of the whole school for a telling off. The school nurse who would dab any cuts and grazes with some yellow stuff (I still can’t have tomato sauce near a fried egg because of the colour combo). Long pole to open the windows. Blackboard rubbers chucked at the kids. Only the ‘good’ kids and teachers’ pets were chosen for the annual Nativity play. Walking to school in all weathers on your own. No closures for snow or heat. Wearing a gaberdine mac. Duffle bag. Plimsolls. No one wore trainers apart from sporty kids who had Adidas. Being sent to see the headmaster then worrying what your mum and dad would think. Prizes for who could grow the best daffodil from a bulb. All on the coach to the British Museum kneeling on the back seats. Putting a tennis ball in a stocking and twirling it around and between your legs. French skipping made with elastic that you’d taken from pairs of knickers. Kids named and shamed for wetting themselves.

My mum's primary class had 60 pupils in the fifties with one teacher.

We had a fabulous, strict headmistress in infants school (early 70s). She clearly hated seeing snotty nosed kids, so we all had to wave our (proper, fabric) handkerchieves in assembly every morning. Woe betide you if you had forgotten your hanky! To this day, I can't leave the house without a tissue up my sleeve or in my pocket - it's like going out naked!

She wasn't a teacher but my grandma was dismissed from her job when she married my granddad in 1940. Not in disgrace or anything, it was just the accepted thing at her workplace that as a woman your contract would end if you married. Can't imagine it now. She started her own sewing and make do and mend business working from home instead and probably made more money as people who didn't have the skills needed her services during rationing. She continued after the war, worked around being a mum and into retirement. She drove the car too, granddad biked to work!

Loved primary school in the 70s. I was lucky to have lovely teachers. Those days were simple then and I was happy, even though my parents were divorced they made sure we children had structure with co-parenting😍

One teacher at my junior school was an excellent musician, and wrote all the songs for the year 6 plays. We only knew this when the head teacher told the audience after the performance.

Both my parents went to boarding school in the 50s and 60s from young ages (7) and their parents were professionals - Doctor and Solicitor. I don’t think my grannies worked after marriage. Very different life.

My grandad (born 1908) was one of 5 brothers and his parents employed 2 nannies! I have a picture of my grandad age 3 or so with all his siblings and the 2 nannies.

That one who hated milk was me!!! Especially the cream on top, ooohhh i can taste it now!! They usually made me drink it though, even though it made me retch! If i could give it away quick, and swap for someone's empty, i did. What's more, i never have liked milk since either!

When I first went to school one of the other children told me (incorrectly) that we all had to drink the milk. I apparently stopped drinking milk as soon as I was weaned, I've always hated the stuff. I tried and was nearly sick - I think the cream on top might have been the culprit there too. 😄 But at least I didn't have to have the milk after that.

(See also: British Rail tea, back in the day. 😆)

I remember it being warm too! 🤑

Ugh yes, that didn't help at all. 😖

They tried to force-feed me milk at playgroup on my first day - I was three years old and I still remember this experience. I declined to touch the glass bottle and paper straw, so the woman put it into a blue child's cup, grabbed hold of me and tried to force it into me - I struggled frantically and the cup ended up flying across the floor. Thick, nasty bully - as if a change of receptacle would have magically made the milk palatable.

I got my mum to excuse me from drinking it after that, and made sure I wasn't forced to drink it at school.

This was not a fad - I still don't drink milk, not even in tea or coffee.