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?

Ink wells, the smell of the room temp spilt milk, the smell of those awful heater things that blew out hot air through a wire grill and the apparatus in the hall where we had to climb up a rope🙄- hated primary school in the 1970’s!

We had reading books from New Zealand, and the word "Pohutukawa" came up. None of the teachers knew how to pronounce it, except one.

Although I loved school dinners there was one dessert I absolutely loathed and that was the mince pie. I’ve never liked mince pies before or since. it was mince pie day and I hadn’t touched it and the teacher on duty tried to get me to eat it.
The conversation went something like this
Teacher: you haven’t eaten your afters.
Me: I don’t like it sir.
Teacher: well have you tried it?
Me: yes sir and I don’t like it. I’ve never liked mince pie sir.
Teacher: well try it again now.
Me: no sir I have tried it and I really don’t like it.
Teacher: ok, if I give you sixpence will you eat it?
Me: no sir.
Teacher come on it’s sixpence girl.
Me: no thank you sir.
Teacher: well ok it seems as if you really don’t like it. You can go.

sixpence was quite a lot of money for a child in the 60’s the most I ever had was 3d but it took me refusing it to convince him that I really didn’t like it.
I wasn’t a waster of food as a child, wasn’t fussy at all like children today.
I told my dm when I got home and she said well done for sticking to your guns.

The milk was disgusting. Even the smell was appalling. I used to be left to drink it at playtime, which suited me as I wasn't a fan of that either. Used to wait until the teacher left the room and quickly pour it down the art sink.

Also, The Apparatus.

The smell of fresh tobacco in the golden Virginia tins that were used to store things in.
Peter and Jane
Fletcher Maths
Ohh and a huge advertising hoarding on the side of the house next to the playground - always fags - perhaps my love of purple came from early exposure to silk cut adverts!😁

Because I was well-behaved and rarely in trouble, I actually saw being made to miss my play as a rite of passage, in my final year of infants school.

One of the biggest sins children could commit was to do something "without being told", even if it was obvious that we would told to do it in the next minute. I remember a teacher (not our usual one) writing "kitten" on the board, and more than half the class writing it in their books. The teacher then did a slow walk around the room, throwing children's books on the floor. She then made them stand at the front and hold them up: their crime was that they had written "kitten" without being told. Our usual teacher seemed shocked when she heard about this.

50’s child here.
writing on slate boards with chalk in reception. No exercise books , you copied the sums off the blackboard and when they were “ ticked “ you rubbed them out and copied the next lot .
Having to put your head , on your arms ,on the desk after lunch for a 15 minute rest.
Doing star jumps in the class in winter to keep warm.
Being made to finish ALL your dinner / pudding, even if it made you sick. ( Thanks Mrs Quigley )
Generally I loved school dinners ( my mom was a “ plain” cook.)
The nit nurse.
The road safety man coming in once a year, terrifying us with stories of getting run over.

Primary in the seventies and remember the school service on the radio instead of assembly once a week, big tvs being wheeled into classrooms for special school programmes, Scottish country dancing instead of pe one term and teachers throwing board runners!

the Big Abacus

government property stamped on the awful grease proof paper style loo roll

Liver and onion on Thursdays (I liked this)
many colours of custard
cheese and crackers as a pudding choice

Chinese burns (v sorry they were called this)

proper glue that stick all over your hand and you could peel off a whole see-through hand shape when it dried

‘autumn days’ in class music

I remember the tobacco tins - word cards were stored in them, and they always stank of tobacco. In 2nd year juniors the teacher had a tin simply labelled "Produce" which was used to collect the dinner money. I was dinner money monitor so it's stuck in my memory!

Fletcher Maths rings a distant bell, but we mostly used Alpha Maths if you were good at maths (I was) and Beta Maths if you weren't. The money sections always referred to "5 new pence" and so forth. Decimalisation happened in the real world when I was in 3rd year juniors, but we'd been doing maths in decimal money all the time I was at school, so I just thought that real money was pounds, shillings and pence, and new money (as it was referred to) was plastic coins at school. I was very surprised when new money appeared for real!

Did you go boarding school? is that something that has carried on through the generation?
To have nannies back then they must of had abit of money.

Same cant stand the stuff .

Child of the sixties here and I remember being given 25 'lines' to do in the morning break ... something like "I will not talk in class". I was never deliberately naughty (too much of a coward) but I did love to chatter. 😉

who remembers the nit nurse at school in the 70s?

I remember one girl being made to write lines "I am not allowed to wear jumpers tied around my middle".

There was the live broadcast "Music Time", presented by Jonathan Cohen, with a severe-looking woman by his side. Whenever he said "listen", a gnome appeared, holding a hand to its ear. Looking at these on Youtube, lots of the comments say how they were terrified of that gnome.

The school had a very long corridor (running along this corridor was strictly forbidden). There was once a "penny line" for charity, in which pennies were laid in a line down the side of this corridor. The line reached the entire length of the building. With a quick look at Google Maps, it must have been about £100 worth.

My dsis got flagged every time - this was always done in a humiliating “stand over there” way. I remember my mum saying in frustration , “Look, please show me a nit, so at least I know what they look like.” Nit nurse would reply that just because she couldn’t see the nits, the sores on my sister’s head were evidence. My sister would be treated. Next term, same thing would happen.

Nit nurse was wrong, btw. The lesions on my sister’s head were actually a sign of liver disease. Fortunately my sister was both tough and popular. But for some children the humiliation of being pulled out every time the nit nurse came would have been awful.

I wonder if anyone had the nit treatment Roald Dahl mentions in The Witches (and I bet it's been edited out of modern reprints). "The matron made Ashton dip his whole head in turpentine. It killed the nits all right, but it nearly killed Ashton as well."

Mind you, I hated the domestic nit treatment, of the extremely smelly lotion which had to applied, left in overnight, and washed out the following morning. There was one time when only I had this treatment, and then another time when someone else did, and my mum had read the advice "please treat all the family", so I had to have it again! I've never got over that injustice.

70’s here - I had forgotten about the tobacco tin with words in! chalk boards, chalk board monitor (you had to make sure it was wiped down after each break!) Our headmaster was a times tables addict, we had to recite them over and over again. I can still do them now!!

1960s Never had a nit nurse. Never had nits.

I remember getting my mouth washed out with soap for cursing and the smell of the sanitary towel incinerator bleurgh

I don't remember the nit nurse. But all the talk of that awful shiny non-absorbent loo paper reminds me of the roller towel. Nice and clean first thing in the morning, by lunchtime it was soaking wet. You'd try to find a dry patch, but late in the day it was impossible. A real disincentive to washing your hands!

Nitty Nora the bug explorer!

We called her nitty nora the head explorer .

Primary schools in 70s. Irish Catholic. Teacher who wouldn't let me take part in baking as I was a dirty Catholic. I was only allowed to wash up. Headteacher a wonderful thoughtful man. School weekend trip to bath and my mum insisted I had to go to church on the sunday morning. Others were jealous as he took me and we walked slowly back afterwards. He used to give me books to read and encouraged my writing. Mum insisted I not eat meat on Easter friday. He made every day that week a different religion ie Hindu so we had curry, friday Catholic so we ate fish. A very kind man.