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?

Dc still had them mid 2000s although not sure they were tobacco tins by then.

My ver first teacher used to check each day to see who had brought a handkerchief. A real cotton handkerchief. A handful of tissues was deemed tolerable but a real hanky was rewarded with a sprinkle of lavender water.
I also remember to horror of school dinners - no choice and being forced to eat disgusting food by the ladies on duty. I couldn't even look at curry for decades.

My Senior school in London in the early/mid 80s had both a fire alarm and a bomb alarm. Different sounds and different instructions: fire alarm get out and leave everything behind, bomb alarm - take your bag with you.

Never actually had a real one but we did do drills.

They probably had specific words tins by then, Dds was definitely Golden Virginia 😀

Just remembered the getting hit on the hand with a ruler, I got it for messy handwriting, it was real ink pen writing and if you got ink blots on your work or ink on your hands you'd get a whack on the palm of your hand. Ink wells on the desks and really grotty simple pens that you had to dip in ink to write.

Our high school had a bomb siren, Probably because we went to school during the cold war, we had the occasional drill! Although I've just remembered London was being bombed in the 80s.

Some lovely memories here, and so familiar

Did anyone else go through the horror of the ita reading scheme?

At our primary school (late 60's - early 70's) the Headmaster had a cane. It was not unknown for him to use it.

And I still can't abide room temperature milk.

I always imagined anyone who went to boarding school as 'posh' and I have to say your post does kind of back that up. I did enjoy reading the Enid Blyton books set at boarding schools. Was it called Mallory Towers the books?
I can't imagine getting ballet at school. It probably has set you up well for life though attending a school like that. Or am I completely wrong. Were you horribly homesick?

Music and movement - dancing around in your knickers and vest, can you imagine the protests these days!

Ah yes the bucket of sawdust. Flashback to that.

yes dogs just sort of roamed around in the seventies didn't they. I wasn't allowed a pet but changed days compared to today (looks across at small, pampered, fluffy dog on his own sheepskin rug)

I LOVED primary school, even though I went to 4 different ones!

The Ginn 360 reading scheme.
Classmates queuing up to get their dinner ticket for free school lunch - no one cared or was embarrassed.
In summer the dinner ladies made us iced jubilees. Can't think what we'd call them now but essentially super strong diluting orange frozen in a polystyrene cup 😂
Skipping with two long ropes tied in the middle with a big knot and it getting all soggy on wet days.
In P7 you got to go and play with the P1s at playtime.

Ha I think I remember the milk on the heater to defrost it.

Smoking was everywhere. Teachers staff room always had a huge cloud of smoke around it from them puffing their fags on their break.

In high school my german teacher was constantly sucking mints to cover the alcohol smell.

Think it was cough sweets!

Oh the purple photocopy thing is ringing a bell.

Lol my school dinner money was in a golden virginia tobacco tin and I remember dropping it one day and all my coins rolling away...imagine such a thing now 🙈 I also remember home corner being my absolute favourite thing.
Mind you I also remember my teacher rapping us on the knuckles with a wooden ruler for getting spellings wrong....!Late 70s

why were biro's banned? I do remember when they start leaving a hole in the cap of them as people were choking on them.

I have to admit I do like any milk I drink nowadays to be pretty cold. One advantage of winter. It always seem to come out of the fridge colder.

Remember the milk and old fashioned lunch. We sat in tables of 8 and the monitor (oldest 4th year junior) went up to get our tray of food. If you all finished you could go up for seconds but everybody had to finish.

Also, we had outside toilets. They had a roof and swing doors (no locks) on each cubicle, but the main door was open - bit like you get in country parks sometimes. Very very cold in winter and we had to close the school when they froze one year. Just remember there were always leaves on the floor that blew in when it was windy.

You used to get your friend to stand guard outside the toilet when you were in there because they didn’t lock, they would hold it shut with their foot tucked under the door.

60s at primary here.

School was beside the village church and on the rare occasion there was a weekday wedding, we were let into the playground to scramble for pennies thrown by the wedding party on leaving. This was (maybe still is?) a tradition in Scotland.

We had a ‘Shelter Shed’ in the playground for rainy days - a three sided brick built structure lined with a bench on all three sides. open at the front.

It was a two room village school with a headmaster who had the older ones, and a rather daunting woman who taught the youngest three or four year groups in her room.

We ate food brought in on galvanised metal lidded trays - mainly sliced meat which could have been anything swimming in watery gravy, grey potatoes and grey ‘green’ beans or cabbage. Pudding was various cakes and custards; the custards were sometimes pink or vaguely chocolate. Sprinkles featured. I loved them.

We did ‘Music and Movement’ in the dining room with the tables folded back. This was a weekly educational radio programme which instructed you to be a bee or a butterfly or a tree. It was a bit baffling.

Sums were written up on the two boards every morning and you did those on the board nearest you then moved to the harder board with the bigger kids in the room if you were quick. All basic arithmetic, times tables. We crowded round the teacher in groups of about 6 for reading and read a few sentences each every day. You were chided if you didn’t manage as the reading was set for homework the night before.

There was a belt in the drawer and I remember people getting threatened with it but it wasn’t until secondary that I saw it used with horrific ferocity at times.

Playground games were variations on tag, sardines, British Bulldogs (so violent), yo-yos, tennis balls against the wall starting with seven straight catches, six with right hand, 5 with left hand, four thrown from under your leg etc until the last one was a full spin then catch it again.

We did lots of rhymes with hand clapping and sequenced circles, running away, chasing etc. Farmers in his den, Bobby Bingo, that kind of thing.

And we loved comics. We shared and swapped them, and brought them to read at playtime when we also ate our ‘play piece’, a Scottish term for a little folded buttered bread or snack mid-morning.

When the bell rang we all ran home - I don’t remember any parents waiting. My home was almost a mile away and I always walked - part way with other kids until they turned off or reached their home - there was no nursery so it must have been from about aged 5.

Buying space raiders at the school tuck shop.
Can't remember a single piece of play equipment just bike sheds and concrete but also a huge playing field at the side.
Learning the green cross code!
Begging my mum to buy "hot dots" or something...fluorescent stickers for your clothes and school bag for walking home in the dark winter days.

I once netted about 21p at a scramble c1983, I was thrilled!

Goodness what did you draw?

I also have some warm room temperature milk PTSD from the 60’s. I do have a memory of one or two classmates being able to have bottles of orange instead. I’m not sure whether it was to do with any allergies or intolerances - but I was SO jealous that they got to have them instead of milk