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?

I started school in 1968.

Our primary school was lovely. There were 3 intakes a year so I only got a term in what would now be reception. I remember the "home corner". I also remember in the top infants class various children being sent to the hall to find out what the time was and the teacher getting increasingly frustrated by "the big hand is on the..".

First year juniors we had a lovely older lady who used to make "umbrellas" out of hankies which she sold for Mother's Day. They were in lots of lovely colours and styles (not sure that I'd particularly want to receive a "ladies" size hanky for Mother's Day myself).

I remember a whole term learning about our local harbour. Going to the beach to look in rock pools, having a boat trip. As someone else said, all before the National Curriculum we had a lot of local based learning.

I walked to school on my own from 5. My mum said she followed me all the way, ducking into gateways so I wouldn't see her. There wasn't the traffic and I only had one main road to cross. I asked to stay to school dinners because there was always a nice pudding which we didn't get at home. My dad always came home at lunch time for a cooked meal (wondering now how he had time), but pudding was only ever yogurt or rice or fruit.

I also remember the time when my brother went home at playtime thinking it was time to go home and they came to my class to ask me where he was. He wasn't as independent as me and it caused all sorts of panic because he didn't usually walk on his own.

Ooh yes, I forgot the dentist!

I can still remember the risqué playground rhymes from my sixties primary school

My friend Billy
Had a twelve foot willy
He showed it to the girl next door
She thought it was a snake
So she hit it with a rake
And now its only five foot four

The next one needed to be sung in a calypso style

Down in Jamaica there's a rubber tree
Where they're making rubber johnnies for you and me
Some cost a tanner, some cost a bob
It all depends on the size of your knob

Them were days.

We didn't have school dinners (ireland) but the poorer kids went to the lunch room where we got a little bottle of milk and a sandwich. They were cheese or corned beef, with jam on a Friday, best of all was Wednesday when we got a currant bun. Lessons were formal and dull, but we played with Mala (playdough) once a week, and did art and craft weekly, if we were lucky and our teacher could sing or play the piano they did music with us . On a friday, once a week or once a month I can't quite recall which the whole school went to the hall to watch a movie, it could be a religious movie or cartoons, or anything in between, either way we lived for them. I don't remember doing p.e. but we must have i think, on very wet days we went to the hall and did running relay type games, I was always crap at them. In the yard we skipped or played hopscotch or chasing, there wasn't any equipment to play on. We mostly walked to and from school, it was about 2/3 kms, sometimes our mum would give us money to get the bus, we usually spent it on sweets and walked instead. I was shy and found it hard to make friends but I liked school.

I was in primary school late sixties to early seventies and I loved it and liked all my teachers. I was clever, well-behaved and was the only one in the school who played treble recorder so I suppose that's why teachers liked me.

I liked lessons and playing all the playground skipping and chasing games. We also did cat's cradle and a version of it which you did with a huge piece of elastic and 2 people standing in it instead of on the hands. At one point there was a game where you put a ball in the end of a cut off pair of your mum's tights, tied it to your ankle and spun it round, jumping over it as it came round.

My favourite teacher, who taught me for several years, used to bring her lunch in a Tupperware box and eat it in the classroom. She always had a pristine white linen napkin in the box and used to dab her mouth before putting her lipstick on. She used to throw her pen and the wooden backed blackboard rubber at naughty children or ones who couldn't answer the question. It never bothered me or anyone as far as I could tell. The children who presumably had some kind of educational extra needs( but not enough to go to special school, of which there were many at the time) were openly referred to as retarded by other pupils.

I was "teacher's pet", she had a few, all girls, and she would allow us to stay in at lunchtime if we wanted, and she taught us how to use the sewing machine and embroidery. I made a nightie, with beautifully finished seams, smocking and a slotted ribbon trim, when I was 10 and 11.

Naughty boys would be hauled out to the front in morning assembly, whilst having their ear twisted by a male teacher they were made to tell the whole school what they had done. I don't remember seeing that happen very often, and the same person never appeared twice.

The headmaster occasionally caned on the hand a naughty boy in his office. Girls were never caned. He was extremely strict on "bad language" and children were punished if they were heard swearing.

I remember we had a strict head (nun) and the yr 3 teacher too but otherwise nice kind teachers. No national curriculum so a lot of drawing and making - not much maths and english.
The deputy head taught us in year 6 and was shocked at what we didn't know so I remember standing on my chair reciting my times tables to catch up. My school was in a victorian building, it was falling down, literally around us - took them 2 years to move us out into a temporary but safe building.
I don't remember teachers physically checking us all for wet knickers - yuck! My mum would have gone mad - it was 1968 not 1868.

This sounds like my primary too, but rural Yorkshire Dales. I'd forgotten the rhyming games. The Farmer's in his Den... I can remember the last bit... Here comes a candle to light you to bed and HERE COMES A CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!!!

@YellowCardiganNavyJoggers my mum was matron, kindergarten teacher, and general factotum at my junior school and my two sisters were there with me, so no, I wasn't homesick. We even brought our cat! He was meant to live outside but used to sneak into my mum's room over the rooftops. It may have been considered posh I suppose, but it was just normal to us and we were flat broke! One of the boarders was a farmer's daughter, the only girl of 5 children, whose mother had died and whose father was unable to look after her, and several of the other children were from perfectly normal farming families, so they weren't posh at all. The school was very basic, we didn't have much in the way of facilities, and I think they HAD to provide some scheduled exercise, hence the ballet lessons. Being able to run wild in the garden was lovely though.

Senior school was posh, but I got there on a bursary, which paid most of my fees. We were flat broke so I didn't have anything more than the absolute minimum requirements and, as my parents were divorced, it meant my mother could work while we were at school.

Mid 60s born so a 70s kid in a C of E village primary. Behaviour was pretty good on the whole, although that may have been to do with getting a ruler across the back of your hand if it wasn't. Strangely I remember the food being good, a monitor in charge for each table. Lots of rhyming games in the playground and a phenomenal amount of exercise. Running about, sport, hanging off monkey bars in the playground. Nit nurse! Happy days in retrospect.

Milk monitor was the best job. Stabbing the silver foil tops of the milk with a straw. Crate smelled of off milk though.

Mum's school (teacher) still had some outdoor toilets and air raid shelters in the yard. I got to finish the milk left in other teachers' classrooms.

Climbing frame over concrete.

2 hour lunch break.

Walking to school with just another 5 year old from age 5.

Finish at 4pm.

Equipment kept in sturdy brown cardboard boxes with reinforced corners.

The smell.

Going to a spare classroom for TV. (Art room) Or different school TV in the corridor.

2 hour lunch break.
Walking to school with just another 5 year old from age 5.

Yes, we had a 90 minute lunch, 12 till 1.30. Although I mainly stayed for lunch, I had a time when I came home, walking or getting the bus (1p, either way) alone or with my friend Stephen.
About 20 minutes walk each way including across a main road and a bridge over the main line, East Coast railway.
There was time to eat and watch a little bit of what must have been children’s tv.

I must have been younger than 7 at that time.

Having french lessons and being given a french name drawn on card worn round your neck on a wool strap
playing elastics in the playground where you teamed up to stand with the elastic round your ankles and your friend at the other end while someone did clever things jumping in and out of the middle
playing with clackers ( 2 heavy balls on a string that clacked together as you bounced them ) eventually banned cos so many damaged their wrists
standing against a wall flinging a tennis ball in a leg of old tights from side to side
slipping on ice slides in winter and trying to build igloos when it snowed
making models and ashtrays out of clay and collecting them at end of term to take home
taking the school hamster home for the holiday proudly carrying the cage all the way home
going home for a proper cooked lunch then back to school
big thick green knickers which we all hated
doing pe in the big green knickers and black slip on plimsols
being terrified being sent to Miss Budd the headteacher who was actually ok but we were scared of authority back in the day

Being made to stand and face the wall in a corner of the classroom if you were naughty. Lines to reinforce learning or as a punishment. I remember being made to write 20 lines of ‘I must remember to put a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence’. I must’ve been 7 or 8, it took me ages….. 😂

I started primary in the mid 70’s. I have mainly good memories apart from the dreaded school dinners. You weren’t allowed a pack lunch and I just could not eat the food. I used to freeze with fear at the thought of eating in front of people. The school decided to put me on the table with the teachers to make sure I ate my lunch which as you can imagine had the complete opposite effect! I can’t remember how long that lasted but it was very traumatic for me! I also remember we had a girl in school who couldn’t/didn’t eat meat and every lunch time there was a chunk of cheese on a plate for her to go with what else was being served (usually lumpy mash and boiled greens). Every day a lump of cheese! Poor girl.

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.

I remember to this day, in what would now be Reception, a fellow pupil wet herself and the teacher (Miss Butler) decided to humiliate her and made her stand up on a chair in front of the whole class, soaking wet and crying. I think sadistic teachers were pretty much given free rein back then.

It's all coming back now.

Handstands! We spent hours doing handstands, either freeform or up against a wall.

Oh God yes. We had a vile head teacher who took pleasure in humiliating us with this sort of thing. This might out me if anyone else went to the same, very small rural CofE primary, but once a boy pooed his pants and she yanked him by the arm out to the clockroom to wash him off and put him into spare shorts. Then he did it again (obv had a tummy bug). 2nd time she got a big bucket of soapy water, moved all the desks back, striped him from the waist down, stood him in the bucket and washed him in front of the whole school (about 35 pupils). It traumatised me, so I dread to think how that poor lad felt. He'll have been about 7 or 8 at the time.

Literally just, what I thought was nice smiley face of her. It was horrific how she reacted. She returned to the school when we were in 4th year junior to show her baby off and I walked out and walked home - I was 11. I got into trouble for it but still told no-one. Absolute bitch.

Not much. You have a clear memory. I remember the pencil sharpener on the desk. I remember people making little houses for their rubbers?

I started in 1980. I remember the tobacco tins!
Vest and knickers for PE - Mothercare did a set with red, blue, green and yellow little hearts (or stars or dots or something) on it and every girl wanted /had it. They might as well have made it a compulsory PE kit!!!
Living near Broadmoor, I can remember my Mum had to come and pick me up one day as someone had escaped (Google tells me this was 1981?). Why on earth we weren’t deemed safer in lockdown (at least for a few hours) I’ll never know!

playing elastics in the playground where you teamed up to stand with the elastic round your ankles and your friend at the other end while someone did clever things jumping in and out of the middle

Yes, I remember this - French skipping?

playing with clackers ( 2 heavy balls on a string that clacked together as you bounced them ) eventually banned cos so many damaged their wrists

And this! We used to call them kernackers, I think.

I always got stuck with being milk monitor because I didn’t drink milk myself. 😄

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

I think parents today would be more shocked than the children, tbh! Huge lack of parental involvement, compared to today. What went on at school was largely accepted as just the way it was, and parents just didn’t contact the school to sort anything out. Even in Primary school, our reports included our class position, and quite critical comments, but most parents wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning the teacher’s judgement, or their child’s progress, etc. Parents were much more deferential towards teachers and would, more often than not, back them up and assume their child was culpable, when it came to them being disciplined, rather than querying why they were receiving an unjust punishment!

Primary school in the 60's for me. It was a Victorian school building which hadn't changed much at all. Chalk boards in the classroom, old boilers for heating. Coat hooks in the hallway with your name on and bottles of milk at morning break. We also had a tuck shop once a week where you could buy Potato Puffs and Wagon Wheels. The girls would do skipping at play time with all the old traditional chants. We used to have a mobile clinic visit to check us for TB as well as weight, height etc. I remember standing in my vest and knickers feeling cold and embarrassed. You'd put your hand up to go to the toilet and sometimes the teacher would come with you if you asked (if I remember rightly). All our teachers were women except for the Headmaster who was a stern, aloof man. Many of them had never married because of the subsequent shortage of men after the first world war. If you were naughty you could get a ruler across the knuckles or sat in a corner facing the wall with a "dunce hat" on. This was a tall pointed hat made out of cardboard with Dunce written on it, meaning "stupid". That was worse than the ruler to be honest. But generally it was a happy environment and the teachers were strict but nice. It was a good grounding.

I started school in 1965, when I was 5, and was very happy at my northern state primary surrounded by a field.

Lots that would be shocking now.

Doing PE in our vest and pants, including ballet and sitting boy-girl holding hands on the floor to make a boat. The ballet music was provided by a peripatetic pianist. Our city had a clutch of them, retired female school teachers and governesses, one of the latter a relation of my mum.

Being left crying at a table in the dining hall, supervised by the deputy head mistress, for a whole afternoon because I hadn't eaten my semolina pudding. I consoled myself by looking at the woodland animals painted on the glass window that divided the dining hall from the assembly hall where we also did PE.

One female teacher in particular absolutely screaming, properly demented, for ages at the whole class when behaviour slumped.

The same teacher arranging for me to stay with her and her husband in their cottage when my dad died; the husband, who I had not met until then, picked me up from our house and drove me the 40 minutes to their cottage with just the two of us in the car. They had two dogs, a big attraction for me, and I loved the teacher because she was creative - lots of singing (Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, 'All in an April evening', calypso, spirituals, four-part rounds) and poetry (W H Auden reading his own poem 'Night Train') and a reading corner with floor cushions, alongside structure, routine and high expectations. The husband worked in theatre. All from different from my family business background, and intriguing for that reason.

Being seized at 6 years old by another teacher, plonked on her lap, and cuddled fiercely by her while she commented on me being cold, her hands between my cardigan and blouse. She was one of the older teachers, always beautifully dressed in a tweed pencil skirt, woollen jumper and pearls.

The same teacher handing out large (A2) sheets of drawing paper. At the desk of one boy, she took a yard-long ruler and used it to tear a strip of paper about an inch high off the bottom saying: 'Andrew X, you only draw tiny little stick figures along the bottom of your paper in art so this is your sheet.'

In reception, we sat in double desks boy-girl. One morning, the boy next to me leaned forward when the boy in front of him was doing the same and stabbed him in the bottom with a newly sharpened pencil. There was a lot of blood. The stabbed boy was taken to hospital. My neighbour disappeared for the rest of the day. After dinner, the head mistress came into our classroom to comment on the stabbing. Even though I had done nothing, I remember the anxiety I felt, as though I were somehow responsible.

On Friday Winter afternoons, being read a ghost story in the dark (the teacher had a torch), our heads laying on the desk.

In my final year of infants, I was in one of a pair of classrooms in a terrapin hut with a cloakroom between the two rooms. Our teacher, a man, used to set us work and leave the classroom, telling us not to leave our seats. That was because he and the female teacher from the other classroom had snogging sessions among the coats. On one occasion, I hadn't been listening and got out of my seat to put something in the waste paper basket. He returned when I was out of my seat and hit me across the knuckles with a wooden board rubber. As I was well behaved, quiet, and never hit at home, my sense of outrage was off the scale. I told my dad, who, when the teacher left at the end of the year to teach in Zambia, said 'It'll be good for him, having all those blacks to sort out.' (I adored my dad, who was a very loving, witty, sociable man. The memory of the remark suggests, however, we would have been having difficult conversations had he lived longer.)

My class teacher in 3rd year juniors saying to my mum at parents' evening 'Ida is clever, but X (my best friend) is cleverer.' My friend was sent to a prestigious girls' school at 11 and my mum was quite scathing in comparing our O level results: 5 x As and 4 X Bs each, plus 2 x Cs in addition for X.

In junior Y2, I was in a class of 50. The teacher linedus up in a curve around the room in the order of our performance in end-of-year tests.

My parents leaving my younger brother and me at home while they went to parents' evening. I ignored the instruction not to leave the house, cycled to a friend's, fell off my bike and was taken to hospital by the friend's dad to be stitched up. After parents' evening, my dad went to the pub with the head master. When the friend's dad brought me home, my dad fed me Weetabix and hot milk with a spoon because my jaw had been frozen. My mum stood at the sink washing up and ranting about my disobedience.

The head master was very proud of two snakes kept in a glass case. Every Friday lunchtime, he put on a pair of gloves and played with them. We were invited in groups to watch.

Typo