Do you remember your first day at school? Or first year?

[GimmeAy]

I just seem to have been reading a lot of school based threads this evening, so this popped into my head.

I don't remember the first day, but I remember the night before.
I remember cornflakes boxes and a sand box and drawing houses and Mrs X correcting our copies and her glasses and the red pen.
But I don't remember my first day at school.

My only long term ex, lived about 300 yards from his school. On his first day, he escaped and ran home to his Mum. The Head teacher came high tailing it after him and he was lured back.

See spot run. That was one of the earliest books I remember from school. I was gutted when I moved onto the next class and wasn’t allowed to read spot any more.

I remember in the morning of the first day getting my schultüte from my parents. That was awesome. And I remember having to stand against the wall outside the school building so my dad could take my picture. I don't remember the first day specifically after that but I have some random memory snapshots of reception. For some reason going home right after lunch stands out really strongly in my mind, even though that can't have been for more than a handful of introductory days. I remember the sandtray and it's powerful smell, and the kids walking round with 'wet play' signs when it was pissing it down outdoors. I remember my mum prepared a box of fruit, satsuma segments and grapes etc, to hand out on my birthday as we weren't allowed to share sweets in reception, only the teacher forgot, and gave them us the next day when they'd gone all gross and rubbery - my best friend spat hers out on the rug which mortally offended me! The worst time must have been either the first day or soon after, when we were given laminated name cards to use to copy from when writing our names. Mine said 'Rebecca' instead of 'Becky', I don't know how they made that mistake, but as I sat there sobbing 'It's not my name!!' the teachers stood over me insisting that it was. I'm mildly traumatised to this day because of that!

I do remember first day of school, the mums came in with us and my mum encouraged me to play other children in the home corner, i was painfully shy and wanted to go home, clinging to her. I remember playgroup too,i loved playgroup i didnt want to.leave and go to school.

I can remember my first day, sitting at a little table next to a girl called Claire. There was a jar of blue pencils in the middle of the table. Our teacher had curly hair and was called Mrs Campling. We did painting, which I enjoyed.

Mrs Campling turned out to be not very nice. I can vividly remember her prodding me sharply in the chest with her pointy finger nail, and telling me not to go home telling tales. I didn’t know what telling tales meant, so I asked my mother, and told her about the prodding. I can’t remember what tales I had originally told, but I can remember my mother being angry, and Mrs Campling leaving shortly afterwards. Then we got a new teacher, who had black hair and big brown eyes, and she was lovely and kind.

I’m still in touch with Claire.

I don't remember my first day at school, but I remember vaguely my reception teacher who was lovely, teaching us left and right. I remember the cloak room and my peg with a picture on so i knew which one was mine. I also remember the layout of the classroom and getting to stick the straws in the milk bottles. Apart from that, nothing.

I remember the night before reciting to myself the ABC and my 2 times and 3 times tables before going to sleep. I had to go on the bus and a 'big' girl (aged about 10) came to take me. At the end of morning I was walking up the drive and was surprised to see my mother with my brother in his pram waiting to meet me. Years later Mum said she had been thinking all morning about me, and was a bit hurt that I was so busy chatting to another little girl I barely noticed her.

Oh gosh yes I can I am so embarrassed even now over 50 years on!. I had to sit next to a girl, lets call her Judy, and she was sat next to her best friend Wendy.
Whatever Wendy wrote, Judy copied. The first thing you did each day was draw a picture with your news and write a sentence. I did not realise that it has to be your own news...I thought because Judy (on my right - I was on the end) copied Wendy on her right, that you just copied what the person on your right did. Nobody told me that it was MY news I had to think up and draw the picture and write about, the teacher just said (after taking the register) that we started every say with our news. I assumed 'we' and 'our' collectively meant 'our class' I suppose. . I was a summer term starter due to my late birthday - and everyone that had started in previous terms had clearly already been told what to do.

Later - several weeks later I think, I overheard the teacher being disappointed that I clearly wasn't as good as my brother because I copied and couldn't write independently. No wonder Judy was so horribly rude to me and sat with her back to me as much as she could and I found it difficult to see what she had written to copy!

The next day I wrote my own news, I do know the date because I drew a picture of me wearing a yellow dress and LOTS of sunglasses with the caption 'I saw the sun'. This was 20 May 1966 when there was a partial solar eclipse before school. My teacher was delighted and singled out my mother after school to tell her I was at last working independently. Judy still didn't like me and still turned her back on me so I was a lonely figure on the end of the row, and because Wendy was the most popular kid in class and Judy was her best friend I was Billy no mates for a very long time.

I don't remember it beyond vague impressions.
But my mother told me that she was mortified because I was the only child who walked into the classroom without a backward glance and "didn't even cry!".

She was even more mortified at home time when I came out calling to her: "Mummy! It's not called a tuppy! Debbie Harris says it's a cuckoo!".

My Mum stayed to settle me in and read Burglar Bill to me. I remember the feeling of not wanting it to end and when she stood up at the end, all I wanted was to go home with her (on the back of her bike) and do baking and playing. I can remember watching her leave and crying. The teacher took me over to the water table and introduced me to Lucy. I can remember the smell of the plastic and the ribbons in Lucy's hair. I can't remember anything else but when I left DS at school and he sobbed, I knew exactly how he felt.

Yes I remember so well. I cried when my mum dropped me off then was whisked off by the most lovely teacher who I loved all year. I remember her kind and smiley face. She played the guitar and we learnt to sing 'there's a hole in my bucket dear Liza' and we played in a sand box. Dont remember much more of reception year though.

I remember a lot of the first year but I'm not sure I have any memories that I can be sure were the first day.

I do remember going to the nursery school attached to my primary and I remember painting and then hanging up a cut down cereal box that hung from our named pegs that we could put artwork in if we wanted to take it home. So maybe I remember my first day of that nursery. They also had a woodworking bench with real hammers and saws and stuff. definitely remember bringing home a lump of wood with bits gouged out with a saw and a few bent nails not quite hammered in!

I also remember a nursery I went to before that, I remember that if you cried then they'd take your temperature (by hand not thermometer) and send you home. Pretty sure non of us were sick but lots of crying warms you up! I remember a little boy who couldn't do up poppers or zips. I remember a garden and guinea pigs and I remember a Christmas show that happened on my Birthday and I was outraged that I had to wear a pretty dress that I hated and TIGHTS when it was my birthday and I shouldn't have to. I'd have been 3! The nursery was in a very old building and had a humongous alcove that was once a fireplace and that was the dressing up area/play kitchen area. That was cool!

I remember mine vividly, and it's over 50 years ago 😱

All the 'new kids' were sat at the back of the hall on benches with their mums, and the 'big kids' (they can't have even been that big because it was an Infant School, but the seemed massive to me 😂) were in Assembly in rows in front of us.

We sat through that, then were taken away from our mums into our classrooms. No fuss...just 'say goodbye to your mummy' and off we trotted!

We sat in straight rows in the classrooms facing the big blackboard. None of this cosy group tables or free play learning (I'm an infant teacher myself 🤷‍♀️😂) I was on the back row next to Carol and Terence...we became instant best friends!

Behind our row was a big window that looked out onto the playground and also the 'home corner'. I loved sitting there because we got to stare outside and also we got most use out of the home corner...we guarded it like it was our own property, me, Carol and Terence 😂

My own children later went to the same school...it still smelt the same 🥰

Only little bits, and more from nursery than primary school. Pegs, pictures on pegs, that sort of thing. I remember being frustrated that the teacher was showing us letters when I already knew them and could read (perils of having a teacher mum who thought she'd teach me before I started).

Not primary, no. Secondary, yes.

I can clearly remember the layout of the building and who all the staff were. But that’s probably because my mum worked there and I spent most of my primary years roaming the school for two hours after everyone else had gone home! And she’s still friends with some of my old teachers so no chance of forgetting them! I can remember certain things - I can remember playing with big wooden building blocks, singing a particular song, and I know it was my first year of school because I know who the teacher was. But I don’t specifically remember my first day.

I remember crying when my mum left, and then sitting down next to David, who lived in the same block of flats as me, we held hands under the table because he was crying too.
The teacher ripped up my work and made me do it again - I dont think that was my first day, but I went home at lunchtime and was heartbroken about it, so it must have been in the first week or two.
I was a bit of a know it all, and the teacher didn't like me much - she kept telling me "nobody likes a clever clogs, so sit down and shut up".
It was a tiny school, so classes p1-3 were all in the same classroom, with the same teacher, so I had that cow for 3 years - I never liked school, and I think she was probably the reason why!

Yes I do. I remember my new bag too and trying hard not to cry when DM was leaving. I've a petrified memory of preschool after I wiped my finger in the table cloth while finger painting.
I don't remember much after that.

Not a thing. I have a few vague memories of being around 6 and then some around 10 but nothing else really before I would say age 11 or so

I remember leaving and coming home soon after I was dropped off. And the second day. The second day my mum said nothing and ignored me completely all day. I gave up and stayed at school after that. I didn't like it though. I felt too little to be away from my family for so long, and I didn't like the things we were supposed to do.

This, although I was five years old and only going mornings and it was a small play-based school.

I was nine before school stopped being a big scary place.

I don't exactly remember the first day but I remember my bag clearly..It was an Ireland football bag that I desperately wanted coz I loved watching football with my Dad and Ireland won the World Cup that year 😂

I remember mine vividly, it was in 1974 when I started school . There was an Easter intake then and that was when I started, I only went mornings for the first term. There was a small window overlooking the school gates and for the first week or so a boy called Lee used to stand on a chair and look out of it, crying for his mother.

There was a fireplace in the classroom and we’d all sit around it each day while the teacher sat in a wooden captain’s chair and read us a story before we went home.

Before the end of that first term we had to go to the junior school, a 5 minute walk away, for sports day and the afternoon children came in and we all walked around to the school together and it was then that I met Sharon who is now one of my oldest friends.

I also remember well the playgroup and nursery that I went to.

Don't remember first day at primary. The only real thing I remember about secondary is the blazer my mum made me wear on the first day that I refused to wear again because no one else was wearing one!

I remember the feeling of having to get up and go to the front in assembly on my first week as I could already read a book. It was terrifying. I don't really have a picture in my head to go with it though.

I remember setting myself because I went to ask the teacher and she was cross because everyone had been asking to play in the sand so I was too scared to ask anything!

I remember we had a wooden cake with candles for birthdays that were impossible to blow out.

I remember playing with a fisher price treehouse.

I remember the second year when my brother was born and we had a display with our names on with how many in our family and I had to move my name on the display. I remember my mum bringing my brother in and we learnt about babies.

The weirdest thing is having my teacher at my party when I turned 5. It was the thing to do and she actually gave up her time to come to my birthday party! So weird! I don't think I remember that I just have pics as proof.

I remember a bit of mine. Another girl and I got told off at the beginning of the day for playing in the toilets.

No but I wish I did! I vaguely recall being at kindergarten when around 3/4 but that was so last Millennium!

Made up for it for my child as that was not that long ago and so made sure I recorded it all for glory!

First day at school is the first big milestone!! Make the most of it mums!!!

No I don't - not a thing. In fact, I remember very little about my first school. I moved schools at the start of 2nd yr juniors (what would now be known as Yr4), and I have very little memory of anything about my first 3 and a bit years of school at all.