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.

I remember being forced to kiss another girl and someone pinching my ear until it bled. Luckily I was only at that school for a year.

Yes, I remeber, or rather I remember my father taking me to school for my first day and him carrying my shoebag. It was September 1963, 2 or 3 weeks before my 5th birthday.
My father always took me to school.

All I remember about my first year of school is school is making biscuits and singing hymns with an overhead projector. Not the first day though.

Yes - 1967. I was due to turn 5 in July so the headteacher decided I could start in the summer term before that. Then he suggested I go for the two days before everyone broke up for Easter just to get used to it.

I was sat on the same table as Shirley who was the only girl in the class who I knew. The teacher was busy so she gave me some paper and a pencil, presumably expecting me to draw a picture or something to amuse myself. However, I thought I was meant to be doing the same as Shirley who was doing sums. I asked Shirley what to write so she let me copy some of hers and then told me that now I had to do some on my own. I remember being utterly bewildered and just sitting there not knowing what to do now.

I remember my teacher and the classroom really well and painting a picture on my first day at a table with 2 or 3 other children. I remember the walls were sky blue and the blackboards were that British Racing Green colour (I grew up in California) and you could see the beach from the kindergarten playground. I would pretend I was flying over the Pacific whenever I stretched my legs out on the swingset.

The headmistress was very strict and shouty, especially when she was in charge of assembly or singing practice; woe betide any child who whispered, or girls who did each other's hair. But I remember a time she humoured a boy who suddenly piped up in assembly that he thought his shoes were magic. "Are you sure?" she said cheerfully. "Go and sit by Mrs Smith, who will keep an eye on them, so that they don't walk away without you." Perhaps she was in a good mood that day. She would have called many other children "a baby" in those circumstances (she loved the word "baby").

I really don’t remember my first day of primary whatsoever but I can remember bits of my first day at secondary. I’d just got back from Mexico and rather embarrassingly had cornrows in . We had our first day photos and a class photo and I looked like a total plant pot.

I do. I remember being very disappointed because I was having "home dinners" and therefore didn't have a D written on my name tag (we were all labelled with brown cardboard luggage tags pinned on with a safety pin!)

I also remember being told to put my chair on top of the table and I wondered what we were going to do next - turned out it was go home! I also remember having a red fabric bag on the back of my seat which is where my reading book went and that I cud read when I started. There was also a tray under the table where book were put. I think my teacher was called Mrs Woods.

This was in the 70s.

@SoupDragon I remember the ritual of putting chairs up on the tables, as well as being puzzled that they would already be down the next morning. I remember this happening once:
Teacher: Put the chairs up on the tables.
(Infernal noise)
Teacher: We do not slam our chairs up on the tables! Take them down again.
(Infernal noise)
Teacher: And we do not slam them back down again!

I can't remember being a "little girl" I have a few flash backs but nothing vivid. I remember my first day of secondary school, drowned in my blazer and a bag the same size of me also sitting on the carpet in a hall waiting to be taken to my form room.

My first day was somewhat unusual in that it was the first day for both me and my Mum. She was starting a new job as the reception class teacher so we started together. I remember going into the classroom with her before school and then a loud bell rang and when I looked outside the classroom door there seemed to be hundreds of children in the corridor.

I don't remember my teacher but I do remember her name. I remember sitting on the carpet with the rest of the children, and I remember a poem that was pinned up on the wall of our classroom. That is probably because it was a famous poem, not because I have a brilliant memory.

Yep! Child of the 70s here as well. 1977 is when I started school, age 5.
Putting up chairs before going home. I remember it well, soupdragon. Even in California we did it.
We had earthquake drills. Duck and cover. It never felt like something you just get used to. I always hated growing up in earthquake country. I sometimes really believe my decision to live here was loosely based on not wanting to have to worry about earthquakes and brush fires for the rest of my life. Now it's just stabbings and muggings. Yay!

I started school at age 5 in 76. I remember we had to draw a picture of ourselves and a boy drew himself with blue hair and was told off and told to go and look in the mirror and did he think he had blue hair?. I remember being scared to go to the outside toilet as a girl had gone without asking and been told off quite harshly. That teacher and my year 5 teacher weren't nice but all the others in other years were nice and good teachers.