1960’s primary schooling!

[Knittingnanny]

Just found this in a file, my school “ report” aged 10.
Look at the number in the class, how on earth did that teacher know who we all were!
So glad I was a teacher in an era where numbers were far more reasonable.

When I first started teaching (early 80s in a state primary with delusions of grandeur - well, the headmaster had the delusions) we had to put percentages for each subject on the school reports.

But we didn't do any exams or tests. Quite a progressive early 1980s approach to teaching, with this hangover from a previous era on the reports.

So we literally had to make up the percentage:
''Thinking back to Sean's drawing of the story of the Good Samaritan and his retelling of the Christmas story, not to mention his performance as Narrator 7 in the Infant Nativity, I think I will give him 67% for RE'.
Weird thing was that the parents didn't question the marks.
Two years after I arrived, the HT retired and the new one got rid of the percentages (and the delusions of grandeur).

My son was in a class of 42 just 5 years ago. Wasnt even a qualified teacher. It was an HLTA supervised by the teacher for a year below.

I still have my school reports from 1969 to the early 70s and they look like OP's, with my position in class written down.

I can't imagine teachers in the 60's had to put up with complaining and demanding parents like they do today. That must have been easier.

@ufucoffee that’s right, my parents dropped me off on day one of reception and I think that was it! Everyone seemed to be terrified of teachers and treated them as gods!

@FelicityBeedle haha! I was a terrified goody goody! Scared of the teacher and my mother

There were 40 something in my classes in primary but each class consisted roughly of two school years. There were only four classes in the whole school but you stayed in each class until you were ready to move up regardless of age so not everyone moved up together.

We all had positions on our reports and we had to stand in line in order of our position in class at the end of each term. It was great if you were near the top but devastating if you were at the bottom. One of my lasting memories is of friend of mine crying because she always came bottom. It was so harsh.

There were 44 in my top year infants’ class in 1982. And my senior school - all girls, hyper-competitive - always read out exam results in reverse order. Somehow all the subject results then translated to a position in the form. Ugh.

@cortex10

My class was a similar size (at least until a new primary was built when I was about 9) but it just seemed normal at the time. And no such thing as teaching assistants. Another memory that came to mind recently was when I was in the equivalent of year 3 and we had two teachers, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. I assume it was a form of jobshare - both were young mothers and they brought their baby and toddler into the classroom to sleep/potter around while they teached us. Imagine that today.

I was that toddler in 1966! A small village school with all the infant's ( now reception and ks1) in the same class. I was 2.

Started school in 1971, around 33 in my class in infants and 35 in Juniors. Oldest of the year were in one class with summer borns being with the oldest in the year below and the rest of the year group together so 3 class for 2 year groups except 4th year juniors when the not so bright kids stayed with the 3rd years.
I also remembed the horror of class positions being read out in class and being on your report complete with marks and percentages and yes class position but the plus side was that in secondary school the entire report for god knows how many subjects fit on one side of A4 including comments from head of year/head of girls! (yes at a bog standard comp)

Left primary in 1972 - when we had 2 top classes in same room, so well over 40, with just one teacher. Our class and the next door one were divided by a roll back divider which was rolled back every lunch time as we didn't have a school hall for lunch. No school library, quiet room and awful outside loos.

Don't recall class position being given for test results, but we certainly has loads of tests - spelling, maths & reading weekly.

This thread is reminding me of the Miss Read books. Anyone remember them?

Our class was pretty crowded to the point where the five oldest of us were moved up a year (including me).

I was most dischuffed a term later when we moved to a new school building with plenty of space and more teachers and we had to go back to our "proper" year - it felt like a demotion!

Until recently local newspapers used to publish GCSE grades and name of pupil & the school they went to. That's fine if you've passed them all.

My primary school reports from the 1979s & 1980s were really brief.

There was no parental involvement at all - I think it must have been an easier time to teach.

@DPotter

Left primary in 1972 - when we had 2 top classes in same room, so well over 40, with just one teacher. Our class and the next door one were divided by a roll back divider which was rolled back every lunch time as we didn't have a school hall for lunch. No school library, quiet room and awful outside loos.

Don't recall class position being given for test results, but we certainly has loads of tests - spelling, maths & reading weekly.

One of the primary schools I was in had a divider like that, never saw it used and nor could I work out why it was there.

@GreyhoundG1rl
I remember the Miss Read books. They were my DM's favourite books. Very different description of the life of a teacher than would be written now!

A report card like that tells parents exactly what they want to know.
Mine in the 80s were a tick box, 3 or 4 columns, English, Maths, and one or two others, graded as Excellent, Good, Average, Poor. And a space at the bottom for teacher to write the "chatterbox / daydreamer" comments.

Teachers must spend hours writing modern reports that tell you nothing.

I was at primary in the 70s and early 80s. My primary school had two classes….one for infants and one for juniors. There didn’t seem to be much differentiation….I can remember the whole class doing the same mental maths test every week. My older brother would hold me up to,write on the blackboard.

When I was one of the older juniors we were expected to help the younger juniors. So I was the only year 6 on my table and if the younger ones were struggling with the work which had been set they had to come to me. The teachers were available in the staff room which was just off the classroom for emergencies!

And the other really bizarre thing I remember is being sent out the school for unaccompanied art lessons. So given paper and pencils and told to go and find a house to draw…..we didn’t even stay together as we were told to draw different houses and be back by the end of the day! 🤷‍♀️

@2reefsin30knots

My mum taught reception and when I was a pre-schooler I went with her! I had a lovely time. I even went to staff meetings and sometimes sat on the Head's knee. That would have been 1982-3ish.

My DM was a single parent and my head teacher. After school I used to roam the halls whilst she had meetings/finished up. I helped the cleaners by mopping, wiping tables and emptying bins, chopped up worksheets for the teachers on one of those guillotines that could chop fingers if not an arm clean off, and sat in the staff room (when no meeting in there!) reading through the unusual books that get sent in the hopes the teachers will buy them. Best of all, I spent hours playing on the only PC in the school. It was something that was heavily rota'd during school hours, so a huge bonus. I loved it!

Although more recent than the sixties, I think I must have had one of the “last standing” old school teachers in the late nineties (she taught my Dad back in the sixties though).

Whilst we didn’t get compared in report cards that I am aware of, the class was seated in order of cleverness. I’m not talking groups, I mean individual rankings.

I was at the top end so it didn’t bother me, but looking back it must have been awful for the “worst” pupil!

I adored the old fashioned teaching styles. I loved learning cursive (and actually doing old fashioned handwriting practice) and standing up and reciting times tables in front of the class. The competitive nature appealed to me more than the “wishy washy” nature of the NQTs we had in later years of primary.

That said, I’m so glad that things are done much more softly now. My son would not cope well at all with the pressure of a competitive environment at six and I love how personalised and understanding to children of all abilities the teachers are nowadays.

Fascinating thread!

I can't remember how many per class there were. The school did have one TA though (not sure what her position was actually called then).

When I was at primary school (60s) and in my early teaching career in the 70s, TAs were not a thing! There was usually one in the reception class who was called an "Infant Helper". Some schools with a big intake may have had two. But mostly we were on our own.

We had these in the late 60s ... a chart on the wall with the names and position in that week's tests ... 1 to 36.

@ErrolTheDragon

I think there must have been a shortage of teachers or a 'bulge' of kids around then. My older DB let slip DM had been a teacher before she married, he was went home one lunchtime to ask her to come and speak to the headmaster (no phone) ... it was to beg her to return to teaching. So I was allowed to start school just after I turned 5 in jan 66 instead of having to wait for the Easter second reception intake.

I can't remember how many per class there were. The school did have one TA though (not sure what her position was actually called then).

DMs first teaching job was near the end of WWII in the east end of London, a class of 56 boys.

The post-war baby boom tailed off in the early 60s, I believe - because of the arrival of the pill? There must have been a huge shortage of teachers by modern standards, but I'm sure class sizes were huge before the war as well. I also have no memory of teaching assistants in any of the three primary schools I attended from the mid 60s to the early 70s, in three different places. I remember there being well over 40 children in all my classes.

I also let slip to one of my headteachers that my mum was a teacher and within days she was working in the school as a supply teacher, just coming in when needed to cover any class in the school (we lived two minutes walk away). I think she may have brought my younger brother with her, as we had no family locally who could have taken him and he wasn't school age at that point. She got a job in our next school too, but I think that was arranged through the LEA, in the days when LEAs just sent teachers to schools - the head would have no say in who they got, let alone the governors (if there were any back then, which I doubt).

I do remember some children in what in England would now be year 3 (so 7yo) who were clearly struggling and would now be described as having learning difficulties. They disappeared to special school soon after that. There was no differentiation of work as far as I can recall. We all did the same thing at the same time, so no doubt there were some kids permanently lagging behind and getting no support, in fact probably labelled as lazy or thick and written off . In my next school, there was the 'remedial class' for children in that category. They spent part of the time in our class but also had smaller group teaching in (I assume) the three Rs.

Changed days!