Primary School was Awful

[Jazzy G]

I changed primary schools partway through the first proper year after reception because my mum got married and we moved from Blackburn to Darwen. Even though I was the new kid I managed to make a fair few friends who I'd go and hang out with. Primary school wasn't too bad. Secondary school was a bit shit because of stuff I realise now is because of my being Autistic. My self care wasn't (and still isn't) great so I was the smelly kid, and I never did much of my homework but was a smart nerdy kid. Fortunately some of my friends from primary school were a couple of the toughest kids in the year/school so they'd look out for me if they saw I was in trouble. A-levels were fun, but I dropped out after a year because while I was doing great in the lessons I didn't do the coursework. Doing my B-tec in music was great though. Probably one of the happiest times of my life. 

[BomberPat]

I have a twin brother, and I'm always amazed by how well he remembers anything at primary school. His Christmas present to me had a note on it saying, "have a ka-ching-ing Christmas", which was something that someone at primary school wrote on a Christmas card to him in primary school some 30 years ago. I vaguely remembered that because it was a cringe bit of made up local slang, but he then asked me who had written it, and I had absolutely no idea. I could tell you the names of maybe 4 or 5 people from primary school, and two teachers, the rest is a complete mystery.

I was bullied at primary school; I was an awkward, very skinny little kid, shit at sports, and used to get picked on for that a lot. It was the early '90s, so "Ethiopian" was the go-to insult for anyone with visible ribs, which is fucking grim in retrospect. Between that and Skill being an African Bum Disease, the African continent didn't come out well from East Yorkshire playground banter.
 

It was a small village school, spread across two sites - infants at one end of the village in a big '70s pre-fab, and juniors in the original Victorian school building at the other end. The Victorian school had a field we were only allowed out on for a couple of months a year, and no other PE facilities to speak of, so if we were doing PE we changed into our PE kits at the old school and had to traipse through the village to infants to use their sports hall. 

Ostensibly because it was a Victorian school, we had a "Victorian Day" every year - I don't know if that was to coincide with the Hayride, or if that was a separate excuse to get dressed up in flat caps and tweed and look at some shire horses. Our lessons were all done in a "Victorian" style, which largely meant exactly the same only the teachers were allowed to be dickheads for historical accuracy. 

[tiger_rick]

Primary school was incredible. I went to 4 of them, all in Hull, because we kept moving house to get to a better area (yes, that does exist, fuck off). I still had the best time at all of them. Particularly my last one. It was a catholic school - a scam so I could get into good secondary - but other than the singing and the rumours of closets where our predecessors were "bummed" by priests - it was incredible. I had the best friends, spent every break playing football, tag teaming as the Mega Powers to fight some little kids on the hill or fighting off all the girls. Don't think I ever had a bad day, despite a pretty unhappy homelife for good chunks of it. I found it a sanctuary, looking back. Actually, I had a couple of bad days but they both involved getting "dumped" by some girl or other so self inflicted.

My Mam always said school would be the best years of my life when I used to complain and, fuck it, she was right. Absolute shitshow since!

[LaGoosh]

Fucking hell sounds like some of you went to 70s borstals rather than normal primary schools.

Mine was perfectly fine, pleasant and uneventful. 

A few things that stick out in my mind from it:

- despite it not being a church school, just how religious it was. The Lords prayer daily, loads of assemblies about God/Jesus, endless hymns. So weird.

- our headmaster was a massive Jesus freak and one assembly he made us all sit there and listen to the R Kelly song "Gotham City" from the Batman & Robin soundtrack but change the lyrics from Gotham City to the name of the school in our heads instead. He made us listen to it 5 times in a row.

- we had a special needs teacher called Miss Bishop who would occasionally substitute the main class. She appeared to absolutely despise children. If she ever covered PE no one was allowed to speak or make noise and if you did the entire class had to stand absolutely still for 20 seconds. So you had 30 kids playing football, netball or whatever in complete silence for an hour. You weren't even allowed to ask someone to pass you the ball. Absolutely deranged woman.

Edited January 13, 2025 by LaGoosh

[BomberPat]

6 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

- despite it not being a church school, just how religious it was. The Lords prayer daily, loads of assemblies about God/Jesus, endless hymns. So weird.

This really stands out to me too; there was at least one teacher who made all the kids say grace before lunch, assemblies always had prayers and hymns, and quite often had an unusual vicar coming in to talk to us.

It wasn't meant to be a religious school at all, and there was the occasional nod to religious diversity if you were told that if you weren't Christian you didn't have to say the prayers, but you'd still always get a bollocking if they caught you not joining in - they clearly assumed Christian as the default, and by "not Christian" they only meant "if you can prove that you practice a different religion", which in my year maybe accounted for the one non-white and non-English pupil in the year, if not in the entire school, who was a girl from Sri Lanka. It's like an old joke in the military, that when people were asked their religion and said "None", the person filling in the form would write down "C of E" - just this baseline level of Christianity as a given, with no real thought behind it. I can't imagine it's like that now.

It seemed like the hall spent half the year filling up with tins of food for Harvest Festival, too.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Gooshy has sparked a memory with his talk of a deranged PE teacher. 

We had a day where British tennis Number 1 Buster Mottram turned up to teach us PE, rolling up to the school in his sports car, talking to the whole school about tennis which none of us really cared about and then taking us outside and getting us to take turns to play tennis shots, except we didn't have tennis rackets and he hadn't bought any so we used the sports equipment we had to play the shots and try and hit the ball. Let me tell you hitting a forehand with a cricket bat was not easy and he was not impressed. 

Obviously he has turned out to be a right wing nutcase over the years and I don't like tennis so who had the last laugh really. 

[westlondonmist]

I went to a non-faith primary and there were hymns and prayers and stuff. I thought nothing of it at the time, especially as I went to church anyway and I went to a faith secondary where it continued. Lots of people I've spoken to had the same and said all non-Catholic schools in England were essentially CofE schools in some form or another up until some point in the 90s where it got less frequent by the choice of headteachers or governors. Looking back it was a bit odd. 

 

I feel bad badmouthing my primary, I was definitely happier there than at secondary but I'm not sure if my views are higher because secondary was so shit. I also left nearly 30 years ago so my memory will be picky.

[MungoChutney]

I went to a Catholic primary school and having almost only good memories from the school. I was liked by the teachers for being capable and got on well with all of the class from the sporty ones to the geeks. As I got older I got more sporty and ended up being the fastest runner (by default because my pal Mick missed Sports Day).  That said I can easily see how for some of the other kids it was, and continues to be, an horrendous experience. We had a lot really warm, caring teachers but there were also a few that should not be working with children. Some of the things that were shouted at other kids would infuriate me if it was my son. 

Secondary was much worse for me, to the point I stopped going at age 14. I couldn't handle the size of the school (1600 pupils then) and the general increase in hostility and bullying that came with it. It was a great school in many ways too but I just couldn't deal with the intensity of it. 

[Mr_Danger]

Shortly after I shat my pants in the catholic school I moved back to my old primary school because the catholic school had me talk to a social worker without informing my parents when I was too embarrassed to tell them my black eye was from my girl cousin who walloped me with a brass ornamental shoe horn so I said I ran in to a wall. 
 

My other primary school was great. It was tiny and we were the first ever junior class and there were only 5 boys in our class. For the only time in my life I was the alpha male, best at fighting, best at football, naturally all the girls fancied me as the alpha. I’d never even shit myself there. What a life from 7-11. I quickly realised how painfully average I actually was come year 7 in high school which in retrospect set me on the path of averageness I’m on today.

[Slapnut]

I mentioned in the singing in school thread that I hated primary school, but I have very fond memories of school Christmas concerts. We put on absolute classics such as Grease, Dad’s Army, one about Santa turning cool which involved him wearing a leather jacket and a wrestling match between Triple H and The Rock, and my absolute favourite which I recently found whilst converting old VHS tapes to DVD recently which I believe was about Christmas dinner, but I appear to have been dressed up as a turd.

 

Edited January 13, 2025 by Slapnut

[simonworden]

12 hours ago, BomberPat said:

ostensibly because it was a Victorian school, we had a "Victorian Day" every year - I don't know if that was to coincide with the Hayride, or if that was a separate excuse to get dressed up in flat caps and tweed and look at some shire horses. Our lessons were all done in a "Victorian" style, which largely meant exactly the same only the teachers were allowed to be dickheads for historical accuracy. 

We didn't do it every year but around year 4 we got invited to Beaulieau (so?) for a Victorian day where we met Lord and Lady Montague, and had lunch with them all in Victorian garb and style. Best thing was a ride on the vintage bus they have there. 

The "lord and lady" were very nice and the day was pleasant but the teachers of course made it stressful. We had to find costumes of the period, Victorian jackets, flat caps etc. I remember my mother having a terrible time finding a jacket for me and I ended up in this green velour waistcoat which my teacher wasn't too pleased with. 

Shortly after my parents made me watch a south today with the real lord and lady Montague. We'd been proper duped and the two we met were of course actors doing a job for all the local schools. 

I'm realising my awful memories at Primary school stop about year 4. Anything after that was pretty self-inflicted apart from a bit of bullying. Got a sound teacher in year 5 who had travelled the world, written books, songs etc and while he took none of my 10nyear old bullshit was incredibly fair. He was the one who sorted the lunch issues and genuinely seemed to care if you were having a problem. 

Our headmaster was another guy in a similar style, both ex hippie types. He had an orange VW camper, did line dancing and played guitar in assemblies. 

If anyone can remember schools got a year 6 trip which was typically to an outward bound activity place. Nope not us, we got to go on a 5 day tour of Somerset. We had to spend months before learning and making a portfolio on the historyz geography and agriculture. I 100% loved this more than a bit of Kayaking. Had a great dorm room full of mates who I stayed friendly with during highschool including one who became the school nutter/hardcase giving some extra protection. 

[TheScarlettChad]

Primary School in inner city Manchester was fine, High school was fucking horrid. 

I got strangled by my history teacher because I had the nerve to tell him that I was kicked in the back, so he decides rather than pushing the lad, he grabs me by the throat and chokeslams me down into my seat. 

That same teacher, threw a lad out, literally threw him, out of the room for eating a ham sandwich.

[BomberPat]

Our Year 6 school trip was to Robin Hood's Bay, staying at some sort of youth hostel place nearby, where they had never had to cater for a vegetarian before, so they had to rush out and buy veggie fish fingers, which I was then fed every single night for however long we were there. One of the days we were there, we did a trip out to Whitby, and then had to walk the 7 or so miles back. 

Moved to secondary school, and got a school trip to Whitby in Year 7. And had to do the same sodding walk in the opposite direction.

[DCW]

I bloody loved primary school. I lived 2 mins away, all my pals from my road went there and my aunts best friend was my teacher for my first 3 years. She was like the hippy playschool teacher off Billy Maddison, except she smoked Rothmans like a chimney and played the Harp. We had to have a weekly visit from Father Harry the parish priest (aka Dirty Harry, due to teenage girls seemingly having free reign of his parochial house) and she'd always try and undermine him by telling us his stories of hell or whatever were only pretend, which steamed him up nicely. First slow dance, first kiss, first disgusting drag of a cigarette that put me off for life and first drink, all at the leaving disco when I was 12.  The drink was Malibu and mixed with blue nun white wine that Paddy Brady nicked out of his angry da's drink cupboard.

Secondary school was where it all fell apart for me. I was sent to an all-boys Christian brother's school that all the surrounding rough area kids went to, while most of my pals went to the mixed community school instead. I spent 6 miserable years there in their awful grey uniforms, with Brother Nick doing spot checks to ensure you were wearing black shoe socks, not black sports socks. Reckon he just had a foot fetish. I wasn't bullied, I just didn't fit in so I was sorta ignored.

I went on the mitch as much as I could, leading to the school wanting me drug tested, cos surely only someone under the influence of illegal narcotics would avoid the splendor of that school. My da agreed to it too, which really pissed me off. It came back negative of course, but they still wouldn't believe that the reason I mitched off was solely down to me hating every single thing about the place. Out of my form class, 4 are dead due to various acts of crime (one was found dismembered in a suitcase in an Amsterdam canal) and 2 are in prison doing long stretches for importing millions worth of heroin and sexual assault respectively. I had to go back to adult education in my early 20's to make up for my shite exams from there!

[TheBurningRed]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFvOHoFsai2/?igsh=MXQwZWdiY2RyenkwOQ==
 

I reckon whoever started this event saw this thread.