Did you like school?

[Gemini]

I did not like my primary school, not at all. I disliked my headmistress, who I felt disliked me. She seemed to like the children whose fathers were vets, etc. Mine was a humble office manager. She made me feel stupid, not a good feeing for a child. It was a small private school. As a shy child it did nothing to prepare me for the big world.

I then went to a girls grammar school which I really enjoyed, once I adjusted. I had lots of friends, there was no bullying (which I did encounter, slightly at my small private school) and the teachers were great. We had a language lab, which was pretty rare I think.

Unfortunately I didn't work nearly as hard as I could/should have and left with a handful of O Levels, having no interest in staying on for A's. I just wanted to work in the theatre!
I did enjoy my secondary school days though

How was your school experience?

[Oma]

Hated primary our teacher like yours Gem favoured the more wealthy pupils , there wasn't many admittedly as it wasn't a wealthy area we lived but the few that did have money so to speak were treated better than the rest of us ,
Hated secondary even more I chose every opportunity to avoid it , the only lessons I loved were Needlework, Maths ,History , otherwise I had no interest , I left as soon as I could aged 15 with no qualifications don't regret one moment, I've had a blessed life and didn't need bits of paper to make me happy in any case we couldn't afford further education and the only thing I really wanted to be was a electrician and in those days it wasn't a women's occupation so had no chance

[Gemini]

You have done fine Oma
Me too, but when I was younger and working as playgroup leader, classroom assistant and creche worker I wished I had stayed on and become a teacher.

[Enfys]

Primary and Junior schools were ok, although some of the teachers were very strict and used corporal punishment (only on the boys) liberally. One woman was particularly horrible. Senior school...the headmistress was a bully, a horrid woman. There were favourite pupils, usually the ones who were either very good at sports or very clever, the rest of us didn't stand a chance. I left school with a couple of GCsEs and able to type,and do shorthand so at least I had some qualifications. If I could meet some of those teachers now I would tell them exactly what I think of them.

[Gemini]

Enfys, my mum (88 this month) clearly remembers one of her teachers who was horrible to her. Like you she would have loved the chance to meet her once an adult.

[Nanto2girls]

Been talking about this subject with several people over the past few days.i liked infants and juniors(didn't call it primary then),but I didn't like secondary school, and couldn't wait to leave.
Rosie goes back to school tomorrow,and she isn't looking forward to it all, she hates it.She will be 14 in November, but thinks they are treat like 5 year olds.
Maybe I shouldn't say it on here,but I'm going to, hubby thinks the staff (in his words) are little hitlers.
I worked as a classroom assistant for 9 years and loved it,but no way would I have liked to have been a teacher.

[Daisy]

I went to an infants school which I loved. Then we moved and I had to go into a junior school, even though I was only 6 (no infants' places available), so I went through junior school with everyone being a year older than me, but that was fine. I enjoyed it, although I can't remember anything we were taught there!

The girls' grammar school was a total nightmare. In the first year we had to sit in the same seats all the time in the same classroom and where I sat the light shone on the blackboard so I couldn't see it. I never told anyone, and tried to memorise what the teachers wrote by watching their hands! I was terrified to the point of being sick by the Maths dragon. The Headmistress taught us Latin and fear. In fact I was listening to the Saturday morning programme on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago and a lady 'thanked' this Head for telling her she wasn't good enough to apply for medical school - which made the lady really determined to become a doctor! When I told the Head I was leaving after O levels to do a Secretarial course I thought she was going to kill me so I wouldn't sully the school's good name with such a dreadful course. As you might imagine - I hated secondary school, didn't work as hard as I should, and like several others felt that only the richest, cleverest girls got the teachers' attention. College was great and I really enjoyed that.


Nanto - poor Rosie. When I was working in Colleges it was a frequent complaint by students that at school they'd been treated like 5 year olds. Some things don't change! But do say to Rosie that if she continues her education after 16 going to a Tertiary College or FE College would be totally different.

[Plantaholic]

Loved school, particularly senior school, didn't want to leave, loved the headmistress, went back to see her with my son, she even sent me a cheque when I got married. My DD hated school and now she works in a grammar school as a support assistant, supporting a blind girl ATM, she loves her job.

[Grauntie Mag]

I HATED Infants School, we came he furthest (3miles) and were looked down upon as we were ' the farm children'. I remember being taken out to the cloakroom and walloped because I got paint on my hands. We were only popular at Harvest Festival as we contributed the most! Juniors was totally different and I was happy there.
Secondary school was a waste of time, in the last year a few of us didn't bother going much and nobody noticed as they were too busy concentrating on the girls taking the new GCSE.

[Mimi]

I found that the junior school I went to seemed to concentrate more on the needs of boys rather than girls. Some of the older teachers didn't bother to hide the fact that the boys were favourite.
I remember one morning in assembly, the headmaster announced that the school had just taken delivery of a TV. He then went on to say that any boy wanting to watch the cricket match at lunch time were welcome to come into the hall and watch it on the TV. Big mouth here (me) immediately put her hand up and said, "Sir, that isn't fair, why can't the girls watch the cricket also " His reply "Girls don't like cricket " And that was that. I had just encountered my first, of many, equality issues.
I went to a girls secondary modern school, where to be honest I wasted most of my time. If I wasn't interested in the subject being taught I didn't give it my full attention so French and science washed over me completely.Bulling wasn't a problem for me and I don't think then it was as big of a problem as it is now, my son suffered terribly with school bullies and his school did little to tackle it. Within the first few days at my girls school an older, much bigger girl was stupid enough to pick on me, she pushed me into a corner and threatened to hit me if I didn't give her my dinner money. I'm not proud to say this but I hit her first , she didn't bother me again and word got round that I was the girl not to mess with. I have never , ever hit anyone since, and I have never ever bullied anyone.
The last two years of my school life was turned upside down because of traumatic experiences at home. My sister died at the age of 16 from an accident in the home which I witnessed, then mum and dad split up and mum told me she was moving out and who did I want to live with, what a terrible question to ask a 13 year old.
Needless to say my school work went to the background and at the age of 15 I left school with no qualifications whatsoever.
Would I do better if I could go back to school now, I doubt it, I'm too much of a fidget, I talk too much and spend most of my time seeing the funny side to everything!

[Gemini]

Gosh, Mimi, you did have a traumatic time back then

Good for you getting in first with the bullying girl!

[Clover]

In retrospect I did enjoy school. It was just one of those things you had to do. I think I was a bit of a goody-goody and never got in trouble. In Grammar school I had a terrific crush on our Maths teacher. I can still see him in my mind.He had blonde hair and was always joking but could also command control and respect as well.

[ZIZI]

My dear dad was in the army so I went to numerous primary schools and some were better than others. Had some really horrid teachers and some really nice ones. I always loved reading and was good at English and we were encouraged, as forces children, to write in italic lettering which I was extremely good at and can still do today with no problem. My maths skills were never at the forefront and I did get into trouble sometimes (one teacher called Miss Shallcross from a school in Berlin absolutely hated me and would deliberately choose me to solve what to me were completely hopeless calculations and humiliate me when I couldn't do them, I was often in tears). When I went to my final school it was in Bath and I was thirteen. My dad had just left the army under a cloud, we were living in a two up two down council house with my grandmother (5 kids, mum and dad and large and energetic golden Labrador - the only dog I ever really took to). My accent (compared to the other girls) was awfully posh and where I was in the A stream in my other school I was put in the B stream in the new one as there was not enough room for me in the A class, my dad was livid. I had passed the 11+ but only just and my dad decided he would rather me be top of the class in a comprehensive than bottom in a grammar and he felt I should have been in A stream full stop.

I did get bullied, a lot of the time it was my hair which was very long, other times it was me being the posh girl, but there were people who got worse than me. I was, according to my teachers, destined for great things if I put my head down. My parents spent so much time trying to kill each other (sometimes literally) that I decided I needed to leave home and there was so much argument when I said I wanted to leave school at 15 that I just couldn't be bothered with any of them and considered running away. It was a miserable time. My teachers insisted that I did RSA exams (Royal Society of Arts - no longer recognised) in English language, literature and something else I cannot remember. They also forced me into learning to type which I detested and deliberately failed the exam as I was NEVER going to need that skill don't you know??

When I left school I had a couple of receptionist type jobs while I went to night school to........ Learn how to type and do shorthand. I still use both skills now all the time. Then I left home much against my parents will and came to London and eventually went to Europe where I had a great time but only learned naughty things (that part of the conversation is X rated). When I was 21 and the mother of a 3 year old I did O' levels in English literature and Language using the forerunner of the Open University. It was called Flexistudy and was a mix of college at the weekends and home working. It was hard as I was also working full time. When I made the enormous mistake of returning to the West Country my son was six and I went back to college part time and worked part time getting six A Levels and my coveted maths O level which I took three times before I passed, I applied for and got offered a place at a teaching college but by then my short and disastrous marriage to my second husband had ended and I could not see how, without support, I could be at college and look after my son plus do part time work so my dream was gone.

I think in all no I did not enjoy school but I did gain from it. My favourite school if I am honest was when we lived in Gibraltar, I was 6. It was a shack at Europa Point, two classes in one big room. Cocoa and warm milk at play times, big wood burners that stunk to high heaven when it was cold, at playtime we would all go to the NAAFI and buy cream buns and the come back to the playground for what, when I think of it now, was a distinctly dodgy home mad roundabout which the younger teacher (who I remember being very tall) used to push whilst running like Ussain Bolt and we would be sitting there shouting FASTER FASTER FASTER. AND that school had the most lovely, smiley faced, cuddly teacher I ever had.

[ZIZI]

Oh and my very first boyfriend was at that school at Europa Point, his name was Ernest Mecedo and his parent ran the NAAFI. I was heartbroken when we moved to juniors which was in the centre of town and he was not allowed to join us as it was only for forces children and he did not qualify. You see how differently things might have turned out if Ernest had been allowed to come to junior school with me???

[Daisy]

Zizi - I don't think I know anybody who has had a more colourful life than you, but you certainly earned all those qualifications. If a fortune teller had mapped out your life when you were a baby nobody would have believed it.

Mimi - my heart goes out to the 13 year old you. What a tragedy and then your parents splitting up. xx

Isn't it awful that so many of us have bad memories of at least part of our schooling. I hope our school-age GCs are making better memories.