Web Page 2092
28th September 2014
Those Early Days at School.
We all have strong memories of our first few days at primary
school, although nowadays most children tend to go to pre-school, so it is not
such a shock to the system for them as it was for the children of the 1950’s
and 60’s!
When we started school there were no state pre-schools or
nurseries, so for most children just turning 5 years old, their first day at
school was the first time they had been on their own, away from home. Most
mothers did not work outside the home, so for many of us this was also the
first time they had been apart from their mothers. Consequently the first day
of infant school was a very tearful event for both child and parent! My first
day was in the Solent Road Annex in a wooden hall behind the Methodist Church
in Station Road. In fact Keith Conlon and I both started school together.
Having got over the first pangs of separation, school life soon
fell into a predictable routine. School milk was part of this routine. In Post
War Britain school milk, a third of a pint per child per day, was introduced in
schools to supplement the child’s diet as food shortages were still rife. In
1971 school milk for the over-sevens was withdrawn by Margaret Thatcher,
then Secretary of State for Education – for this she was dubbed 'Thatcher,
Thatcher, Milk Snatcher' in the press. During the harsh winters of the late
1950’s it was a common sight to see the small crates of milk outside the school
gates with the shiny bottle tops standing proud above the bottles on a column
of frozen milk. Of course the only way to defrost the school milk was to place
it by the radiator, or in some classrooms round the coke stove. This had the
effect that we were then forced to consume watery, lukewarm milk. And forced we
were – “milk is good for you child, you WILL drink it all up!”
The School Broadcasting Council for the United Kingdom had been
set up in 1947 and the wireless or radio played a great part in the education
of school children in the 1960’s but I cannot ever recall listening to a radio
programme during any lesson in Infant, Primary or Senior school. For some
schools ‘Music and Movement’ was one such program and all over the country in
school halls, children could be found leaping and stretching to the commands on
the radio, but not us. We had PE or PT lessons and in the lower schools there
was no such thing as ‘gym kit’ so the children just removed their outer clothes
and did P.E. in their vests, knickers or underpants and bare feet or plimsoles
(usually purchased from Woolworths).
Another such program was ‘Singing Together’ where the class
would gather to sing traditional folk songs and sea shanties such as ‘Oh
soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me’, ‘A-Roving’ (see below), ‘Michael
Finnegan’, ‘The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies’ and ‘Oh No John’. Again this was
not something we experienced although we did have singing lessons and learnt most
of the songs. However, when as an adult you examine the content and meaning of
some of these old folk songs, you ask yourself whether they were indeed
suitable for the under 11s is another question!
Visits from the school nurse would break up the daily routine.
The nit nurse used to make regular visits to check for headlice and all the
children in each class would line up to be examined in turn, their hair being
combed carefully with a nit comb to see if there was any infestation. There
were also routine eye and hearing tests, and visits from the school dentist.
There was the polio
vaccine, given at school to every child on a sugar lump but before this could
be administered mother had to be present. Measles, German Measles and Mumps
were not vaccinated against; most children contracted these diseases in
childhood and it was common for healthy children to be taken to play with
infected ones so their immune systems could be built up. German Measles, or
Rubella, can affect unborn babies in the womb if contracted in pregnancy and so
if a girl in the class caught German Measles, it was not uncommon for her
mother to throw a tea party for the rest of the girls so they could also catch
the disease.
Class sizes in the 1950s and early 1960s were large, often between
30 and 40 children to a class, as these were the ‘baby boomers’, us children
born after the Second World War. The teachers had to cope on their own as there
were no classroom assistants and so discipline was usually strict. It was quite
common for a disruptive child to be rapped over the knuckles, on the buttocks
or on the palm of the hand with a ruler or for more serious
misdemeanours the cane came out, but only for the boys.
When we went to school it was very much ‘talk and chalk’
education, with the teacher at the front of the class and the children sitting
at desks facing the board. Reading, writing and arithmetic (the Three ‘R’s)
were very important, as was learning by rote. Times tables were learnt by
chanting aloud in class and poetry such as Wordworths’ I wandered lonely as a
cloud’ would be learnt by heart for homework. Neat hand writing was seen as
very important and practised daily ( I never got the hang of that!)
Nature study was popular and often the only science taught at
primary school with the children being asked to bring in things such as leaves
and seeds for the teacher to identify and then placed on the Nature Table and
later on these items were used in art and craft work.
Of course this was also the age of the 11-plus. We would
practise previous papers in school in order to prepare for these tests, which
included writing an essay, a maths paper and other papers. There was even a
non-verbal reasoning paper which was designed to test a child’s IQ with a
puzzles and problem-solving questions. This was always – and still so today - a
contentious method of school selection, the 11 plus system did facilitate
social mobility, as places at the grammar schools and other senior schools in
the 1960s were allocated according to the results of these tests, and not on
ability to pay.
It all seems a very long time ago as it is almost 65 years ago.
I really am getting old!!!
Stay in touch
Peter
DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
You Write:
News and Views:
On this Day 28th September 1960-1965
On 28/09/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura
I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Down Drury
Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV
show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth
£13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division
1 champions.
On 28/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John
Leyton and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV
show was Coronation
Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of
today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 28/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis
Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top
rated TV show was Coronation
Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was
worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1
champions.
On 28/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves
You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please
Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office
smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and
Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 28/09/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good -
Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard
Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office
smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of
today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 28/09/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken
Dodd and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The
top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office
smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and
Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big
news story of the day was LPs cost 12/6d.
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