h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you remember your first days at school? The first week of each course year. What did you use to expect? What about the teachers? Did they do something special you used to enjoy, during those first days?

Smells? Feelings?...

I ask this so that I can get some ideas*. I´ll be teaching ( a 15 days substitution) a group of 9-years children. It´s going to be the first time for me teaching that age.
I can´t recall anything from my school days except that I was looking forward to starting it. I remember the pleasure of smelling the new books, and the riped quinces we used to eat in the breaks.

I´ve googled some tips, like presentations, surveys… to get to know each other´s names and so on. But nothing more.

*Just say what you please. Surely it´s interesting.

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1st year High School - day one, 2 strokes of the tawse for trying to cut a 1" steel bar with a sheet metal guillotine.

2nd year, day one, 2 strokes of the tawse for fighting.

3rd year, day two or three (?), 6 strokes of the tawse for dissolving a kid's glasses in a bucket of acid during chemistry.

4th year, second week, 4 strokes of the tawse for laughing at a teacher's bean can exhaust falling off his car then looking guilty.




So the lesson from Scottish teachers was - get the retaliation in early

Oh yeah, the tawse - http://www.s1lochgelly.com/media/the-lochgelly-tawse-in-action.html

Yes, they probably should bring back the tawse.

During my very first week of secondary school, I got separated from my class on the way to my first Technology lesson. I wandered into a class filled with kids my age and sat down; it was several minutes before I realized it was one of the other classes in my year!
I rushed next door and shuffled in, muttering timidly, "Is this class 1T?"
The teacher answered "No." Not picking up the sarcasm, and after having been wrong once, I turned to go. Of course, this was met with universal hilarity, as the teacher hurried to set me straight and sit me down.
By this point, it was clear that any explaining would only make things worse, so I just shut up and hoped the incident would be forgotten. However, teenage boys being what they are, I don't think my credibility ever truly recovered from this disastrous depletion.

University went better, although it was not until my third year that I met the friends I've kept since.

First day at primary school. Seemed ok, don't remember it much. I wandered off into a different classroom because I didn't realise that I was supposed to stay in one classroom.

A few months later I announced that I didn't like school, and wasn't going to go anymore. And my parents said 'ok then, we'll home educate you'.

You can be too child centred.

I remember lots of class detentions. We were told we were 'the worst-behaved class', which for all I knew, they said to every class, so I became cynical early on. I remember the whole year being shown a promotional film from a bank at the time that careers were being discussed, and the teacher asking a kid about what the film had taught him. The kid gave the answer he knew the teacher wanted, to show that he'd paid attention. Then the teacher asked me, expecting another dutiful answer, what with me being a bright kid; but unfortunately for him, I already deeply mistrusted any adverts, and told him I'd learnt nothing from the film because it was clearly one-sided.The teacher looked sour and made a comment about how we should guard against cynicism. And he was right, cynicism is a caustic quality, but it was the school that made me that way. Interesting to re-evaluate things from the perspective of age.

Infant school, age 5:

I remember being sat in a corner on my own and given a construction set consisting of orange translucent plastic hexagons which slotted together to form 3d sculptures.

I don't remember it, but I'm told that they rang my mum to pick me up early, as I'd burst into tears and was utterly inconsolable.

Infant school, age 4 and a bit, because my birthday falls in July


My first teacher was a redhead called Miss Trevor. She was lovely, everyone liked her.

I can't remember much about the next year, except that I had a lot of time off through tonsillitis - no, not lilitis . By the time they were removed I only had a couple of weeks left before the Summer hols.

Then there was Mrs Bennett. She was a treasure and very patient.

Mr Rowlands was my final teacher in that school. He taught me that I *did* know long divisions and multiplications of £ s and d by making me write the answers on the blackboard in front of the class

Then I had to move school, and had a year of sheer hell until I entered Secondary School!

I went to lots of primary schools (6) and can remember a hodge podge of first days. The most confusing thing was not knowing the rules, where was I supposed to sit, what was supposed to happen at break etc. I always hated the register as the teacher always mispronounced my name and commented on how unusual it was.

I started secondary school during the teachers strike so on our first day we hadn&#39;t been put into classes and had to sit a test so that we could be streamed. This would have been scarier if I had realised the potential impact. There were 12 forms in my year and I distinctly remember being terrified by the overwhelming press of people.

My son is 9 and waiting to go back to school so I asked him what happens on the first day....the highlights were taking over the new classroom- moving furniture and talking about where they would be putting their work etc. He loves telling his news and is looking forward to &#39;what I did in my summer holidays&#39;. Much to my amusement he is planning to ignore all my planned to please activities (Alton Towers, Legoland discovery centre) and talk about a picnic in the woods. The teacher also goes through the timetable with them (both for the day and the week) and talks about the projects they will be starting.

His teacher also gives them extra play on the first day as they tend to be far to excited to settle.

First day of primary school, before school had even started, a bigger kid of probably seven years old (to my five, so he seemed much older and bigger) came over and punched me in the face. I was an only child, so I'd never been punched in the face before. He'd clearly honed his technique, though, because it really hurt. Obviously, I cried. This he seemed to consider hilarious, and certainly something he wanted to see more of, so he hit me again. I staggered a bit and ran off crying to find one of the large, strange smelling adults standing around the playground. I found one, and tearfully indicated my attacker, and related the two unprovoked punches. The teacher's response was to take me firmly by the shoulder with one hand, instruct me loudly and clearly that it was wrong to tell tales, and hit me, hard, across the back of the legs. That set the tone for my primary school experience.

I read in a local newspaper 2004 that she'd been found dead in her home. I was so happy that I went out and bought a bottle of champagne, and toasted my mild regret that it hadn't been sooner, I hadn't been there to see it, and the possibility that it might have been quick and not long drawn out and painful.

People used to ask me if I enjoyed school, and when I said "no", told me I should, because my school days would be the best days of my life. I'm so glad that I was so sure they were lying, because if I'd believed them I'd have killed myself before I reached 10, on the basis that if my primary school was as good as life got, oblivion or hell was preferable.

When I hear this Twiggster, it makes me feel so furious. Because I know that you're telling it as it was.

You may think that your example was unusual, but no - I used to have a job which involved removing sadistic teachers from schools. It seems that there were a lot of people in teaching a while back who should have never been within a mile of a child.

There didn't used to be much in the way of mechanism to ensure that schools were adequately inspected, I vehemently hope that no teacher is in a position to victimise children like this and get away with it.

Sorry to derail your question maria, but Twiggsters account is rather dreadful to hear about.


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When I was four I started school - and was in a huge class of strange children. Half of whom seemed to be bawling and crying . I couldn't understand why. There was a sand pit, which puzzled me - Sand? inside?

I was given some paper and crayons and so started to write - the next day I was moved into a different class which had reading books - so I played along with learning to read. It seemed rude to let the teachers know that I already could do so.

When I was seven I moved into a Junior School. Very shortly after, I remember being sent for at playtime - to stand in the staffroom, which had billowing smoke. All the teachers smoked in those days.

I was asked to spell words like chrysanthemum and rhododendron. Nothing takes a seven year old by surprise. Teachers are just odd.


So, imagine my shock recently ( actually it was my mum who was shocked really ) when we found out that the reason for this was that there was a book being run in the staffroom about which words I could spell. I think a lot of money changed hands that day.

I mainly remember incidents where I was too shy to say something. Early on in my first year at Grammar School, we had Art first period on a Monday morning. On this particular morning, we entered the classroom and the art teacher sat us down and started to rant - mainly to me - about people who had been talking in assembly. I sat dumbstruck for what felt like 30 minutes while he humiliated me in front of the class. Then he mentioned that I had been talking to "my friend so-and-so". I hadn't been sitting anywhere near the girl! In my indignance I had to say so at this point. He had confused me with someone else! So I suppose he was more humiliated than I was in the end, but I'm sure I'm the only one who remembers it.


Thinking back, you would think that an art teacher, of all teachers, would have an accurate eye for faces and be able to tell them apart.

On another occasion - at primary school, I must have been 4 or 5 - I remember desperately needing the loo towards the end of lessons. However, lessons went straight over to evening prayers for which the rest of the school crowded into our classroom. I was edging my way towards the door during the short prayer ceremony but didn't make it so I weed myself right in front of the big boys.

These days, kids aren't shy and are encouraged to speak up which is good. From my own kids, I have also learned that what they say is often right, and their protests are, more often than not, justified.

One thing I also remember, Maria, is that the pupils spend a long time talking about what the teachers look like and dress like, so teachers should avoid extremes of dress. Those 9-year-olds are on the threshold of puberty and will be pretty giggly.

One thing I also remember, Maria, is that the pupils spend a long time talking about what the teachers look like and dress like, so teachers should avoid extremes of dress. Those 9-year-olds are on the threshold of puberty and will be pretty giggly.<<<


This is a lovely comment. Back in the day, when I trained to teach, we were encouraged to make sure we were turned out attractively. Not to wear dull-as-ditch-water clothes and always to take something curious or wonderful to share with the children each day. It could be something small, such as a pretty plant to liven up the classroom, some fantastic artwork to hang on the wall - something from nature etc etc.

Not necessarily as part of the lesson - but just a talking point and something to make their classroom feel exciting. Some classrooms have spaces for collections of curiosities to which the children can contribute.

I remember a cloakroom, a peg with my name and a simple picture above it, the same name and picture were sellotaped to my desk at the *yellow* table. There were 5 or 6 of us at the yellow table. I had a wooden chair and a sloped desk, everyone else chairs were plastic and their desks were flat. One of the boys in the yellow group had an eyepatch for a lazy eye. The rest of the kids in the yellow group seemed to be a bit slow (i later learned that I had been grouped with those who had shown signs of learning disability) and within a few weeks I was moved to the 'blue' table, where I made a friend.

mini

One abiding memory of starting a primary school year is the beginning of my second year. For some reason that was never explained to me, instead of going from Class 7 to Class 6 and then Class 5, half-a-dozen of us stayed in Class 7 for two years, then skipped straight to 5. I don't know whether it was a class-size problem, or a clerical error, or what, but it was the eldest children in the class, and I was born in October, so I was one of them.
However, the school had a practice (which may be standard in all schools, for all I know) of bringing in the reception class a couple of weeks after the rest of the school starts in September. This meant that, for 2 weeks, the whole class comprised 6 of us and the teacher. Let me think... Heather Labelle (the eldest), Trevor Nock, Carina Langley I think, Marie Bartle I think... The rest, I forget. I remember a mixture of excitement and resentment when the 'new lot' arrived.

I sobbed pitifully when my mother 'abandoned' me on that first day at pre-prep. However, by the age of eleven, I'd established myself as someone not to be messed with...... a bit of a bully, in fact, though I never punched anyone in the face.

In my first term at public school, towards the end of a lunchbreak, a boy from another class told me that someone wanted to see me in his classroom.

I entered to find the entire form standing, and recognised a few boys from prep school. A sturdy-looking young man, though no more sturdy than I was, squared up to me and, without warning, punched me hard in the mouth so that my lip bled profusely.

I didn't fall flat on my back as was no doubt intended, but stood firm as it dawned on me that this was supposed to be a lesson for the bully. I stared coolly at my opponent's face, which had turned ashen, as he waited for the certain reprisal.

I grabbed him, forced him to the floor, pinned back his arms so that he was helpless, but threw no punches. No one came to his aid. Could it be that he was their class bully, and the lesson was for him?

Then the bell sounded the end of break, and I walked out of the room, bleeding, my pride intact, though unsure whether I was hero or villain.

Gosh, All these dramatic memories!

My memories of the infant school days are mostly happy! Although every one else seemed to know what to do on the first day of school, and was merrily getting on with it.
I hadn't (still haven't) got a clue!

I do remember wanting to have my turn on a see-saw (indoors!) and felt like I stood there watching for hours. Always, somehow, missing my turn. Eventually, the wonderful teacher pulled some child off and allowed me my turn. How ever, I felt mortified for the other child, and can't really remember actually playing on the see-saw. I think I got off pronto!

I also remember vividly, playing the recorder (self taught by ear....music lessons?? no chance!) for the school assembly. I played Baa Baa Black Sheep ...twice!

I remember my first Primary School being very competitive. We had spelling contests, times table contests etc. We used a modular learning system - SRA? - that allowed pupils to progress at their own pace which in turn became another contest. Me and another lad used to surge ahead in class so we were given tasks to do in the main hall to stop us getting bored - I remember us drawing a huge Apollo rocket on the back of a roll of wallpaper. When I was 9 I switched school and was dismayed to find no SRA and a much more laid back approach. It was pretty boring really because I was ahead of the kids my own age and couldn't stand the slow, methodical pace of the new lessons. I also missed the praise and encouragement for doing well. It seemed to me as a selfish wee sod that the thickos got all the attention so I started getting into trouble.

On my first day at junior school I beat all the girls and four of the boys at arm wrestling. None of the other boys would risk being beaten by a girl. I haven&#39;t arm wrestled since, and so am still undefeated.