Memories on Monday - Primary School Days

Primary School Days - North Perth Primary School

For the first six years of my school life I attended North Perth Primary School - the same school my Dad had gone to as a child - although funnily enough I didn't find that out until I was an adult - weird how things like that happen. Although come to think of it, Dad never much talked about himself as a child.

I loved going to school and I loved this school, it was divided into lower and upper primary - which way back then was a little forward thinking - common now but not so much then. I think part of that was because the original older buildings became the lower school when the new one was built.

Way back then each classroom had a fireplace for winter - and there was nothing better than coming in after playing and warming yourself in front of the fire. Learning to the sound of wood crackling while it burnt. The ceilings where high so the rooms never got too hot in summer and there were big high windows that opened at the top and the bottom with long ropes that hung down to open the top ones.

There were no whiteboards or even green chalkboards back then, just large blackboards at the front of the class and every one got a turn to be chalk and duster monitor. I used to love bashing the dusters together outside and watching the chalk dust floating off into the air. Had to remember not to inhale though.

Those were the days when we used to get small glass bottles of milk, with real cream on the top, delivered in crates and every child got to have one each day. My Mum used to occasionally spoil us and buy straws with strawberry or chocolate favouring inside, so as you drank your milk became favoured.

My Grade 3 Class - I am wearing my favourite dress and long white socks
Yep, that's me 2nd from the left in the front row.

When I first started writing in pen, it was with a dip pen, we didn't get biros until year 5 - doesn't that make me feel old. So from Year 4 on someone was the ink monitor and had to fill the little ink pots up each morning. There was something simple and elegant in learning to write with a dip pen - although smudging was always a problem, although we had a blotter we were supposed to use.

Life was simpler back then, no calculators or learning algebra - that was all left to high school. We learned to hand sew from Grade 1, not my favourite subject but I loved the embroidery when we got to that. We had story time right up to year 5, with our teachers taking the time once a week to read to us, just a chapter at a time from one of the old classics. I used to love to listen and now I love to read to my grandchildren (and to my children when they were younger) - making up voices for all the characters - turning the story into more than just words.

We didn't have a school canteen, but there was a 'tuck shop' over the road that when you got to upper primary you were allowed visit to buy your lunch, I used to love it when Mum would let us buy our lunch - it was a treat as it didn't happen often.

There were no big fences around our school like there are today keeping vandals out, just a waist height fence as a reminder not to run out on the road if you were chasing a ball.

But best of all we were allowed to be kids - there were no high expectations about where we were going as adults, we were allowed to learn at our pace, to just enjoy the experiences of school.

Impromptu photo of my Grade 6 Class, taken by our teacher
Can you pick me out in this photo?
Need a hint? I am standing.

I read about all this national testing and the pressures it puts on schools and students, I mean they are even talking about testing 4 year olds. I know we need to excel as a nation in the world, but not everyone can be the best, trying your hardest should be enough ... and letting small children just be children - I can't see what is wrong with that.