I remember a lot of things from primary school, but the one thing I don’t seem to remember is the sheer volume of homework that the 9 year old is bringing home lately.
Why would that be? It might have something to do with the fact that we didn’t actually HAVE any homework in primary school.
That particular pleasure (ahem) was saved up for secondary school in which we got daily homework.
Now I don’t usually moan about homework, I think it’s good they get some as it gets them prepared for high school.
The Easter holidays (that’s two weeks) has seen him bring four maths exam papers home to do over the holidays, and several sheets of A4 of various sums.
You what?!
The poor little sod’s been slaving away most of the holidays, but it has all duly been handed in.
To be given another two exam papers to hand in for next week.
Sheesh. These SAT’s exams they have nowadays in the last year of primary school have a lot to answer for.
I’m sure he’ll have some memories of fun times at school tucked up in his head somewhere as well, though.
My memories of primary school go something like this:
– Having outdoor toilets.
Oh, they were fun to dash across the playground to on a frosty day. Brrr. (Don’t even MENTION that horrible shiny tracing paper type bog roll they used to make us use. Shudder.)
Although we did have fun trying to climb over the doors and dangling upside down from them… π
They’re pampered, nowadays though. They have indoor toilets. (Don’t know they’re born.) I remember them being built in the last year or so I was there. We had a lesson where we had to do a time capsule pod thing and then put the time capsule down into the foundations.
So deep under the swanky pants toilets floor, there’ll be a little box full of letters.
One saying something likeΒ “Hello, my name’s Wendy and I love Kylie, Jason and reading books.”
That’ll flummox all those space age type people in a few thousand years time, wondering what or who the heck a Kylie and a Jason is.
– A mad as a box of frogs headteacher
No, she was lovely really. Although when someone did well or whatever and they had to stand up in assembly to be praised, she used to pat us on the head and sing a song about us all eating our shredded wheat or something that morning to make us strong.
*Sings* “Shredded wheat, shredded wheat, pat them on the head….” patting us on the head all the time.
If I remember correctly (I’m old now, it was a long time ago) we used to get the birthday ‘bumps’ too. Can you imagine that nowadays? The teacher’s would be too scared to allow that in case someone sued for their arm falling off or being wrenched out of place.
Β – school dinners
Oh, that chocolate crunch school dinner dessert thing with some green chocolate minty sauce stuff over the top. Yummmm.
I think it was sometimes pink as well with a strawberry taste.
Whatever happened to that stuff?!
Naughtiness
setting off the school bell as a dare (well, they would leave it in a daft tempting place such as the corridor wall.) Then having to spend the morning in disgrace outside the head’s office. Oopsie.
(Mother, if you’re reading this, I was good at primary school really… honest… )
So let’s hope the two small people of the household now have more good memories than homework memories.
Maybe not so much of the setting the school bell off type though…. I’ll be having words if so. π
I agree Wendy, the amount of homework many children are expected to do these days is ridiculous. Learning my spellings each week was the only homework I can remember from my primary school days. Even in my first year at secondary school we were only given one 20 minute homework per night. I sometimes think it’s time parents took a stand and said, ‘No, my child is not doing all this work.’
As for SATs, well at a school where I was a volunteer the headteacher one day came into the Year 6 classes and asked the children how they would feel if they had not done the very best they could in the tests and achieved as high a grade as possible. How’s that for putting children under stress.
And today I read that Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, thinks that the school day should be longer and holidays shorter. It seems that the Government believes that childhood should no longer be fun, it should only be preparation for being a productive worker.
Amazing how things have changed. We had a teacher who used to hit us on the head. He’d be struck off nowadays the very first time he did it – and rightly so! They do get a fair amount of homework, but my boy didn’t have that much in year 6, let along year 5. And he certainly doesn’t have that much in year 7, but maybe he’s not being 100% honest there! π
I *never* had homework at primary school – it’s very unfair! I never had school dinners, either, but I do remember how you used to be able to smell the boys’ toilets from inside the classroom – bleck.
Ooh, yuck! I have no memories of smelling the boys toilets. For that I’m very grateful! π
It does indeed sound like a different world to when I was growing up. You might enjoy this:
Nice site by the way