50 things I remember about primary school.

I saw this on Clare Grant's blog and it brought back memories so I decided to give it a go. 50 things that I remember/remind me of Primary school.

1. The fact that my school was situated in front of the nature reserve on the street in which I lived so I could roll out of bed at 8:30 on those grey, dismal mornings and still get to school on time.
2. Hanging our coats in the cloakroom on pegs with our names on and placing our lunchboxes on the shelves above.
3. We had our own personal trays with our names on and if they ever got full, we would swap space in our friend's trays for sweets.
4. Having Mr Mantom read bible stories to us every morning from a lectern in assembly.
   
5. The local vicar, Rev Collins would visit every Friday and have the whole school giggling with his silly renditions of Jonah and the whale.
6. How our school never taught conventional sports in P.E. If, on the rare occasion the weather was nice, we would be allowed outside to play a made-up game called Long ball. Otherwise, we would have to stay in the hall and learn maypole dancing, ready for the town's May festival.
7. Winding up the dinnerladies at lunch times and finding out they were usually one of the pupil's mothers.
   
8. Never having anything you wanted to eat in your lunchbox.
9. Being told off for constantly talking or trying to be too 'smart' for my own good.
10. Having to make some kind of craft in school time which you would then have to buy back at the school fete ... cheapskates.
    
11. Running in and out of the conifer trees at breaktime even though we weren't meant to and end up getting covered in a red rash.
12. Taking part in the total joke that was cycling proficiency. You literally had to cycle around the playground twice and up the road and then you were considered a pro on a bike. Do they still teach that?
13. Watching those awful 'Look and read' films in the AV room each week. I remember 'Badger girl', 'Geordie Racer' and 'Spywatch'.
    
14. How my school's AV room doubled as everything else. It was a music room, a TV room and a mini assembly room.
15. No-one knowing what the hell AV even stood for until year 6.
16. Being sent to the library meant a whole hour's worth of messing around in the corridor pretending to find a book.
17. The colour-coded reading books that you had to work through and everyone raced to get on to purple first. 'The magic key' series with Biff, Chip and Kipper were always a favourite.
18. Heinemann maths books where people would give up and just look in the answer books.
19. How being sent to the Headmaster's office seemed the worst thing in the world.
20. The medical room which smelt like a dentist, was the size of a small wardrobe and was filled with a sink and dozens of sick buckets.
21. Teachers always smelt of coffee.
22. My school was so small that the same people had the leads in plays every single year.
23. The nativity that always went wrong.
24. School dinners on those horrible green trays filled with lumpy custard and soggy hash browns.
25. Plimsoles in P.E :/
    
26. The first computer I ever used was in year 4 and it was one of those ancient Acorn ones that had 'Pod goes pop' on it.
27. Doing 'Don't wanna let you go' with two other friends by Five in Turns assembly where anyone could enter and do a song/dance/poem etc etc.... how embarrassing.
28. The school trip EVERY year was to the Butterfly Park or Stagholt farm.
29. Having to endure trips to medieval reenactment centres like Buckden Towers whilst dressed as a Tudor.
30. Accidentally flicking a ruler at a supply teacher in year 3 and feeling sick for weeks that I would get found out.
31. Being forced to write with fountain pens in the junior years and having them leak everywhere.
32. How teachers made a huge deal for months about studying for the year 6 SATS when in reality, they meant nothing.
33. Kiss chase at the in-school discos.
34. Having our school discos held in a sketchy little hall INSIDE the nature reserve and sliding across the dance floor pretending we were planes.
35. When the deputy head would dress as Father Christmas each year at the Christmas fete.
36. Trying to do long jump in a pit full of cat wee/poo.
37. SPORTS DAY. What a joke. Its called sports day, yet no sports are actually played. Everyone competes in a delightful series of events ranging from an egg and spoon race, bean bag race, skipping race, ball in bucket to hoop-la. And people wonder why the British suck when it comes to sports?
38. The awful green and yellow school uniform.
    
39. Playing stuck in the mud and British bulldog EVERY playtime.... until they banned British Bulldog.
40. People falling and grazing their knees was the biggest playground event.
41. Waiting in anticipation for the dinner ladies to check the grass and if it was (on the rare occasion) dry, we would be allowed on it.
42. Wet play times (which were often), sitting inside and playing with multi-link and k-nex.
43. Painting pointless pictures in the wet-area.
44. Story time - where no-one listened and just fiddled with their bags.
45. Overhead-projector duty was the most power anyone could be given.
46. Singing the same hymns every morning for the entire 7 years: jubilate, love is like a magic penny, the lord is my shepherd, cross over the road, autumn days and jesus emmanuel.
47. Saying grace every dinner time "Here I sit upon my chair, fold my arms and say my prayer, hear me jesus what I say - thankyou for my food today, amen". Lol.
48. Having to listen to classical music every morning in and out of assembly.
49. Feeling so important when on 'door holding' duty.
50. Feeling so grown-up when putting on the leavers' assembly :(