Fun Facts About My Primary School Days

It’s been quite a while since I brought you a “Fun Facts” post. 

In case you don’t remember them (or have no clue what I’m talking about), so far the series has included:

• Fun Facts about My Childhood
• Fun Facts about my High School Days
• Fun Facts about Me and Him
• Fun Facts about Our Wedding
• Fun Facts about My Career
• 50 Fun Facts about Me
• Fun Facts about My Bear

Today I present the latest edition: Fun Facts about My Primary School Days!

Our house was on the border of Aspley and Zillmere, so there was some debate about which primary school I should attend. Aspley had a better name, so I attended Aspley East State School from Year 1 in 1972 to Year 7 in 1978 (except for a brief period at Sandgate State School in Year 7 when I was living at the Sandgate Children’s Home).

1 – I don’t think too many five-year-olds would do this nowadays – I would often walk to and from school (2km each way).

2 – I could NEVER finish my lunch when I was in Year 1, which meant I rarely got to play. In hindsight I think the school milk we were given at morning tea filled my little tummy so much I just wasn’t hungry after that.

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3 – The rare time I did end up being allowed to go on the playground, I was a master of the monkey bars!

4 – At parade each morning, we had to sing the national anthem, except back in those days it was “God Save the Queen”.

5 – We then marched off to our classrooms after parade, to marching tunes played over the PA system. I used to think the first line of “76 trombones led the big parade” was “76 trombones was all the band could play …” 😉

6 – I was one of the youngest in my year (having a January birthday), small, shy, and wore glasses.

7 – My most embarrassing moment? Wetting my pants in class in Year 1 (I was scared of the toilet block).

8 – No surprise then that I was bullied a lot in Year 1, but eventually I made one friend …

9 – However I was devastated when she had to repeat the year, while I went on to Year 2.

10 – It was all good though, I made a lovely new friend called Anita in Year 2.

11 – She was the one who introduced me to my milo addiction … but at the end of the year, she moved with her family to Ayr.

12 – I was dying to do ballet lessons so was enrolled in a class after school when I was in year 2, however I hated it. Where were the pretty ballet slippers and tu-tus I’d dreamed of?!

13 – Sticky glue was the playground favourite in year 2.

14 – In year 3, the craze was for knucklebone jacks.

15 – In year 4, elastics ruled the playground.

16 – In year 5, we played popstars and red rover. We didn’t have to wear school uniform, so I’m sure I went to school in some very garish outfits during this stage – the more colours you were wearing, the more likely you were to get a free “pass” and could cross the golden river without getting tagged!

17 – Even though our school colours were green and gold, the uniform fabric was bottle green and white checks.

18 – When I was in about year 5, we got a sports uniform as well – a bottle green wrap around skirt, and a gold tshirt which was screen printed with the school emblem.

19 – By the time I was in year 7, the uniform I’d known was being phased out, with a larger green white and gold plaid replacing it – not that I ever wore it.

20 – In year 3 or 4, I really wanted to join the school marching band – they looked so smart in their orange and white uniforms! (And no, I have no idea why they wore orange when the school colours were green and gold!) But I couldn’t read music to save my life, slight impediment that LOL.

21 – When I started learning the fife, I used the fife my mum had when she was at school. It still worked but I was mortified as it wasn’t the lovely shiny new instrument that everybody else had.

22 – I had a bit of a temper it seems! In about year 3 or 4 I was being teased so I hit the culprit – another girl – over the head with my fife. Oops! I was really scared of getting in trouble but got off remarkably lightly. Let’s just say I think the teacher/s knew I put up with quite a lot from this particular girl

23 – In year 5 a boy was teasing me for bringing my favourite doll to school (Cinnamon, you could make her hair long or short) – so I hit him over the head with it and her head fell off! Although my parents glued her head back on, it just wasn’t the same after that 🙁 .

24 – I went on my first ever school camp in Year 6, to Baden-Powell at Samford.

25 – Parade was held once a week on a Monday morning for the years 3 to 7.

26 – On the other days, we stayed in our classrooms and our mornings started with announcements on the PA, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and singing a hymn or Sunday school type song. (You wouldn’t find that happening in a state school now I’m sure!)

27 – After lunch, the principal would again talk to us on the PA, and read us a chapter of a book – the whole school would listen. We were allowed to put our head down on our desk to rest during that ten minutes. I always loved that quiet time after lunch.

28 – One book I remember the principal reading was “Isle of Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell; another was “February Dragon” by Colin Thiele.

29 – On Friday afternoons in years 5, 6 and 7 we played school sports. If you weren’t good enough for a sports team (competing against other schools), you played either softball (summer) or netball (winter) in your house team. I had terrible hand-eye coordination, so whenever I tried to catch a ball, I ended up injuring my fingers – so they would swell up and cause me a lot of pain.

30 – I always wanted to be a library monitor but never made the cut – I loved books and reading, and wanted to use the date stamp! (I ended up becoming a library monitor in Year 9 instead).

31 – If I had to pick my favourite year/teacher at primary school, it would be year 5 in Miss McKendry’s class. She was a recent teaching graduate and had lots of creative ideas; every Friday we had “A” day until sports time at big lunch. “A” stood for Activities Day and the classroom was set up with various activities, so that we could choose what we wanted to do. I also loved the clothes Miss McKendry wore – she always looked very stylish!

32 – Year 6 was memorable for a few reasons. I was dreading my new teacher – a strict older lady, but I found she was lovely.

33 – That was also the year I got rubella (german measles); and my parents split up.

34 – In year 7, I got to have tuckshop every Friday – a meatpie and a jam and (mock) cream donut. YUM!

35 – Also in year 7, I sometimes got to help out at the tuckshop 🙂 .

36 – Such a rebel – that was also the year my friends and I started wagging sports, and decided to hold our own dance class in the “health room” instead. I remember we made up a dance to Leif Garrett’s version of “Surfin’ USA” and had a great time until we made too much noise and got sprung by the teacher in the classroom next door, and that was the end of that!

37 – Lessons in the AV room were the best! We would watch Behind the News on a (colour!) TV, or some ancient educational film on the projector screen. I think Behind the News is still going …

38 – Our music teacher was a classical music nut, and I am reminded of him every time I hear Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nacht Music” and Beethoven’s Fifth.

39 – A lot of the students – especially the boys – wouldn’t even wear shoes to school. Ewwww!

40 – The fancy dress ball was the highlight of the school calendar – held at Cloudland ballroom in October each year. With the arch lit up in coloured lights, perched on top of the hill, it looked like fairyland to a child!

41 – In year 1, my parents granted my wish to dress up as a butterfly. But again, there was no tutu or gauzy wings or sparkles like I’d dreamed of – I don’t look very impressed in this photo, do I?!

42 – In year 2, I went as a (blonde!) spanish senorita with castanets on my hands.

43 – In year 3, our class dressed up as old fashioned maids and farm hands. My grandma made me a long pink dress and a white mob cap.

44 – In year 4, our class did a dance to the Bonanza tune, and had to dress up as cowboys/girls.

45 – In year 5, it was a Hawaiian theme and I remember being very cold in my bikini and hula skirt! LOL

46 – In year 6 and 7, we were allowed to wear “Sunday best” instead of a costume (how childish!). I wore a lovely pink dress with a full skirt in year 6, while in year 7 I wore a blue ruffled top and skirt (that I hated, but I didn’t want to wear the same dress again).

47 – I think there was only one school fete in all the years I attended, when I was in Year 6 (1977).

48 – I was the winner of the Year 2 spelling bee – a very proud moment!

49 – We were tested each year for our “reading age”, and I was very proud to always be well ahead of my peers. In year 7 for example, I had a reading age of 15 even though I was only 11 at the time.

50 –  To celebrate the end of our time at primary school, we went on an excursion to the beach at Bribie Island, and the bus was filled with the music of the Village People. YMCA anyone?!

Reflecting on my primary school days, I pretty much felt like a little fish in a big pond – overlooked, ignored, forgotten. I sometimes wonder what it’d have been like if my parents had sent me to the closest primary school instead (which didn’t have such a good name) – it was much smaller. Would I have stood out there? And why was it so important to me?

What was primary school like for you?!