Welcoming the School Days
Earlier this week, I purchased my daughter’s school uniform. My eldest, my baby, my cheeky four year old, is starting school in September, and I feel like the time has literally been swept from beneath my feet. It feels like only yesterday we bought that tiny little bundle home from the hospital, and sat nervously in our lounge wondering how the hell we we were being trusted enough to become parents. The last four years have passed in a blur of crying, sleeping, cuddling, laughing, crawling, walking, running and talking (and not just hers!). In September, we will see her biggest milestone yet. Erin cannot wait.
Our school days are by far the most important days of our lives – whether it’s infant school, junior school, boarding schools or even flexi boarding such as that offered at Rossall Independent Boarding School– school is the first step in our academic lives, the creation of those first important friendships and for many, including me, will create some of the most precious memories of our childhood.
This is me – 1988 – and I haven’t changed a bit!! 🙂
Memories from my school days include:
- Putting our chairs upside down on the tables before we went home for the day.
- Hearing shouts of “The bell is for me, not for you!” when we all made a dash for our coats at 3pm.
- Shiny black shoes – and going to have my feet measured with Mum. I had a pair of Clarks Magic Shoes with keys on the bottom, that I loved so much that I was constantly licking the mud off the key with my finger. No wonder I was always ill.
- Sitting cross legged on the carpet whilst the teacher read to us from a giant book, I’m pretty sure that the book was giant, however I was very small at the time – it is probably just A4!!
- Book Fayres – that filled the hall with lots of exciting books and treats to buy. I always appeared to come back with a joke book and created quite a collection!
- Lining up for assembly before filtering in and sitting on the wooden saying Gooooood morrrrrrning mrrrrrsss robinson!
- Overhead projectors – I could never figure out which way the damn plastic went!
- Accidently calling my teacher Mum (we’ve all done it – or maybe that was just me!)
- Hiding Valentine’s Day Gifts in my draw to pretend I had a secret admirer!
- Seeing my first ever real life snog (other than on Neighbours) when Chloe and Paul had a moment in the corner of our classroom in year 5 when no one was looking!
- Posting our Christmas Cards into the big red post box in the corridor before having them dished out by the teacher at the end of the day. I was always super excited to open them!
- Walking home with my Mum who would always ask lots of questions about my day.
- Earning House points for good behaviour – I was quite competitive, so this always spurred me on.
- Sports Day – and chants of FLEMING FLEMING FLEMING – the egg and spoon race and my favourite the slow bicycle race – whats the betting the latter wouldn’t be allowed now due to “health & safety”!
- My first nativity – and refusing to wear my wings. I then proceeded to wave at my Mum for the entire show, meaning that every single photograph is me just waving like a lunatic! 🙂
- Finally – my best memories from school were making my first real friends – some of whom I am still friends with today!
Whilst a lot of Mums are emotional about their children starting school, I am actually really excited for Erin. Despite being one of the youngest she is definitely a social butterfly, and as such I have no worries about her fitting in or being overwhelmed. For now, she is super excited to start, and I hope that her school days will be as happy as mine!
What Memories do you have from school?
*This is a collaborative post*
I’m dreading the day that my daughter goes to school… It will be the moment I have to accept that she’s not my little baby anymore…
I have a lot of the same memories, I remember having one of the desks which opened up and I’d have so much stationary in there it was crazy x
OMG yes! I loved those desks! Except when people stuck chewing gum under the lids!
Haha I have so many of these memories too! We’ve all called our teacher mum, I think that’s a rite of passage. Love the photos of you as a child, too cute!!
Oh what an exciting time! Daunting but exciting! I hope she really enjoys school – and haven’t we all called a teacher ‘Mum’ once?
hahah ‘the bell is for me, not you’ oh how I remember that!
I’m dreading the day my little boy goes to school. I think all parents do though.
The “the bell is for me, not you” must be a global thing! the amount of times I’ve heard that is unreal!!
oh god the embarassment when you called your teacher Mum! haha
haha i share a lot of those same memories! I really do think we all must go through exactly the same things! lol
Aw good luck with September, I have every faith the transition into full time school will go well. There is so many emotions but I am sure things will turn out for the best x
I have so many of the same memories from my time at school x
Haha reading your list gave me so many happy memories of my own! xxx
I enjoyed reading about your school day memories. i have so many too….good and bad! I want my daughter to love her time as a school kid.
It’s crazy how at the time you just want to be all grown up and escape school and then you’re out and wishing you could go back. God this makes me think of so many school memories but one of mine was getting a part in the school play because I did a great Barbara Windsor impression
Ha ha claim to fame
It’s funny how many of your primary school memories are the same as mine! Trays, letterbox for christmas cards, nativity plays, sitting on the wooden floor in assembly lol! Love it! Good luck to Erin when she starts school x
Weirdly enough a friend of mine went to Rossall as we lived nearby in Poulton :). Can’t say I have many fond memories of my school days though – mainly cause I didn’t turn up :O! Definitely don’t recommend that for any young rascals these days though haha.