I grew up in Worcestershire, which uses a 3-tier system (First, Middle and High school). For me, this was Reception-Year 5, Year 6-8 and Year 9-11 (and then Sixth Form at the same establishment), though I believe there is some variation as to the age ranges at different schools. I started school in 2006, and finished in 2020.
I have plenty of good (and bad!) memories of school. I generally enjoyed education, though was bullied in later years at First school. I don't really have any "close" friends from school, there are various reasons for this but one is that about the time I started Middle school (2012), social media was becoming a thing, and everyone at school seemed to use it (who remembers "kik"? It seemed to be popular back then). However, my mum is a complete technophobe, so neither I nor my brothers had any form of device which could be used for social media functionality. As a result, it's highly likely that we missed out on a load of stuff that was going on outside of school. Indeed, I didn't use any social media until late 2018, which can't have done my (non-existent!) social life any good! (Slightly bizarrely, my mum bought all three of us a smartphone in June 2015; I'm not quite sure what brought about this unexpected situation. Motorola Moto G2, if anyone's interested. I used mine until I needed something that wasn't like pouring golden syrup out of the tin for a school trip 4 years later. Is this a record for the longest time a very budget smartphone has been continuously used?)
Anyway, back to school! (I will make another post in the school rules thread later, to complement this one.)
Notable from Frist school:
- The "brick area" - this was an area or the school grounds, which had a rough stone surface (ie: you wouldn't want to fall over here!). Within this area were about 40 ancient housebricks, with which the children could play. Not "pretend" bricks, actual heavy, solid, sharp-edged, dangerous bricks, ones with three holes in the middle for extra grip when throwing them about! To top it off, there were a couple of old, rotten tree stumps (around 50cm in diameter), which again could be moved around by the children as they wished. Basically, the area was a death-trap, and we loved it! I (and my parents) can't believe it lasted all the way until about 2010, when the bricks were replaced with rubbish foam substitutes. I think the tree stumps remained though...
- The grass area, upon which many fun games could be played, including "skid, bottom, die" (I cannot remember the rationale nor objective behind this game), and I think I can remember some games of bulldog being played (though I would've been around 5 or 6 when it was banned).
- Maypole dancing - the headmistress throughout my time at the school was Swedish. Thus, every May all the pupils took part on the Swedish tradition of maypole dancing, up in the courtyard of the big manor house where the owners of the country estate in which the school was located lived (I believe the there is a family baronetcy, the current holder of which has also been knighted!)
- Bonfire night - every year, the family (mentioned above) would put on a firework display and huge bonfire of material gathered during the day-to-day running of the estate. The bonfire was lit by a pupil at the school: to decide who had that honour, there was the annual "build a Guy Fawkes" competition, judged by local persons of note.
- Lots of other stuff which comes from going to a small school in the countryside, much of which I can't remember but was enjoyable
Middle school - not much of note happened here. I went on a trip to France in year 7, but ultimately it was fairly bland. There was nowhere near the same "community" feeling compared to the tiny (about 60 pupils) village school I'd been at before, where everyone knew everyone (pupils, parents (and often grandparents) and staff).
High school (including Sixth Form):
- Plenty of school trips - to the French/Belgian battlefields in Year 9 and Berlin in Year 10 for History. The latter was especially good. However, these were both surpassed by the two music tours I was involved in, to Italy in Year 10 and Austria in Year 12 (for a variety of reasons which I won't go into here, the Italy one was definitely better; my most notable memory of that was, during an on-land pause in the boat trip on Lake Garda, a group of about 15 of us across all four year groups on the trip popped into a supermarket where a good €70 was spent of strong alcoholic beverages! I didn't partake thereof, as I don't like alcohol and was only 15. There were a few dirty looks in the supermarket, but no issues purchasing the drinks. It's highly likely that most of the staff on the trip were aware of this excursion...). Highlights include performing in St Mark's Basilica in Venice and Salzburg Cathedral. I think it would be fair to say that Year 10 was a great year!
- Extra-curricular activities, mostly music - at least 3 days a week, usually more, I was at school until approaching 1700! The music department was great, everyone involved in music knew everyone else, age differences weren't a barrier in any way like they would be in "normal" school, it was a great community.
- Generally, I just enjoyed school, especially high school. I had plenty of friends, but as mentioned before no close friends. To an extent it felt like I was on the edge of many different friendship circles, but not inside: I didn't get invited to anything outside of school, for example. Not being the most sociable of people didn't exactly help though!
I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff that I've forgotten! If anyone has any questions about any of this, please ask and I'll explain further.
EDIT: just to clarify, my school career came to a somewhat abrupt, unexpected and deflationary end in March 2020, for reasons which I'm sure you can all guess...
