Rate your Primary school, Secondary and College experience.

Right

Primary School:

Back then, delighted to get out and head to "big boy school" but hindsight I really enjoyed it, bar First Class and Fifth Class which were horrible - (women teachers the worse) , one a nun (so not really a woman) . Funny enough they would kiss one's ass now that they we left.

Most of the teachers were great. No doubt I probably did not enjoy myself all of the time -religion crap but you got two big money days in the Communion and confirmation. Funny enough I was legendary for getting off school to serve morning mass and mid week funerals and the odd mid week wedding as the church across the pitch. We were mixed from baby infants to First Class and then the boys and girls went to separate sister schools up the roads from 2nd to 6th. It was a rough school too, but did me no harm , confident enough to walk through some of the knacker areas of town after that. On hindsight, my best school days were there, at least 6th class

It is where I met most of my best friends, many of them I still chill and keep it real with. All boys school so that meant football in the yard for the small break at 11am , big break 12.30 (sometimes the pitch) and the little 5 minute break at 2pm.The fights, the dirty tackling on concrete with a small ball. It was, as Eamon Dunphy would call, "street football". How none of us became top class pro's or even League of Ireland standard is beyond me.
The school retured to Mixed school long after me and the school yard wars ruined that. Stupid girls.

Then there was the usual trends of wallpaper for covering school books which had to be bought every year, the usual dreading coming into school on a Monday or midweek if your team (Arsenal) got beaten by Man Utd. I will always remember the morning that Neyem scored from the half way line. Any time I or the other two Arsenal supporters in the class touched the ball, the rest of the class sang that. I remember we were all so obsessed with the Premier League back then. We all knew who played for who. Same with Serie A when it was popular. Could barely name many players now. You had pogs, premiership stickers, game boys.........endless amount of cake sales. The best thing was the sport. My god they treated the winter soccer inter school league seriously. Relegation and promotion, semi's and a big final. The same with the GAA tournament during the spring months. That was serious. It was massive prestige to win either the junior, intermediate or senior final. Our school use to properly line out the pitch, we would wear awful tight 1980's GAA jersies (that the local Senior GAA team might have worn back then lol) and parents would come. We also had a tag rugby tournament for 5th and 6th class. Then there was sports day itself. That use to get heated (in a good way) I was rubbish at running but collected a lot of winners trophies for team sports. One of the big draws was the long runs. My younger brother and his rival were the best athletes in his year. Went head to head in the sprints and long run. Rather proud that he won the big race. Participation in sport was encouraged, but, you would always get two boys walking around making daisy chains instead. LOL. Along with the soccer and gaelic tournaments, 5-6th class pupils were encouraged to take part in the year long table tennis tournament that had relegation and promotion - 5 divisions throughout the year. We were then seeded for the knock out. Not a word of a lie, the semi and final was like out Wimbeldon and the two years got off class to watch them events. All of these tournaments had a trophy or plaque and your name was engraved forever more. Alas, our school was old school. Ya did not get medals for just taking part. BS to that. It was all about winning. We had some great days on the school football team travelling around, teacher (6th class) always bought us ice cream and not the cheap stuff either! Legend.

Probably the best teacher I ever had was in 6th class. While my 3/4th class teacher treated us kindly and we loved him as a teacher (legend) our 6th Class teacher treated us like men, which was a help after the horror of 5th class - where , ahem, the fairy boys got on with her. There was no room for alpha males in her class. Got to go on some great tours to places like Clare (1995 - heat wave) and Galway, Temple more Garda Station and kayaking in Lough Derg (no women's shopping with our 6th Class Teacher) . In hindsight, I missed that time

Secondary School.

Mixed school, first time since First Class. An eye opener after 2nd-6th Class. I can not really say that I had a negative attitude towards the school. I got on great with the teachers, it was the best school in town, met more friends who are are still tight with to this day. This just got more serious with exams, girls, football commitments, the first drink, drugs... In a way that phase of boozing late nights in fields made sure that I got that out of my system while in College. Some people in college were like idiots - first time away , go mad. From a social side, if I knew what I know now, life would have been easier. Just chill , yo. Some embarrassing awkward moments. It was the least favourite time, but good all the same. There was definitely a sense of Freedom once the last Leaving Cert exam was done, knowing ya passed it. You were looking forward to College.

The trends? Our school was extremely strict on the uniform. Black or brown shoes. No trainer. Tie on at all times. No coats in class no matter what. No taking off jumpers on warm days to stop the pervs -( all of us boys) looking at what bras the girls had and how big they were. There was most certainly no dying of the hair (frosted tips were in at the time) No shaved heads (I had issues with that, it was only a two or a three on top) and no hippy long hair. Compare us to the other schools we looked very posh, no standards in those schools. There were the New Rock boots which were normally favoured by the goths but oddly, in my school all the "shapers" , dance heads and wannabe popular dudes and sheep (laughed at all the jokes even if they did not get it or that the joke was on them) wore them, and also wore these god awful sleeveless double coats, which were the rage.

Sports was fun and we got to go on a few trips. The ball/grad was a big heap of a mess but fun. So many lads were raging that their dates were scoring with someone else. I just bought me friend so knew that was a no no. Funny how people who would not glance at you in school and you vice versa all became friendlier when we meet years later when everyone was home from college during the summer or years later at Christmas etc. Much to the great relief many have aged badly and I ain't one of them (had a youthful look back then) Funny how some of them turned out. Jealousy and / or smugness creeps in a little when you hear about how such a such was doing now, depending on how well you got on with them back in the day. One thing is for sure, the level of top dog/top doll in school was leveled out by then. Many of the cliques between groups had died. Goths became clean shaven and more nightclubbers, scum bags remained the same or cleaned up or got worse (sometimes that was sad to hear) others then completely changed.


Third Level -

First time seriously away from Home. Due to saving like a Mofo for two years of summer working , I was a pretty rich student (in student terms) First two years , yeah, even now I think of them fondly. Work hard , play hard was my motto. Monday -Tuesday-Thursday Night I would head out, and then when back in the home town the odd Friday Night and definitely Saturday Night. Up Sunday Night to College, depending who was about, might to to the nightclub (free in) I laugh now how I and two other people from the Midlands would travel well over 100km each way up and down every week just to work in our crappy jobs in the home town (and to chill with the home boyz) It was bonkers. The night life was outstanding, well known town (Letterkenny) Decent college too, got to know everyone - for better and for worse lol

Third and Fourth year, novelty of rage week wore off, even the town, course got harder ,women messing with yer head, money getting tighter and , in the last year I kinda with awol for a good 2 months when it mattered the most (my messier friends got that out of their system a year earlier after having to repeat their years) Had stayed in the town for a summer with the mott. Bad idea - town only came alive at the weekend. Oh well, missed nothing in the home town. Relieved to have finished in the end as money was a drag by then. Had my fill. Dreaded the big bad world that was coming next . Have not set foot in the college town since . Nearly 10 years now. No desire too, despite making friends with the locals

Leaving Secondary and Third Level, I realised how much fun I had in Primary school, especially when we use to go back to Primary School to vote. Remarkable how memories can flood back. Yards and classrooms looked huge to us back then but are tiny now. How did they fill 27 lads ? We must have been tiny.

Wow, I remember Primary more fondly. Funny that. All those lines and treats of being hit with a ruler or flying metal pencil sharpeners (yes, corporeal punishment was gone,but that did not stop them)

MY PRIMARY SCHOOL EXPERIENCE WAS ONE WORD HELL THIS WAS IN THE 1980S I WAS BEATEN AND CHOKED KICKED TO THE GROUND MY HEAD WAS PUT DOWN A TOILET BY THIS MAN BY A EVIL SCHOOL TEACHER ITS UPSETTING ME JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS NIGHTMARE I WAS 10 YEAR OLD BOY AND THE SCHOOL TEACHER WHO DID THIS ME WAS A MAN ABOUT 40YEARS OLD THIS WAS IN THE 1980S ALL CAN SAY ITS WAS HELL ON EARTH

Your Face wrote: »

Plus they didn't even teach Composition.

Composition the school teacher who did this me and many more was a Sadists the only sum he did was 666 evil going to primary school was hell I Know I am not only child this happened to the devils teacher I must do sumthing about this evil Man I was just 10 a little boy and the state did this to me and others why because we where poor he did do that to the rich/privileged kids in the same class he did not pick on them . poor kids from disadvantaged areas we where like JEWS and I not joking it was that bad Hell Hole Primary School Was For me where is my justice? why has nothing being done I will tell you why most of dail eireann are x school teachers

My secondary school was the top Catholic school in Northern Ireland, it may have fell from the top now though.

It made a big deal about promoting Gaelic sports and the language but when I wanted to promote my pre Anglo Gaelic heritage by growing a beard when I was 18 I was forced to shave in the toilets, I took a photo of that moment which I hope to get in the newspaper some day.
It was one of the saddest days in Irish history in my eyes. Being enforced like a little peasant to conform to Anglo grooming standards.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Primary school - got threatened with physical violence by the staff most days
Secondary school - got threatened with physical violence by other pupils most days

Everyone knew nothing would ever be done about bullies whether staff or pupils, so there was no point complaining about anything. It was very much sink or swim, never show any weakness or make a mistake or fail to conform to the norm or you would be in sh*t.

The nuns in junior infants -> 1st class though were the worst, vicious b*tches with a fetish for whacking tiny children with leathers. Way worse than the 'Christian' Brothers, only had one as a year teacher (2nd class) and he was pretty cool and never hit anyone (I presume he copped on and left), had an angry vicious old drunk one as a commerce teacher in first year who did whack with the leather for getting a question wrong - although corporal punishment was illegal a year or two by then - before end of the first term he disappered never to be seen again and we never had a CB teacher again. Presumably off to Loman's or John of Gods drunk tank.
The lay PE teacher was a psycho though, albeit he limited himself to verbal violence (afaik) he could burst your eardrum at ten paces with a roar, over little or nothing. Very insecure individual. I presume the army turned him down and he never got over that so decided to make everyone else he met suffer instead.

Yep, Nuns were evil ,and way worse than Marist/Christian Brothers

At least if you were good at sport, they would treat you well.

Nuns? Utterly hopeless at teaching as well. Snobs of the highest order

We see that French cartoon about a bunch of nuns and loving children in a school/orphan. All dirty lies.

Despite having some Grand Aunts who were/are nuns, I still feel like Fr Jack when I see a nun approach me.