Can you remember your first day at school?

freshpopcorn · 29-08-2013 01:15AM #1

I started junior infants back in the 1990's. I actually liked my first day of school and I have a good memory of it but when I found out I had to go again the next day I wasn't that happy.
Can you remember your first day of school?

beertons · 29-08-2013 01:20AM

Yes. Started in 1984. Balled my eyes out for 5 minutes. Then I forgot what I cried for. A girl might have walked past me.

toastedpickles · 29-08-2013 01:21AM

Yep! started in 94, walked inside and sat down, my mam left, everyone elses mam left, they all started crying and I just sat there thinking, why are they crying? Mammys gona come back? Fools!

Witchie · 29-08-2013 01:22AM

Yes I started in the late 70's and remember comforting a friend of mine who was crying and telling her not to worry that her mum would be back for her.

I was so clued in and controlled back then........

Tigger · 29-08-2013 01:24AM

Yup
1979 and I went in with my best friend (a girl) who promptly decided that gender segregation was in order

andyman · 29-08-2013 01:26AM

Started in 1994 and had wet myself before myself and the old man walked out the door.

3rdDegree · 29-08-2013 01:27AM

Yes, way back in 1971! Holy ****! Am I really that old!

Cried for about 10 minutes until I realized my next door neighbor (the kid, not the adult) was behind me. That seemed to cheer me up!

I recall one other kid going completely mental and having to be physically restrained (with difficulty) by the teacher. Was like something out of "...Cookoo's Nest"! Funny, that kid continued to be completely mental all his life. Lost track of him after prison.

Osmosis Jones · 29-08-2013 01:27AM

I remember walking up to the room and leaving, nothing in between. God knows what happened in that classroom.

3rdDegree · 29-08-2013 01:28AM

andyman wrote: »

Started in 1994 and had wet myself before myself and the old man walked out the door.

Sounds like the end of a good Saturday night to me!

smellmepower · 29-08-2013 01:28AM

Yeah vividly,was 1991.I loved it,lots of new toys to play with.Was slightly curious as to why most of the kids were crying and trying to escape

My enthusiasm for school only lasted a year or two though.Got to know the truant Garda very well!

Duggy747 · 29-08-2013 01:28AM

I remember my mate and his twin sister hogged all the fresh Mala and smooshed it all together so it was just one big multi coloured ball by the time anybody else got a go.

Bastards kept that up for the remaining year.

Zaph · 29-08-2013 01:29AM

Another 1971 starter, but I can't remember anything at all about it so it was either uneventful or so traumatic I've blocked the whole thing out.

markomuscle · 29-08-2013 01:30AM

Yes, I cried.
School was horrific, all 15 years of it.

29-08-2013 01:37AM

My first day in primary school was in France. I had just moved there and couldn't even speak the language! Some laugh.

First day in primary school in Ireland a few years later I got given out to for kissing all my classmates (because that's what they do in France!).

Mickey H · 29-08-2013 03:40AM

I do. It was fun actually.

ArnoldJRimmer · 29-08-2013 04:23AM

Yep, early eighties. I've a clear memory of my Dad marching me up to a pretty miserable looking teacher. Loads of the other kids were crying but I didn't see what the problem was. Then grabbed a toy, sat down and took in the new surroundings

_Whimsical_ · 29-08-2013 04:27AM

I remember being sitting beside an anxious little boy called David who was quite paranoid and gave me a strange little speech about how we must be best friends and stick together forever.... me and him against the big bad everybody. At lunchtime we held hands and I can vividly remember his tight grip and his pinched frightened face. By lunch time the next day he'd realised holding hands with a girl was not cool and he was having no more of me and I blended into the big bad everybody for him.
I met a new " best friend" next day though so it was ok:)

zenno · 29-08-2013 04:34AM

I remember the first day alright. I was balling my head off when my mother left me at this weird big stone structure with other baby-schoolers balling their heads off, so i felt a bit better seeing that everyone else was in the same boat.

And this woman of which i never saw before asked me to hold her hand and to come with her.

She said... hank, don't be afraid, we are going to a room to play, so i was all giddy waiting to play but i ended up in a room of 26 balling babies, and then i knew my future pre-school days were going to be bad.

Denise90 · 29-08-2013 04:34AM

I remember the first day really well. There were two 6th class girls who had to mind us during lunch, they gave us rainbow popcorn and some really sour little sweets but the most prominent memory from that day was the nun that taught us, she would pinch our shoulders so hard to get our attention, we were all terrified of her from that day on. I meet her regularly now and she's actually a lovely woman.. I guess she just didn't like children!

Dravokivich · 29-08-2013 11:40AM

Would have started school in '88 I think. Don't really remember anything of the first day in particular. I remember bits of being in that school, but most of'em, not exactly when.

kippy · 29-08-2013 11:43AM

Nope,
Can remember very little of national school to be honest..........

Muise... · 29-08-2013 11:49AM

Loved it. There were clucking jackdaws nesting in the roof and a smell of crayons and milky tae. Ah, 1979. I think the Smashing Pumpkins wrote a song about it.

Czarcasm · 29-08-2013 11:50AM

Started school in '79, I can remember the first day I went in and I had sat down on a chair, went up to get one of the jigsaws in tayto bags, came back, and there was another guy in "my" seat. I shouldered him off, sat down all smug with myself, next thing got an unholy whack across my jaw (damn big hands those farmers, even for a three year old!

) that knocked me off the chair.

We really got into it, but at lunch time we were the best of mates laughing and joking about it, we're still the best of mates 34 years later

Merkin · 29-08-2013 11:53AM

Remember it well. Wore a little Snoopy dress with stripes and I remember my older brother of 6 coming to check on me at lunchtime

sunflower27 · 29-08-2013 11:56AM

I don't remember my first day. But I remember my first school photo. I was a shy little kid and was terrified, although I think I hid it well....

Just happened to have this photo on my laptop... the innocence:D

That was 35 years ago. Oh Wow!!!! :eek::eek::eek:

Muise... · 29-08-2013 11:56AM

Czarcasm wrote: »

Started school in '79, I can remember the first day I went in and I had sat down on a chair, went up to get one of the jigsaws in tayto bags, came back, and there was another guy in "my" seat. I shouldered him off, sat down all smug with myself, next thing got an unholy whack across my jaw (damn big hands those farmers, even for a three year old! ) that knocked me off the chair.

We really got into it, but at lunch time we were the best of mates laughing and joking about it, we're still the best of mates 34 years later

Wow! Did you go to school in The Big Rock Candy Mountain?

seamus · 29-08-2013 11:57AM

Barely. 1986. I remember going in and sitting beside a girl, who by chance happened to become my first girlfriend 6 years later (we went out for a total of 18 hours until I made her best friend cry), and who then also by pure chance ended up in the same college course as me 14 years later. Total hottie too by the time she got to college.

The only other thing I remember of that day is that our "copy" was basically a tiny notebook, not a full-sized copybook. We were given homework to do - "Draw a picture of Postman Pat". I didn't understand this concept of homework at the time, so I immediately set to the task. The teacher then stopped me and explained what homework was, so I diligently started erasing my picture of Postman Pat in order to do it at home. She went, "No...wait....*sigh*", but it was already done.

And that's about all I remember of Junior infants. Apart from one kid who had the worst tantrums, used to throw chairs around the place and stuff, scared the utter crap out of the rest of us and some of the teachers too. He kept doing that up till about 3rd class.

vitani · 29-08-2013 11:59AM

Some of it. I started in 1989, and I remember my mam bringing me to a table to sit beside one of my friends from our road, and kind of anxiously going 'look, here's Fiona. You can sit beside Fiona' as if she was worried that I'd be scared if I didn't know anyone. I don't think I was scared at all though.

I remember the whole class was brought outside to play in the yard on the second or third day and everyone ran around playing apart from me and one of the boys. We stood at the side, watching, standing up and down on our tiptoes.

29-08-2013 12:04PM

No but I'm told my dog sat watching me get into my aunt's mini that morning wondering where I was going and why he wasn't coming with me.

I was looking through some family photos recently and he was in three quarters of the photos with me. I miss that dog.

Richard Hillman · 29-08-2013 12:07PM

Vaguely. I was not one if those who cried, I did all my crying in play school the year before. I was a very quiet child in Junior and Senior infants. I used to walk around the play ground on my own following the lines. The teacher used to always send notes home about me never talking to anybody in the class.

I came out of my shell in 1st class and then they complained about me talking too much :pac:

sbsquarepants · 29-08-2013 12:09PM

kippy wrote: »

Nope,
Can remember very little of national school to be honest..........

Same here - i've a few events scattered through the years but that's about it. I know i started in 79 and was in a different school for the first couple of months and then moved, but apart from that its a blur!

Can you remember your first day at school?

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