After visiting 3 schools, I find thinking more about myself in these walls than my DC! I fondly remember those blessed times where we could learn about how history bits interlocked, how physics worked and how biology made our bodies move. Learning about light or magnetism, classics or poetry.

How lucky these kids are, not to have to toll at work, but to be in an environment where all that is asked of them is to learn about the wonders of our world

Being an adult does suck after all

Youth is wasted on the young!

I would have loved to have gone to a school like my dd's have. I had a real handful of great teachers and it is no accident I did well in those subjects.

I don't think I would have liked to have coped with all the social media though. We really did go home and had no contact with school and friends until the next day.

All comes home with you today though. DG

Ugh, no. I had a relatively happy time at school, but even so, being a teenager was bad enough then, it must be a nightmare now. Now, I would like to be 18 again...

I would like to have been taught by my children's teachers rather than those I had (I think teachers generally seem so much better than my experience).
However I don't think I'd like to be 11 again. I wouldn't mind being in my early 20s though!

Yes I would! I went to a reasonable comp and have done ok. When I see the schools we're looking at for our DD - I think I would do so much better!

God no. I swanned about free as a bird at my primary school, doing self-directed projects, for example one on wasps which I studied by sitting in the school field and waiting for one to fly past. The year 6 teacher took the desks outside in the summer and we all sat there pretending to work and waving at passers-by, who were not then reported for being paedophiles. We still took toys in for the last week of term or 'helped' the teacher tidy the stock cupboard, getting freebies like faded sugar paper to take home and mess our bedrooms up with. Evenings were spent riding our bikes up and down the street or roller skating on those metal ones which you had to extend with bolts and then put on with your pumps. No designer trainers to show off then. And there were no exams till your O levels so the first 3 years of secondary school were spent decorating exercise books with the names of your favourite bands, which then got covered with old wallpaper when the teachers caught up with you. And despite all this time wasting, here I am now with a whole load of qualifications, so it didn't hold me back!

No, I think it was much more fun when I was young and I do not envy my children now - measured and assessed and 'stretched' and compared from the moment they are born virtually. Like scary, I would want to be a bit older - 22 maybe.

+1


I agree Amber - it was much more relaxed, particular remember the lack of agonising when people didn't do so well on some subjects and it was just accepted that that was the way they were. (Latin )

Old school feels like a fortress now - can't get in without a code to open the gates / door or an ID badge aaaagh.

It's fun when many posters refer to the relaxed atmosphere of their childhood, while mainly I miss the learning, guess we are all different

Visiting those schools and reminiscing classes on old mesopotamian civilizations, Egypt, onto Greece and Hellenism, then Rome!
Discussing with friends about the strategy used at Agincourt, Austerlitz or Stalingrad, then observing meiosis and mitosis, before having a debate about capitalism or communism, before ending on some mathematical problem.

Who cared about exams or homework, it was all about learning for fun, having a wide culture and not a narrow piegonholed one, and not having to work! Think about it again, getting education for free! (and having mom/dad pay the food )

Did you really enjoy it all so much at the time though? Like you, with the benefit of hindsight, I would love to have the opportunity to go back and learn all those varied and interesting subjects again, but if I'm being honest, at the time most lessons seemed pretty boring and school and studying felt like more of a chore. Its only now as an adult that I find I have an interest in science, maths, history and literature unfortunately.

In terms of then vs now, yes we probably had more freedom and less assessment (at primary certainly), but I think its a mistake to think of it as all rosy. Teachers are generally nicer and make more of an effort to make lessons interesting these days IMO. And while we didn't have social media problems back then, bullying was still common place. The majority of teenagers these days seem to be more accepting and understanding of others. Racism, sexism and homophobia were far worse back then IMO.

Eurgh, those interminable Thursday afternoons of double English lit. It was always November, always dark and raining and always the most horrifically boring crap. I loved art but the art teacher hated me for reasons I've never been able to guess so I had to drop that at the earliest opportunity.

No thanks, served my sentence and have been on best behaviour since.