School

We all attended the local Primary School, about a 10 minute walk from home, until 1952 when we moved to Australia. Books and other equipment was provided free by the Government.
There was an "assembly" each morning in the quadrangle, where the National Anthem was sung, and the Headmaster presented any news or planned activities. When this was finished we all filed into our classrooms.

Teaching of the "times-tables" was done by the class reciting in unison one or more tables selected by the teacher. We were then given sums on the blackboard to solve. The times-tables from 2 to 12, as well as some other tables were printed on the back of exercise books.

For reading, we used our School Readers - books of short stories and poems provided by the school. We had periods of silent reading of a particular story or poem, followed by oral reading to the class by each student, of one or two paragraphs.
Writing practice in very junior classes was done on small slate boards with chalk. These were later swapped for exercise books that had lines on each page, and faint lines between then to guide with letter-height. Some had margin lines on one or both sides.
We used pencils for writing at first, and mistakes were not allowed to be "rubbed out" - we had no erasers anyway - but had to have a cross through them. When the writing was checked by our teacher, she drew a red ring around errors and the correct spelling above it.

Later we graduated to using pen and ink. The pens had "nibs" that were replaced by the teacher when we damaged them by dropping them or pressing too hard, or they were worn out. The black ink was in a small ceramic "inkwell" at the top of the desk and was filled each morning by the teacher. The pen was dipped into the ink and we wrote a few words before needing to re-load the pen.
The ink took about a minute to dry so it was often smudged when the child touched it. The remedy was a piece of "blotting paper" - porous paper that was dabbed on the writing to dry it. We were issued a piece of blotting paper each morning.

My favourite class lesson in later years was nature study, when we would sometimes be taken on a field trip with our teacher to look for interesting things like insects or animals in the woods nearby. On our return to class, or as homework, we had to write about something we had seen on the trip. On one occasion I couldn't think of anything so I invented and drew a colourful "pazla moth" that greatly impressed Miss Laurie, my teacher.

The school provided some meals, on Tuesdays I think, but maybe other days as well. I still remember the smell of the warm stew that was cooked for us when I pass a food-hall.
We were also given a 1/3 pint bottle of milk and a "rusk" - a sort of toasted finger of bread each day. The milk was brought by the milk-monitor appointed for the day, in a crate. It was great to be picked as milk-monitor as you got to escape from the classroom for about 10 minutes, and sometimes got an extra bottle of milk!

There were some not-so-memorable events during school years, like use of the "cane" or "strap" to punish those who misbehaved. I don't think I ever received "six-of-the-best", but I know this was meted out to some, and I did receive the occasional strap across the hand. Legend had it that some teachers soaked their strap in vinegar to increase its effectiveness, but I doubt that this actually occurred.

Poems were a big thing in Australian schools back then; We were given poems, mostly by Australian poets, to learn and recite from memory.
Here's a link to some of the poems we learned at school