29 memories of primary school that every Irish person has
1. “An Bhfuil Cead Agam Dul Go Dtí An Leithreas?”
Most important phrase of your childhood.
2. “Téigh A Choladh”
And this was the extent of your knowledge of the Irish language by the time you left primary school.
3. Calling Your Teacher Mammy/Daddy
The single most embarrassing thing that could happen to you at this age.
4. Nearly Dislocating Your Arm Trying To Get Picked
And making yourself as small as possible when you didn’t.
5. Fingers On Lips
Your teacher usually blackmailed the class into being quiet by threatening to cancel P.E. or something similar if you weren’t quiet.
6. Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh Cards
Two of the biggest crazes that people born in the 90s lived through.
7. Terrible School Tours
Usually to some really boring local information centre or museum.
8. And Then The One Good One At The End Of The Year
Wooooo!
9. Forcing Your Parents To Sit Through Terrible Christmas Plays
You spent months preparing for these plays, memorising lines and preparing costumes. But if you think back to them, just imagine how bad they must’ve looked.
10. Getting To Wear Your Own Clothes On The Last Day Before Christmas
Obviously this only applies to schools that had a uniform.
11. Elastic Ties
Again only for those with uniforms, Mammies everywhere would be horrified when you broke it using it as a missile.
12. Everyone Getting A Selection Box For Secret Santa
Boring and all as it was to give as a present, it was exactly what we wanted every year.
13. And The Teacher Having Back-Ups For The Kids Who Inevitably Forgot To Bring Theirs In
Teachers were effectively just our parents from 9 to 3, so this is no surprise.
14. Spelling Tests
Those were the days, when all that was required to pass a test was to know how to spell 20 words, and make sure all of the letters you wrote were facing the right way.
15. Insisting That Your Artwork Be Put On The Fridge At Home
A litre of PVA glue went into making that masterpiece, there’s no way you’re letting that go to waste.
16. Not Being Allowed To Swap Food At Lunch
Because who knows what any student was allergic to. Or maybe it was something to do with hygiene.
17. The Foot And Mouth Scare
Memories of dipping your shoes into buckets…
18. Gold Stars EVERYWHERE
Get 10/10 in your spelling test? Gold star. Answer a question right? Gold star. Téigh a choladh the fastest? You guessed it, gold star. Teachers spent and continue to spend thousands of euro every year on gold stars.
19. Sports Day
More competitive than the Olympics.
20. The Kid With The Smelly Lunch
Very very smelly. You always empathized with the person sitting next to them.
21. Tara & Ben/Alive-O/Letter Land
Some of the great books that were part of the primary school experience for most people.
22. Injections
The only benefit to getting injections was that you got some sort of chocolate bar or sweets to keep you quiet.
23. Practising To Receive Your First Holy Communion With Chocolate Buttons
Or practising with wafers, if your school was mean.
24. Getting Ridiculously Excited When You Got Picked To Bring Something To The Office
Most of the arm dislocations happened when the teacher asked for a ‘helper,’ which could be to do anything from cleaning the blackboard to bringing something to another classroom, or the office, as outlined above.
25. When The TV Trolley Was Wheeled Into Class
With projectors in every classroom and broadband internet, primary school children of today will never experience this excitement.
26. Being Really Embarrassed At Sex Ed
The uncontrollable laughter made it impossible for the teacher to do much work. Not that it mattered, most people had the gist of how things worked down there by this stage.
27. Circle Time!
Moving the desks against the walls, rearranging the chairs, someone usually started messing during all of this activity and ended up not being allowed to take part.
28. No Homework On Fridays
The single biggest shock when you entered secondary school is that you had to do work over the weekend.
29. No Homework On Birthdays
And it was so annoying when your birthday fell on the weekend, or during the summer. Especially considering no one had any sympathy for you.
via our content partner CT
