Summer is officially over and a new school year is now in session.
Watching our teen family members and neighbours head off to school in their uniforms has us reminiscent of our own secondary/high school days. Whether you loved them or loathed them, your secondary school years were full of experiences you'll never get to relive in your adult life.
From rumours growing arms and legs to home ec produce growing mould or hair, some of these experiences were truly unforgettable. Now they live on in our memory, for better or worse.
Read more: From Barry's to Polly Pineapples: the Northern Irish summers of our childhood
Take a walk down memory lane with us as we revisit the things everyone who went to secondary school in Northern Ireland remembers. Let us know what other funny memories you have of your school days in the comments below.
Religion playing a large role
The vast majority of schools here are not secular - Protestant schools attract Protestant families, Catholic schools attract Catholic families and even integrated schools often operate under a Christian ethos. Christianity, in whatever specificity, played a large role in most people's school experiences here: nuns and/or clergymen on staff, prayers at the start of class, the sex education (or lack thereof) received by students and school holidays observing the Christian calendar.
Exams turning everyone into conspiracy theorists
Every GCSE/A-Level student spent their academic year in one long guessing game. Through past patterns, students and teachers alike made predictions on what topics might come up and how they might come up.
How many causes would you have to list for WWI in history? Which Brontë sister text would you be better off knowing inside and out? How much mileage could you get out of writing a fake blog post about your summer holidays in French or another language?
There was a lot of guesswork, and some students saw their predictions come to life. Others who had hedged their bets too confidently on pure estimation weren’t so lucky.
Uniform adjustments
Uniforms may have been compulsory to try to make us all look the same, but that didn’t stop people from making adjustments for both aesthetic and comfort purposes. Rolled-up skirts, untucked shirts, loosened ties, holes poked through jumper sleeves, girls wearing their skirts over pyjama bottoms… no questionable styles or hygiene practices were off-limits.
Bizarre rumours that grew arms and legs
Anywhere there’s a large amount of people, there’s gossip. Anywhere there’s a large amount of young people, there’s still gossip, but with more naivety and less ability to communicate or comprehend certain concepts.
For that reason, secondary school was a breeding ground for the most outlandish, unbelievable rumours you could ever hear. And as they were passed from young person to young person, they mutated into even more bizarre and extreme versions of themselves.
All sorts of off-the-wall rumours went around about the personal lives, relationships, mental and physical health of both staff and students. One bored student could think two teachers seemed kind of flirty and jokingly say it to a friend, next the whole school would be talking about how these teachers were cheating on their partners together, had a secret lovechild and were plotting to flee the country and elope.
Teachers being micro-celebrities
Fame is a tiered concept - there are global household names (like Beyoncé or Oprah), young stars you might never have heard of who have millions of Instagram followers (a TikToker or 'Stranger Things' actor, for example) and critically acclaimed artists and performers who are highly-regarded in their field and have fans all over the world, but whose names and/or faces are lesser recognised by the general public (like Kacey Musgraves or Sarah Paulson).
Then there are celebs who reach extremely high levels of superstardom, but it’s limited to a certain region (like Cheryl failing to break America at the same time she was dominating the charts in Ireland and the UK), people who have the credentials to go on the likes of 'I’m A Celeb' or 'Celebrity Big Brother' but lack enough notoriety for the viewers to say ‘who?’ when they’re announced, and a level of national fame for faces you’d recognise but would be fairly indifferent to if you were to see them out and about (like presenters, news anchors, politicians or influencers).
Teachers too have a level of micro-celebrity - while they aren’t known at a national level, the small community they are known by treats them kind of like tabloid fodder. They’re subjects of salacious gossip, they often need to change their display names on social media in a bid to retain some privacy and they face stares and whispers when students see them outside of school grounds.
Seemingly pointless rules
Corridors and stairs that could only be walked down one way, a ban on makeup, unnatural hair colours and excessive jewellery for fear of “distracting” oneself and one’s fellow students, asking permission to go to the loo and being told you should’ve gone at lunch as though you could control your bladder, not being allowed to wear the school uniform jacket your parents paid an arm and a leg for in a freezing prefab while class was in session… the list goes on. What was the reason?
Going to support a school sport/debate team for the sake of it
Did we care to listen to the Jenny Joyces of our year politely argue back and forth with the Jenny Joyces of another school on ground-breaking issues like whether or not school uniforms should be abolished? Not particularly, but if it got us on a bus and out of class for a couple of hours, you could count us in.
The thrill of the fire alarm going off
Whether it was triggered by a home economics or science lesson gone wrong, someone smoking in the bathroom, misuse of a canteen microwave, a student purposefully setting it off or just a routine drill, the wail of the fire alarm came with an adrenaline rush. The mix of excitement and anxiety as your class was interrupted but you didn’t know how serious the reason behind it was, the teacher not-so-calmly roaring at everyone to remain calm and head to the escape route, the mass crowds heading outside as the entire school evacuated… it all seemed very dramatic during an otherwise uneventful school day.
Class TV making or breaking your day
When a TV was wheeled in for a class, one of two extremes would happen: you’d be so relaxed (or bored) that you’d nearly fall asleep and felt like you were getting a break from actual schoolwork, or you’d be absolutely traumatised and swear off something for life. Based on videos shown in various subjects, this could be having kids, eating meat or using drugs.
The writing on the wall
…or desk, or toilet cubicle stall, or pencil case, or schoolbag. Basically, if it was a surface that could be written on, it was written on.
When same-sex school grounds were infiltrated by a teen of the opposite gender
It didn’t matter how many members of the opposite sex you were pals with, related to or walked past on your way to school - if you were in an all-boys or all-girls school, chaos ensued when teens of the opposite gender were on property. Be it the relative of a staff member or student briefly stopping in for something or kids skiving off their own school and breaking into yours, it felt like an alien invasion as everyone tried to get a good gawp.
The after-school fights that never were
Many an “I’ll knock yer pan in after school” was uttered, but few pans were actually knocked in. Whether it was staff intervention, loss of nerve or simply a case of bark being bigger than bite, not that many pre-arranged fights came to fruition.
Home Ec disasters
A subject often underestimated in terms of the effort it requires, the practical cooking classes were stressful. And with one teacher to supervise a kitchen full of teens, stuff was over and undercooked, tea towels were set on fire and some things produced were only fit to be consumed by a bin.
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