My father was born in 1912 (mother born 1918) and nothing much had changed when I went to school. The pupils wrote on small chalk boards, Discipline was everything, thus you'd find boys had to duck missiles thrown at them by their male teachers such as the wooden blackboard cleaner, or a piece of chalk. Boys earlobes were favoured by teachers wanting to get a pupil's attention.
There are still old school buildings remaining where you can see two playgrounds to segregate boys from girls and inscribed over the doors "Girls Entrance" and "Boys Entrance". The first thing on the schedule of the day was a teacher would blow a whistle in the playground and pupils would have to form up in long lines before orderly walking into school. The first thing I noticed in the classroom was the large Dunce's Cap in the corner, which was reserved for some unfortunate child who had to stand in a corner wearing the tall pointed white cone with a black "D" on it, on his head. . Every morning teacher called out a list of names and ticked off those who answered "Here sir". Then it was an orderly file on the left hand side of the corridor to the Assembly Hall wherein stood a piano, to listen to the headmaster and then finishing off with the hymn of the day accompanied by the pianist. Each morning there was a daily cleanliness inspection (cleanliness is next to Godliness) for first year pupils where we had to extend our hands to make sure they were clean, and that we had some form of rag or handkerchief and also that our shoes were clean. Each primary school had a nurse and annually there would be an inspection by the "nit nurse" who inspected pupils' hair for infestation. If you look at old photos you'll see girls with long hair had to have it tied back neatly with a ribbon and boys hair had to be kept short.
Desks were in neat rows and if it was a mixed class boys would sit at one side of the classroom and girls and the other side. First year childen were expected to have a half hour nap mid afternoon on top of the desks (!)
School reading books for the young didn't have pictures, so you had to use your imagination, but I do remember one book had a black ink drawing of three rabbits called "Nig", "Nog" and"Nug" - We had regular classes where, starting from the child in the back row, we all took turns reading a few lines of a book.
As my parents knew the same songs that I sang at infant/junior school, i'm assming they had the same sort of lessons I had. For instance in history lessons we'd sing a song pertaining to that era which was probably sung by roving minstrels of the day (Greensleeves, Raggle Taggle Gypsy O", etc. - or, as I was brought up in a port, we'd sing sea shanties that sailors would sing when they worked on masted sailing vessels.
As already pointed out, leaving age was 14 in the 1920s-1930s, which meant that the 11+ exams I took were taken when my parents were aged 10. Both my parents took entrance exams for their senior schooling, which shows that there was selection for either a child going on to a technical or academic education.
