The school day usually began with prayers. Most lessons were about the three Rs - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. There would be a little geography and history too. For PE, children stood in long lines in the playground to do exercises, called drill, together.

Children learnt by copying words from the blackboard or by chanting things until they were perfect.

They wrote by scratching onto a slate. It would be marked and then wiped clean to use again in the next lesson.