Schools soon begin another term and proud parents will be filling Facebook with first day at school photos.

To mark the start of the autumn term, David Kindred has taken a look this week at what life was like at some of Ipswich’s schools in past decades.

Desks with ink wells, a bottle of milk for pupils every morning, blackboards and clouds of chalk dust, were once a way of life in a time before computers – and any idea that pupils would have their own phone in the classroom was something from science fiction.

If the school’s heating failed you were told to put your coat on in class. Teachers lived near enough to make it in whatever the weather and most children walked or cycled with few parents involved in the school run.

Do the photographs featured this week remind you of your school days? Send an email to Kindred Spirits