I spent my time at Primary school switching from being a ‘girly’ girl to being heavily involved in sports – back and forth. In Primary 3 I started to play football with the boys. They were happy for me to play and didn’t care about my ability – it didn’t seem as if this was obscure to them and I was really happy to play. I would often play football with them right up until I left Primary school. I remember one lunch time in Primary 3, a playground assistant came up to me and said “Get away from the boys playing football; you’re getting in the way!” I told her that I was involved in this game and she was very shocked, however she let me play with them. Maybe this was one time when my gender affected me?

As I grew older, I started to play with the girls more – nothing unsurprising. We would play games where we would pretend we had babies or create fictional worlds that we would live out at break and lunchtime. Every now and again though, the boys and girls in my class would come together and play games such as Granny (with a tennis ball and a wall) or jungle’s on fire. I personally had the most fun at these times because we all got along and it was like one huge friends group.

Looking back now, I realise there may have been some slight ways in which my gender was taken into account. Like on sports day – they would split the boys and girls up in each class when it was time to do the races. Or even at the start of the day, when the bell would ring we would line up in two separate lines according to our gender. Or what about when the girls got to pack up 5 minutes early because we had been the best behaved that day – had we really been the best behaved? I never realised this when I was at Primary school, it just seemed like the ‘normal’ thing to do.

I honestly do not think that the way in which my gender was taken into account at Primary school affected me nor do I think it has affected the person I have become today. Having a niece and nephew of Primary school age, it was really lovely to hear my nephew say his best friend was a girl in his class and when I attended my niece’s sports day earlier this year it was wonderful to see the class was mixed together at the races, for example the egg and spoon race and one legged race – the boys and girls often paired up in races they needed to be in pairs for. This was a far cry to the sports days I had experienced when I was in Primary school – even if I only left 7 years ago.