Archive images trace more than 80 years of Swiss school starts

As schools open in many Swiss cantons on Monday, SRF looks back at how first school days in Switzerland have changed over more than 80 years, using photographs from 1940 to 2025.

From school journeys to first lessons

In 1940, four girls walked to school for the first time in Zurich. A year later, a girl said goodbye to her mother outside a schoolhouse in Geneva during the wartime year of 1941.

In 1950, children in Kloten, Zurich, crossed a simple wooden bridge over the village stream on their way to school. In Ostermundigen near Bern in 1958, boys wore their new school satchels for the big day.

In 1973, first-graders in Geneva said goodbye to their mothers. In 1999, Wanda, Marion, Simon and Basil crossed a zebra crossing together on their way into school life at Manuel schoolhouse in Bern.

In Schwarzenburg, Bern, first-graders wore colourful caps in 2004 to improve their safety on the way to school. In 2008, first-grader Jana attended her first lesson at Manuel schoolhouse in Bern.

In 2011, the youngest pupils sat in their classroom on their first day at school in Lützelflüh, Bern. In 2015, teacher Riccarda Caduff welcomed her new first class in Vella, Graubünden.

First-graders at Brunmatt primary school in Basel were welcomed with sunflowers in 2019. In 2025, teachers Vismina Vandakoon and Ladina Schroeder read the book Elmar to their new first class in Regensdorf, Zurich.

The photographs are credited to the KEYSTONE news agency and its photographers, including the KEYSTONE Photopress Archive, Max Kraft, Arrigoni, Alessandro della Valle, Edi Engeler, Lukas Lehmann, Gaetan Bally, Gian Ehrenzeller, Georgios Kefalas and Michael Buholzer.