What used to be common in schools that would never happen today?

[abacucat]

There are lots of things that were common when I was at school, that would cause outrage if they happened today. For a start -

• Teachers giving kids the belt from 5 years old
• Dinner ladies in primary making you eat everything on your plate
• Teachers in -primary making you drink your bottle of milk
• Teachers in secondary throwing blackboard rubbers at kids heads

Every week, two year 6 girls were designated washing up duties in the staff room after lunch as a reward for good behaviour. It was seen as a real privilege to wash the teachers’ coffee cups.

Textbooks. And I don't mean those CGP booklets, which seem to be mostly pictures.

"Having a pen and paper homework planner, it seems like."

DD's old school still uses planners like this. I think many schools still do.

"How old are you OP? Im in my mid 50's and that never happened when I was at school"

Most of those things happened when I was at primary school, except it was the cane not a belt. No blackboard rubber throwing though. I'm 59.

The communal showering after PE at secondary school was horrific (early 1970s).

The loo paper was izal medicated! Nasty stuff!

Teachers checking to make sure the girls were wearing the regulation thick brown knickers

Doing gym in said brown knickers

We had blackboard rubber throwing in the mid-80s (maths!).

This wouldn’t cause outrage, but does anyone remember the sanitary towel burners in the girls toilets? And the paper bags on strings in the toilets?

Outdoor toilets that you couldn't lock or latch shut.
Not being allowed out to play until you had finished every bit of your lunch - which meant that I never went out to play at lunchtimes in the infant school.
Being hit with a ruler.
Smell of stale plasticine mixed with urine because they only let one child go to the toilet at any time, so some children wet themselves.

On the other hand, at secondary school year 8 we had the physics lab as our form room and they let us keep animals. We had budgies flying around, hamsters scuttling.... It was great.

Doing PE in vest and knickers throughout primary school.

Gosh this thread brings back memories! I remember in sixth form, six of us squashing into a tiny car to drive to the pub at lunchtime - because we were all underage, and our teachers were all in the only one within walking distance! As the skinniest, I lay across three laps in the back with my feet out of the window.
I remember the “tracing paper”” toilet paper, and gas powered sanitary incinerator in the girls loos. The pilot light was always blowing out, and mortified girls would have to ask a teacher for matches to re-light it so they could burn the enormous, thick, sanitary towels that were all you could buy in those days.
We had teachers at primary school who threw wooden blackboard rubbers at our heads and beat us with canes and rubber plimsolls.
The school milk was left all morning in the hot sun until it curdled, and nobody wanted to drink it, except one poor kid from a large and poverty stricken family.
We all walked to school alone from the age of 5. There was no homework until secondary school.

When I was in the top class in primary (mid eighties), the teachers use to choose a couple of kids to go around the classrooms and take tea and coffee orders from the teachers. We would go in the staff room and make the hot drinks so they were ready for the teachers at break time. Not sure that kids would be allowed unsupervised access to kettles of boiling water these days.
I also remember kids being slippered by the headmaster and when I was 4ish, I remember seeing a teacher wash a kid's mouth out with soap.

Vending machines that had coke, crisps and chocolate bars. We also had a hot drinks one with hot chocolate.

@OliviaStabler omg the torture I'd try to get a note every pE day...how the hell was that allowed

Separate boys and girls entrances, and a massive wall down the middle of the playground to make sure we didn't mix. Classrooms also had a boy side and a girl side.

Getting slippered. Tippex bottles thrown at you. Head shoved down the toilet. Made to stand outside in your pants and the teacher ridicule you in front of the girls. Worst of all being forced to eat semolina!! Don't know how I survived!

Our primary school was separated by gender - boys downstairs, girls upstairs. At playtime the boys had the entire (large) playground to use. We girls had to spend our time on the roof of an old bomb shelter - there were about 200 of us and we couldn't walk around, let alone run. We all got very good at stationary play like board games and reading aloud. Oh the joy - I did that for 6 years !

In primary I was allowed to walk home ( to childminders) on my own if I was sick... ( well I was mostly throwing sicky to get out of school) mum was at work and childminder was too bone idle to come get me .... wouldn't be allowed now

Teachers asking parents of their pupils for help with childcare

Teachers having socials in their home with 6th Formers

Teachers dating sixth formers

Going alone or just girls with a Male teacher in his car to an event

Vest and knickers PE

Drinking with your teachers during school trips

Omg PE in your knickers when you forget your kit

Kneeling down in corridors for skirt from knee measurement, oh and being forced to wear just thick pe knickers and a top to do outdoor pe (on a public field, or sometimes along the city canal for cross-country)

Toilet access being denied by the prefects. Even when I was in their year. Your chance of being a prefect depended on if you had a parent employed at the school, if your parents donated well to school fund and how popular you were. Prefects stood at the doors to prevent other pupils coming in at break. It was the perfect breeding ground for bullying. I'm always astonished at stuff online where someone feels their child was humiliated and left heartbroken by being put on the dark cloud or something. I remember my reception class teacher dragging me down the central aisle in the classroom punching me 😱. Not hard enough to injure me permanently obviously but it was very scary. I'd accidentally banged the classroom door. We were genuinely terrified of our teachers. I'm only 41 too but went to catholic schools.

Being able to go home for dinner

Cross country round the local town. Like you can even go off-site now. Schools are like fort bleeding Knox

We had to wear just pe knickers all the time, if you forgot your kit then you could wear some scabby lost property knickers instead, shudder

Walking home from school alone from age 5-6
In our primary school the reception was upstairs at the back of the school. No one was locked in like they are now so anyone could just walk into the school
Oh yes throwing of the chalk and the board rubber - that hurt!
And the post pe shower. In our secondary school the girls could get out of it if they were on their period and the teacher would make a note of it - tough luck if you didn’t have a regular cycle

Getting sent home for Nits

Getting told off and asked why if you hadn't been to church on Sunday (Catholic School)

Literally one day the different Mass times were put on the board and everyone had to go and initial which one they were at. I don't know if anyone lied I expect so but a few admitted not and got such a hard time.

I can remember holding in my hands, asbestos that the teacher handed round for all the class to examine. It was the 1970s but even so. And I don't suppose they still use asbestos mats in the labs.