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

Oh Izal 😵😱

I was born in 71 and at infant school the headmistress would smack kids (more than one smack) and put people over her knee in hymn practice. No other teachers ever hit us, so i assume there was some sort of rule that only the head could. Ditto at junior school although he gave people the slipper (not in public.) No corporal punishment at my secondary at all, although they still had the cane at the high school next to my junior school.
I told my dd how people were punished in my infant school when she was crying that she might get a detention and pointed out that sitting in a classroom for a bit isn't as bad as that!

Oh yes pe in vest and knickers in the infants and green pe knickers at secondary

I'm 46 and had my hand hit by the ruler about age 10.
I also remember the pleasure of backing my text books with old wallpaper to keep them in good condition.

Music and movement, from the BBC radio for schools. And the teacher playing records for us to learn country dancing to.

Outside toilets.

Getting slippered or hit with a hair brush on the bare bum. Boys got the cane. Board rubbers, and rulers.

Washing our own clothes (boarding)

I'm agog at the sanitary towel burners! Did all schools have them? What decade are we talking here?

I remember a lot of violent teachers in my primary school... And a particularly awful day when a teacher performed a knicker check inside knickers as a child had pooed on the floor and wouldn't own up... Horrendous

In secondary school I had a mars bar and coke from the vending machine Every day. They have prob been banned now. I remember the tracing paper toilet roll from first and middle school. I remember asking the dinner ladies if you could ring the old wooden bell at the end of break. The tuck trolley. They used to make us sit and eat our food in first school. I remember blackboards and when I got to year 3 that was the first white board I saw. We used to sit at wooden desks that the tops lifted up on and there were so many carvings on the inside

Going home for dinner

Schools not having massive fences around them, which they all seem to do nowadays. Any kid could just walk out of school.

Autism/adhd/dyslexia didn’t exist. Pupils with learning difficulties were known as ‘remedial’.

Whole class lessons. Everyone sat at individual desks, apart from science.

You kept your books in your desks. Lockers were only just being introduced when I left. The only books you took hoke was for ho,work.

You wrote in fountain pen.

Primary school children being hit with a slipper, and public humiliation of small children for what were deemed evil deeds.

Some of the staff had entered teaching at the end of the war via a scheme that fast tracked ex service men into teaching with just one year of training. Some of them were quite damaged individuals who seemed to neither love their subject nor the children.

Cold showers after games, records kept of dates of girls' periods, heaven help you if you had an erratic cycle! Out door games in all weathers, hockey in the snow!

But on the bright side, we used to leave all our books and some personal items in cur form room desks, coats in cloakrooms, and I don't remember any stealing.

There's a bit in About a Boy (Nick Hornby) where the girl's mother doesn't turn up at home-time but staff hand the child to the narrator (father of a classmate), knowing he often fetches her home so will look after her.

I laughed reading that, truly. That novel was only published in 1998.

English women telling me about being teens who had to do PE in their knickers (even when on period, using belt & clip on pads!!) in the 1970s, always makes my jaw drop.

Outspoken disapproval of The Working Mum unless that Mum was also a teacher

I remember (Mid 80s) one mum being spoken about in hushed tones as though she was flighty and not like the other mums because she was not only a working mum but she was SINGLE and DIVORCED 😱

After getting to know her DD I found out her DF had basically abandoned them so it's not like the poor woman had any choice

I went home for lunch in the 70s and walked home on my own from year 2. I remember the outdoor toilet, incinerator and izal medicated.

Overhead projectors and the hilarity that ensued when the acetate sheet was put on the wrong way round.

Also the school having ONE big tv in a giant cabinet on what looked like stilts. That would have a chain and lock for the cabinet doors and got wheeled to whateverclass needed it

Threat of the cane.

PE in knickers and vest is we’d forget our kit.

Bullying not effectively dealt with (shake hands in from of class, ffs!).

Tv trolley

I’m 36 and remember the black board rubber thrown at head. Also remember my maths teacher middle age man marching me down to the girls loos and washing the make up off my face that would never happen now!

I was just going to add lack of fences and general relaxed attitude to school security (all changes after Dunblane tragedy) I remember sometimes kids legging it out of the class and out of school grounds during a lesson
Nit nurses
Pre ofsted teachers could direct the timetable so some years you'd do loads of art, some loads of music etc I remember in year 6 doing a whole term on the holocaust and all our lessons being to do with that as it was the teachers interest
Library books were quite grown up as well I remember reading Adrian mole at primary school
School dinners where you all had the same and all had a chunk of cheese at the end

-Walking to and from school at age 5
-Seeing people getting 'the belt'
-The entire school lined up in the playground and the Head calling a girl to come out to the front. He then proceeded to tell the everyone that she had been bullying another girl - she got sent home and suspended for a week, never any more bother from her. This was my only insight into bullying when I was at school.
-A poor boy who pooed himself was told to stand with his backside out of the window.

Sani burners in my secondary school 79-84 nasty smelly things they were too

Another one I forgot about. If anyone vomited in class, the janitor would come into class with his bucket and cover it with sawdust and leave it for a while before clearing it up.

Spam

My primary school built mid 60's had what I thought was a bin for sanitary towels. It was sort of chest height on the wall. You sort of pulled it open and pushed them in. Could it have been a burner?

Songs that would be seen as racists
Chinese, Japanese.......mothers knees. I can't remember the rest of it but you pulled your eyes into different shapes.

Just remembered in Year4 so boy no older than 8 was read the riot act in school in front of everyone for being dirty and smelly and was sent home (walking, no phone call home) and told not to come back until he'd had a bath.

This is only the 80s! Can you imagine that today?!

His surname rhymed with smelly too so you can imagine the stick he took

I'm agog at the sanitary towel burners! Did all schools have them? What decade are we talking here?
My junior school had them in the outdoor toilet. (No indoor loos for children) i remember them about 80-81

We had ‘water (?) bunnies’ in our school loos in the mid 90s. It was a metal bin set into the wall which was an incinerator. You’d chuck your used san pro in the lid, close it and it’d make a growly noise for what seemed like ages.

Seeing classmates getting smacked in primary school.
Tracing paper bog roll with ‘Council Property’ stamped on it.
Gross school milk. I was so glad my mum wrote a note telling the school I was allergic so I was spared.
Smoking on the bus.
Bottle green gym knickers worn over normal knickers and getting told off if you weren’t wearing them. Most girls over 12 just wore tights all year.
Wandering off the school grounds at lunchtime.
Cross country running along the towpath.