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

Poor boy PawneeParksDept
The trouble with the incinerator was that you'd have to take the used ST to it in view of anyone else at the wash basins. (Not me as i hadn't started at juniors)

Sorry, having googled the water bunnie was a macerator, which shredded your san pro into small bits and it went into the water waste drains. We always thought it was an incinerator.

Pe in knickers and vests - boys and girls. Rancid fullfat milk half pint bottles which we HAD TO finish. Being hit by all teachers quite hard sometimes. Having the broard eraser (wooden) or chalk thrown hard at us. Kneeling to check the length of skirts. Assembly where ‘singlets’ were announced to be banned for boys ( none of us knew what this meant I remember being really frightened that perhaps I was wearing one without realising even though a girl)! I was not allowed to attend religious education due to atheist parents and I was told by the re teacher that I and my parents would ‘go to hell’. Good god sounds awful. I loved schoool!

Oh and sniffing the copier fluid ( the chemicals were amazing). Think we may have been quite high during primary school !

Walking to school when it snowed and sitting with coats on if the heating packed up.

Teachers smoking in staff room
Board rubbers being thrown
Communal showers & male PE teacher
PE 'knickers' under pleated PE skirt

we all sat at individual school desks and were taught to read and write. Only play apart from playtime was playing at your desk with plasticine for a small break. Although we had a nap on camp beds.

This is what my kids' school is like NOW!

My reception and year 1 teacher used to pull our teeth out if they were loose and wrap them in patterned tissue to take home. And I think it was year 5 our teacher literally brown taped about to his chair for getting up and walking round too much.

I just googled Izal Medicated and there are several packets for sale on EBay.

I remember having my legs slapped very hard (aged 5) by my primary teacher, someone had done something naughty and I got the blame (it wasn't me, honest) I was upset for days and couldn't tell my Mum because I thought she would side with the teacher and might smack me as well.
I had two primary teachers who were both single women and thinking back they were absolute witches.

Primary school was okay. Boarding school...the beatings made a nice change from the other stuff. It's not a good idea to let angry celibates raise kids. I enjoyed the work though, except for Maths. That earned me a pool cue thrashing every week. Better than the Head of Games, who could hit the sciatic nerve 4 out of 5 goes.

When DD was in Y6, and we were going round the local secondaries, I had to stay at home after the first one. Couldn't get out of the car, I was crying too hard.

Never having a drink apart from lunchtime. We must have all been dehydrated.

Having a vicious nit nurse come to your class with her metal comb and a jar of fluid that smelt like perm lotion. They were always over the top spiteful when digging the comb in to your scalp and dragging it through your hair.

Our chemistry teacher used to set our arms on fire. If I remember right, he's use water and fairy liquid and then stick the rubber tube from the gas tap (for the Bunsen burner) into the water and make the bubbles using the gas. Then we'd coat out arms in the bubbles and set it on fire. Didn't hurt at all, just burned the bubbles off. He's pouring along the desks as well and set it on fire. Once it burned itself out, it would go out.

He was banned from doing it. We were all really sad about that.

Fun fact: I bumped into him in Tesco a few weeks ago. He's retired and old looking now!

*he'd not he's

The belt in secondary. Some teachers were quite soft and the boys would have competitions to see who could get the most belts. Thinking back some teachers were bullied by the kids. Some teachers were scary though and would really whack you. Getting the belt from them was serious.

Asking teachers if they were 'out that weekend'... They all used to go to the same pubs! Madness.

One resource teacher for the entire primary school for any children who had additional education needs.

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

^^

Yeah.

Last year of primary was spent on Roald Dahl and fossils!

Never having a drink apart from lunchtime. We must have all been dehydrated.

If we were thirsty, we could queue for a drink from the communal water fountain at break time ... And I don't remember feeling dehydrated, I'm pretty sure we coped.

We could go home at lunchtime if we wanted, or round to the house of a mate who was going home for lunch - nobody ever questioned it, so long as you were there for afternoon registration.

Our head used to use a slipper rather than a belt or a cane! I was never on the receiving end but did spend a lesson sat outside her office in fear of it once.

I remember our horrible German mistress, large and round with long scandi style blonde plaits dragging girls to the loo by the ear and washing any traces of make up or perfume off with cold water, drying with the sandpaper like paper towels.

Primary -
Being made to stand in the corner with face to the wall for talking in class.
Lining up to be inspected by the nit nurse for the nits, plus hands and feet checked for cleanliness, and finally mouth wide open to check everything in there.
Being made to sit on my left hand and write with my right one.

Secondary-
Standing in a row during singing lesson and everyone of u, as we sang, being walloped on the back of the head with a hardback song book - just because!
Being offered lifts to school by male teachers - and accepting - when waiting for the bus.
Having board rubbers and shoes hurled at us during lessons.
Having work ripped up and binned in front of entire class.

Primary school in the 1960s:

School lunches: no choice, not being allowed to leave anything on your plate, eating off proper china plates and drinking out of proper glasses.

Outdoor loos with cracked wooden seats, chains to pull and broken glass in the windows. Having to ask for loo paper when you went to the loo (it was strictly rationed and we weren't allowed paper if we were just having a wee).

Having to hold up your handkerchief in the air if you sneezed - to prove that you had one.

Having to spend all of 'playtime' outside all year round. When it rained, we huddled in 'the shed' which had a roof, but only one wall.

Being sent out with my best friend and a piece of chalk each on Friday afternoons, to draw a netball court on the playground before we played.

And, as others have said, milk, and PE in vest and knickers.

Those scary info-films of kids in the 70s and 80s dying on railway tracks/electricity pylons/cow-sheds. I remember sobbing my heart out and my head teacher telling me I was a "very silly girl" .

I'm absolutely positive those videos would not be shown now without a parental permission slip!

In the early years of secondary school we had an Ink Room, where the powdered ink was mixed with water, and rationed out to each classroom in large enamel jugs, to be distributed into the desk inkwells by the class ink monitor.
This soon gave way to fountain pens and pupils bringing their own bottles of ink, and not much later cartridge pens.

There were also the soap monitors who hacked up the huge blocks of carbolic soap and distributed them around the school sinks.

The monitor posts were highly sought after, some meant you could evade the odd lesson like the penny bun monitor who had to be organised and in place in time for morning break.

I was flower, plant & bulb monitor which meant I rarely went out at break time in bitterly cold weather, as my plants needed to be tended.