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

• standing up when a teacher, or any adult, cane into the classroom
• individual desks and pupils sat in alphabetical order by surname
• no tights until upper school, socks only
• writing with fountain pens or pencil (no biros)
• whole school assembly every morning, with hymns
• Music, Mime and Movement!

@kalinkafoxtrot45 Sick sand

*disgracetotheychromazone that sounds awful.

i went to school in the 80s/ early 90s and remember lots of things pp have said

• 1 TV on wheels for the whole school, usually watched in the smoky staffroom
• threat of the cane in primary school
• being allowed out of school for lunch by yourself

- Jam butty specials at break time (deep fried and sugared jam sandwiches- delicious!)

• being allowed to spend the lesson with friends in the stock room
• dangerous chemistry lessons. One teacher became legendary for blowing out the windows on one side of the school.

My mum is now 79. she remembers taking a gas mask to school and the end of the war being announced...

A drinks trolley for breaktime. Something like 20p a drink- year 6 running it. If they liked you, you'd sometimes get double the powder in your cup, with just a splash of water so that you eat it like sherbet!

The teachers smoking in the classroom in between lessons

Physical punishments and assemblies where we were made to cry

Loads of dinner ladies in the canteen- swarms of them. and having your favourite dinnerlady...
Liver or kidney dishes for lunches!

Loads of baking classes...we were always bringing something home

Just getting away with loads- teachers turning a blind eye to so much behaviour

No talking in class - at all.
Lines.
Being made to sit/stand in the corridor for misdemeanours.
Outside PE/Games whatever the weather, including snow and freezing temps (N Germany).
No lab coats/eye protection in chemistry practicals.
Girls did needlework and domestic science, boys did woodwork and metalwork.
School dinners freshly cooked every day - no pasta/pizza/burgers, just 'proper food'.

I was in top juniors in 1978 and was a drink monitor. I'd go the staffroom at break and ask for a drink for whichever teacher was on duty. Then I'd have to carry out a mug of boiling hot tea or coffee.I was also selected to run through school bank with my best friend. Kids would queue up and they'd give us money. We had to enter it in a ledger and then take the big bag of money to the secretary's office. Good job we were honest!

infant school - walking to school alone at 5yrs old
helping to tend the school garden which had dangerous plants like foxgloves in it.

junior school - nitty nora the bug explorer
no SN children ( just naughty kids!)
one girl in the whole school with asthma
going on the stage in assembly on my birthday to receive a threepenny bit "don't spend it all at once"!
learning to knit
secondary school - laying the table in the staffroom for teachers lunch
wearing stockings and suspenders in the third year, so glad when tights came in
teachers smoking in the stockroom
most teachers wearing gowns
board rubbers being thrown
being reported by members of the public if you were seen to be eating in the street or not giving your seat up on the bus. oh and for not wearing your beret when in school uniform

The teacher collecting money for "The Black Babies", then getting a photo of said black baby when you filled a card, and giving he or she a name like Margaret or Jamie or Steven....😮

CrazyCat - you've just reminded me about parading round the streets for Empire Day ( now Commonwealth Day). You could dress your pram, bike or scooter with red, white and blue crepe paper and hope it didn't rain! you would be given a union flag to wave of you didn't bring a pram etc. A blonde girl would be chosen to be Brittania and she was dressed in white holding a shield and trident. She would lead the parade. I so wanted to be Brittania but my mousey brown hair ruled me out.

Witch hazel for bumps and scrapes.

Inkwell in the top right corner of my desk.
Being Inkwell monitor (important job to keep the inkwells filled)
My own wooden desk with a flip top where I could keep my pencil case.
Getting my knuckles rapped with a ruler (ouch!)
Walks across to the lighthouse at low tide. (no health and safety then)
Lyle stockings and suspenders at age 8 - boarding school uniform
Bunsen burners being great fun
Lacrosse in the snow
Wearing a hooded cloak (like in Scottish Widows ad) as part of the uniform.
Galoshes. (again, uniform. Brilliant idea they were)
Shoes that did up with a strap and tiny button.
Climbing onto the roof after lights out. Just don't get caught.
Sanitary belts.
Getting hair 'singed' rather than trimmed. (to treat split ends, apparently)

Having to courtsy to your teacher and any passing nun. Can't see that happening now.

Science lessons that just involved copying pages out of text books. Really scientific!!!

Backing work books with wallpaper.

Heavy Textbooks

Leaving school at lunchtime to back to the house of one of your friends who lived the closest to school for lunch.

I also remember one of the male PE teachers in high school making the lads who forgot their PE kit wash/ clean his car.

The hockey teacher hitting kids shins with the hockey stick to check who had their shin pads on.

Caning. Thank goodness it is recognised as being assault and is illegal now.

Dangerous science lessons such as passing around globules of mercury, painting the backs of our hands with a protein reagent which burnt some of the girls (probably be sued now a days!) a spectacular one that involved a large tin, wadding and gas from the Bunsen burner (seriously damaged the ceiling) and another that was large open vats of acid with metal plates connected up to light bulbs!

Elf and Safety would have had a field day at my school!

Having my knuckles rapped at infant school for copying, bringing home books of baby pictures that you sold for money, a teacher bringing in her puppy to explain about pregnancy. My dad left school in 1960 and told me that the headmaster forced a girl onto the stage in assembly and announced to the whole school that she was pregnant and how disgusting it was. When the whole of the senior year tried to leave they were stopped by the teachers.

A fog of smoke coming out of the staff room.

Getting caned.

Having a PE teacher most of the 5th years had sex with.

Compulsory milk.

Sardines for school dinners.

Teacher organising a class night out to a pub quiz, winning a bottle of champagne which we then shared in class the following day

Xmas party in the 6th form common room drinking booze with the teachers

Carving your name into your desk with a compass (proper wooden desk with inkwell, obvs)

YY to the OHP and acetates

End of term being allowed to watch a film and teacher spending most of the lesson trying to get the vhs to work

Smokers corner in the playing field

During euro 96 I remember going to the pub at lunchtime and bunking off to watch the footy, and teachers then doing the same

Last day of term of 6th form I remember piling into a mate's car, about 10 of us in a mini metro, and everyone who had a car / borrowed their parents car doing the same, then everyone driving onto the playing field in a motorcade and doing mad laps like the wacky races, with the stereo blaring and honking horns

BT phonecard or reverse charge to use the one payphone in the entrance hall

Getting a new fountain pen and deciding to practice completely new handwriting

Late 80’s I was selected as the child to take mail to the postbox 400 yards down the busy road every day. Primary school in 3 tier system so year 4, age 8/9

Well in my school in the early to late 90's
*Male teacher having an affair with a 17 year old female student and only getting a years suspension.

*Male gym teacher who would pinch girls breasts in gym if they did something wrong and the principle turned a blind eye despite complaints.

*Teacher asking a student to run back and forth in front of the class and then pushing him into the desks to demonstrate "force".

*16 year old girl getting pantsed in front of an entire French class and being told it was her fault because her skirt was too short.

*Multiple teachers calling the class a bunch of idiots or fucking assholes ( I have no real issues with this, we were a bunch of fucking assholes).

*Principal punching a student in the face (to be fair the student was "joking" about raping a girl) and only getting 2 weeks suspension.

Yeah....

• blackboards with chalk
• handwriting homework/essays
• no shower cubicles, teachers would stand and watch to make sure you got in
• sitting on a faulty chair and having it break beneath me and being told (by a Male teacher) in front of the whole class it was because I needed to lose weight (I was 15 and didn't!)

Comprehensive school in South London which I left in 1985 to do A levels elsewhere but two male teachers frequently would socialize with 5th and 6th formers (16-18) year olds and go to the pub together and be invited to drink at one of their flats. They even paid girls to do clean their flat.

I would say they were both in their 40s. They told me once when they walked back and forth in the exam halls monitoring O levels, CSEs and A levels that they called it “Tit Patrol”.

They also set up a competition within school as part of a charity event where the prize was a date with one of these teachers. They tried to fix it so they would get a date with a particular girl they had a crush on.

Two boys (or girls occasionally) fighting in the playground and the whole school would run and surround them. Only very occasionally would a teacher intervene.

A random mum would come to the school to tell someone off. They would walk straight into the playground, usually pushing a pram, everyone would tag along behind them until when they reached the “bully” the whole school would be watching as they were told off. I don’t ever remember any back chat, they just stood and took their telling off with everyone jeering them.

In my P7 class one boy was made to sit in the waste paper bin with a dunce hat on (teacher made it out of cardboard especially) as he was (in her words) rubbish. This happened over 40 years ago and I have never forgotten it.

School wide games of British bulldog.

Getting the bus home for lunch at 5years old and being told to ask a lady to take me across the road.

In primary 7 (last year in primary school) the whole class had a test three times in the year and you had to sit at the desk for the whole term that related to how well or badly you did in the test. I am ashamed that it never occurred to me how awful that must have been for those who performed badly.

Being sent to the nurse for injections without your parents being even informed never mind permission being asked.

The P3 (age 7) girls being taken into the P7 class in our blue school kickers to show them how they should be dressed for PE.

In P1 (age 5) everyone had a little blackboard and a tin of chalk. The tin was always an old tobacco tin.