If you went to school in the 70s/80s what happened that wouldn't happen now?

[TheVampiresWife]

I started primary in 1976, left secondary in 1989. Some of mine:

Corporal punishment (the most obvious one for a lot of us I think). In junior school (early 80s) we had a headmaster who would save all the week's canings for Friday afternoon assembly. The kids lined up on stage and were caned in front of the whole school. It was fucking horrific looking back - I remember a boy in my year crying and wetting himself on stage and he never lived it down, the nicknames followed him to secondary school

Girls doing needlework/cookery while boys did woodwork/metalwork

Boy in my class whose surname was Gaye. Geography teacher used to call him 'Poof' and 'Queer' which of course other kids found hilarious and joined in. He changed his surname halfway through secondary school

In my primary class an overweight girl was made to stand on a chair so the whole class could see what we would look like if we were greedy and ate too much

The headmaster who caned kids on stage also used to get girls to kiss him on the cheek and say thank you at prize givings. He also used to make comments about how we were 'developing' and once said in a conversation with my mum that I was getting 'a broad back'. The mums didn't seem to mind his comments

In primary school the children in the SEN class were described as [vile word I can't bring myself to type] by teachers and children alike quite unselfconsciously

In secondary school an English teacher had an affair with a sixth former and she became pregnant. He left but wasn't reprimanded and got a teaching job in another school the following year. The couple are still together all these years later!

It really was a different time and not necessarily for the better, either. I do have lots of happy memories of school too though!

Being made to shower naked in front of others after PE.

Bullying was rife and the school did nothing about it. In fact it was often seen as a good thing as it would 'toughen you up' and stop you being 'so sensitive'.

Nit nurse
Cross country in skimpy pe kit through public parks, unsupervised
Handwritten school reports
Fountain pens and blotting paper
School dinners with instant mash potato, stodgy puddings and custard etc with no choice or dietary alternatives
Waiting outside school gates to be collected
Physical group playground games like Red Rover

We had a canteen building. Infants went in one side, juniors in the other.
All the food was cooked in there every day, no food delivered ready to eat.
The potatoes were peeled, boiled and mashed by the ladies. Proper custard made with milk.
Those ladies worked hard.

Being piled to the rafters in the teachers car to go on daytrips. He used to bring us to so many places. So he used to cram his car with as many children as he could and head off. The remaining children followed on their bikes unsupervised. I was knocked down by a car on one of these trips. Nothing said. We were 10 and 11, had him for 2 years. The best memories ever, even though health and safety wasn't the best!

@Bollindger

I loved my school life. It really was like something out of the famous 5. We often took the tables outside for lunch. Built tents and projects outside. Our school, the 9 years olds and up went to adventure centers. We had nature walks. Whole days in summer doing sports or hobby type things. Our secondary school had some amazing teacher, one who taught people to drive, the swimming pool was open in lunch hour you just had to book it the day before.

Sounds just like my old school 🏫

@TheVampiresWife

Wearing red gym knickers and white polo top for sport . I was an early developer and I sort of felt naked doing PE! The boys used to stare!

When we went from junior school to top school we had to have a school "medical" . This involved undressing and being checked by the school doctor. I think with the boys they were checking for testicular drops too?

It was a creepy old doctor, not the normal local GP and we were all scared of it. To be fair, it was fine, and maybe there were various conditions they could have noticed this way.

Also, our teachers didn't really care how we did, as there was no effect on them. This led to a lot of awful teaching. I don't agree with the opposite situation that seems to exist now, but a change was necessary.

Other things...board rubbers flying, hanging misbehaving lads on pegs at back of the room, tying a lad to his chair at infants when he wouldn't stay in it during golden time (when it was raining heavy at break time and we had to stay in)....he then waited for teacher to leave and ran around tied to the chair!

School injections - bcg went on for ages. I got out of music 3 weeks running on excuse it was my bcg. Had to be careful you didn't get caught hanging around the corridors.

Chemistry chemicals in middle of the desk.

I started school in the early 1980s but I (thankfully) dont remember any corporal punishment. I do remember in reception sitting on a teachers lap for reading, and another teacher asked a boy to wash his mouth out with soap and water after he was rude, and he did!
Although (and I feel really bad saying this) I recently watched a documentary about a high school and I was amazed at how the kids were behaving and how few options the teachers seemed to have to deal with it (obviously I dont think there should have been any physical punishment). There was one boy who was incredibly annoying and persistently disrupting the class. I found him unbelievably annoying from the snippets that were shown on tv - i cant imagine having to put up with that for a whole class (as a teacher or fellow student) and students eating sweets and other stuff in class. My DD (year 10) was watching and to her it all seemed quite normal.

Our school had too many pupils so the lowest stream went to a different place in town. For those who misbehaved, the situation worked well, but being of that time children often ended up there that more likely were SEN, and it must have been awful for them.

There was more teacher controls back then but I don't think kids were better behaved for it. We certainly weren't. My kids were far better behaved than we were. I think with children if you give them resistance, it's something to push back on.

Ultimately somewhere in the middle is probably a happy medium.

Much of what is in the OP is familiar to me. I started school in 1971.

In P7, so last year of primary school, we could volunteer to carry a steaming hot jug of coffee around the teachers at break time, but only if we worked hard in class and were up to date with our work. It was seen as something of a status symbol. I loved doing it to get out of class for a while - sometimes it was the black coffee and other times the white coffee, complete with skin (bleurgh!) There were loads of stairs to negotiate and you had to pour it into the teacher's cup. I imagine that health particular health and safety nightmare is long gone.

Humiliating children seemed to be a bit of sport for some teachers. Our primary school principal used to watch us singing in assembly. We all sat cross legged on the floor. If you were either not participating or 'dummy fluting' (miming), he made you stand up. I remember he made me stand up once and I WAS singing. He pointed at me and yelled 'dummy fluter' and I couldn't prove I was singing. It was so frustrating and embarrassing standing there in a sea of hundreds of seated children. Nothing could have made me less inclined to sing.

Some teachers gave us two rulers across our outstretched fingers or palms for the slightest thing. They held your hand flat by the fingertips and whacked down really hard.

In my primary the SEN children were all in the same class, regardless of age. So there were six year olds in with ten year olds. And as PP said, it was almost like a 'dumping ground' - there was a blind girl and one in a wheelchair but also the kids who had previously been in the mainstream classes but had repeatedly misbehaved, and a few children for whom English wasn't their first language. I have no idea what they were taught or how all their individual needs were met. These were the days before teaching assistants so one teacher - I remember her clearly, she was actually lovely and very kind - taught them all. The SEN kids weren't allowed in assemblies because they were deemed too noisy, didn't have playtime with the rest of us and never came on school trips either. Their schooldays must have been so, so miserable.

Early 70s I developed an eating disorder - I was 14/15. I basically stopped eating and dropped 2 or 3 stone. None of the teachers thought to ask if I was OK. I was very not OK and could have done with some support.

We used to have to drink full fat milk every day in infants, shortly before Mrs Thatcher stopped it (I think). It was always warm which didn't make it any easier.

Football was 20-a-side with a tennis ball on a hard playground.

Kiss-chase was a game in infants that involved nothing more than a girl chasing a boy to kiss him (don't recall it being the other way round).

Nobody drove to school in infants, nobody.

In secondary, a few must have been driven, but I don't recall a single one. It was bike (me), walk or bus. Walking 4 miles was normal.

Teaching assistants didn't exist and class sizes could reach 40.

Boys often talked of lunchtime trips to the neighbouring school for fights (never recall it happening).

PE teachers were invariably the subject of rumours, either 'having it off' with another teacher (male), or lesbian (female).

Comments made about the development of one of the boys (early developer) and that would have been around 13. The comment was made by male PE teacher, and very laddish rather than sexual, but still...

@TheVampiresWife

In my primary the SEN children were all in the same class, regardless of age. So there were six year olds in with ten year olds. And as PP said, it was almost like a 'dumping ground' - there was a blind girl and one in a wheelchair but also the kids who had previously been in the mainstream classes but had repeatedly misbehaved, and a few children for whom English wasn't their first language. I have no idea what they were taught or how all their individual needs were met. These were the days before teaching assistants so one teacher - I remember her clearly, she was actually lovely and very kind - taught them all. The SEN kids weren't allowed in assemblies because they were deemed too noisy, didn't have playtime with the rest of us and never came on school trips either. Their schooldays must have been so, so miserable.

There was a "Remedial" class at one of my primaries, children of all years with all sorts of additional needs and behavioural issues grouped together.

I just remembered we had a special care unit in our primary school, which everyone called the 'deaf and dumb class'. I look back at that now in total horror.

In Y6 in 1978 girls did sewing while boys did football. When I started teaching in 1989 I had to take the girls for netball while the boys did football. I allowed 2 boys to do netball and it was frowned upon.

I also helped run the school bank when I was in Y6. I had to sit at a table in the hal with my best friend while children queued up to pay in their savings. I had to write it down in a book and my friend filled their savings card in. We could have fiddled the figures but were very honest!
I also used to enjoy fetching the teacher on duty's tea from the staffroom. No mugs with lids in those days!
I also remember that my Y6 teacher would test our times tables by making everyone stand up and hold out our hands. He would fire a times table at you and if you got it wrong or were slow to answer, he'd hit your hand with a ruler. He would also whack the legs of children not lining up straight.

Primary: kids being smacked with a plimsoll in front of the whole class for minor misdemeanors, ‘paki’ jokes being routine in the playground which I’m relieved I never partook in, though I’m ashamed to say I did get involved in some really sick jokes about the Ethiopian famine, Challenger disaster etc etc

At secondary, kids on the back seat of the upper deck of the school bus smoking out of the window. Doing athletics in special ‘knickers’ that you wore over your pants - only girls though.

Head teacher who was known to have committed minor sexual assaults on multiple students over many years being in charge of overnight residential trips - any pupil who raised concerns not being believed by staff and even being vilified and bullied by staff and other students! (He was later convicted).

@garlictwist

I started primary in 1985. I don't think there was much different to be honest other than there was no security at the school. Just one small gate that was never locked. Very different to today's schools which are like Fort Knox.

Yes, security wasn't an issue then. In infant school in front of the open gate, there was a painted green line and we knew not to step over the green line. My primary was split site and you moved to the junior school at 7. I still remember that one of my friends walked out of that gate unseen at 7yo and walked home alone, 2/3 miles crossing main roads.

We also had an openly gay female pe teacher. She was really muscly and all day, every day wore a tiny pe skirt around school. She was regularly thought bu us, to be 'looking at' the girls'.

A huge fashion in the early eighties at Secondary was rolling our socks down around our ankles to resemble legwarmers I suppose. White socks were preferable and if you were really fashion conscious, you wore 2 pairs of socks together to create a fatter roll. Bonus points if you had a pair of strapped kickers on the end. Did anyone else have thus sock trend going on or was it just us?! I have always wondered!

We had a black friend we 'affectionately' called Chalkie. I'm saddened that we did this, but he WAS our friend, and we never really looked at him any differently. We all had nicknames none of which we considered to be bad. The thing is, we never really asked him either. We'd never have known his true feelings. Makes me very sad.

Although not related to school, but of school age, I was in the Boys Brigade. There were adults there who were never vetted in any way. However, they were good adults, and the things they did for us will never be forgotten. Just good people (like many teachers). Yes, giving us lifts to play football, or band practices. Never a thought about how appropriate it was - and it was ALL above board.

I remember a teacher having me stay back in class a little while to talk to her. I was going to court to be adopted (the next day I think), and she was asking me all about it, giving me a cuddle. She was lovely and I've never forgotten it. She wouldn't be allowed to do that now. Absolutely nothing untoward.

Kids being hit hard on the backside by our junior school teacher. I was called a fat gorilla by a secondary school teacher.
We did swimming in an open air pool at junior school and when they did eventually fund raise enough money to get a roof put on, there was a storm and the partially built roof was at risk and all the teacher were up trying to hold the roof down ( not much health and safety in those days !! ). At junior school when two of the teachers got married we were all invited to their house for a party, the whole class ! In sixth form the teachers were dating the pupils , one of my friends married her teacher a couple of years later after leaving school.

I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom era.
What people don’t realise is there were so many of us that classes especially in primary school could consist of 60children from 2 different years.

The register involved us shouting out a number instead of our name. So 1… 2…. ….

Where’s 3?
I was number 29 for a while.

In primary school the headmistress made children eat their school dinner on the floor, like a dog, if they hadn’t finished their food! Also, some pupils used to go to an elderly male teacher’s house for a get together. In secondary school, I remember boys getting caned but not the girls. Also remember communal showers and how everyone stayed dressed, but splashed water on their shoulders and faces before wrapping towels around to fool the PE teacher. Not sure if it worked but she was so irritable anyway that she always just wanted rid of one class before “welcoming” the next! I recall kids getting hit by the board rubber and their heads bleeding and also one teacher grinding his knuckles into the top of the head of some of the boys who were misbehaving.
I cannot understand how any parent could have ever accepted these actions but in the 70s and 80s it seemed normal somehow.

Kiss-chase was a game in infants that involved nothing more than a girl chasing a boy to kiss him (don't recall it being the other way round).

This was a game at my school but there was also a version called "knicker chase" where boys chased the girls around and lifted up their skirts.