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!

I remember going to France in senior school and the teachers would sit at a different table for dinner and were well oiled by the time we went back to the hotel. The children at another table at the other side of the restaurant

Most of the older ones ordered vin rouge and then back at the hotel practiced their smoking and French on the French lads who I think had got wind that there was a group of drunk English girls

There is nothing worse than the wind of drunk English girls.

Almost the entire 5th form becoming born again Christians under the guidance of a couple of evangelical teachers. There were even instances of the speaking in tongues thing. It was so weird.

I and a few others remained steadfastly atheist.

Britbox has the early series of Grange Hill if anyone wants a trip down memory lane. The early ones weren't far away from reality. I had never been to the school before I started. Apparently I missed the afternoon trip to visit because I was in hospital but there were no long inductions, just an afternoon to look round.

@krystalweedon

Almost the entire 5th form becoming born again Christians under the guidance of a couple of evangelical teachers. There were even instances of the speaking in tongues thing. It was so weird.

I and a few others remained steadfastly atheist.

We didn’t have evangelical teachers, but a strand of heavily born-again Christian older girls who started up a Christian ‘club’ that met at lunchtimes. They used to sing and hold prayer meetings and the like. I got dragged into it kind of by accident, and from there into going to a happy-clappy church, and it utterly dominated my teenage years, not in a good way. The RE teachers weren’t involved but there was no secret that it was going on, entirely without adult supervision. I’d like to think that such a thing would be at least monitored nowadays.

[quote thisisnotmyllama]@Papergirl1968

^Country dancing lessons on the radio when I was 8 or 9, so about 1976.
A “street party” in the playground for the Queen’s silver jubilee and us being given a commemorative teaspoon in a box. Possibly a commemorative coin too.^

We’re the same age.

I did those country dancing lessons too! Never realised it was off the radio.

We also had a school ‘street party’ in 1977. We had to wear red, white & blue for the day. I think there must have been some kind of organised performance for the parents too, as I can remember rehearsing marching up & down singing ‘There’ll always be an England’.
I’ve still got my commemorative coin. Never got a teaspoon though - jealous now! [/quote]
Oh yes, country dancing on a Friday afternoon! In 1980. We had to push all the tables back and partner up. How funny, looking back, Country dancing lessons! We loved sitting in the Hall to watch school programmes on the wheeled TV. We played Stuck In The Mud and later skipping and skipping songs was all the rage. At primary it was an unspoken 'rule' that the boys had the first playground for football and the second playground was the girls for skipping. The bigger and chunkier the rope the better as multiple girls could skip at the same time. Almost unbelievably now, in today's world but skipping was still massively popular in 1st Years seniors and I had a massive rope my dad got me through his work. Sad really as imagine 11 year olds skipping in school nowadays but kids were kids back then, more innocent and children for far longer. Secondary we had the ubiquitous lesbisn pe teacher but we weren't made to shower so barely anyone did. We had needlework, metal work, woodwork and Childcare. They weren't segregated by sex as I remember doing woodwork and when I did Childcare we had one lad in the class. Pe lessons were tennis in summer or netball and gymnastics and badminton in the winter. One girl broke her leg about 3 times in school once jumping over the "horse". We also occasionally did athletics and another girl got hit in the head by a discus although she was fine. We had the dreaded cross country running but had a short cut that the teachers were probably completely aware of although we thought that they weren't. Some girls fancied the male pe teacher as it was thought he looked like George Michael!! He knew it and loved himself but never encouraged anyone or did anything untoward, nothing at all happened.

Ohh, skipping reminds me of the trend for jumping through elastic held around the ankles of two other girls. French skipping?

Also, no one cared about attendance. Several kids were absent for weeks on end and no one in authority seemed to follow this up

I was one of those kids! My attendance was only about 60% at primary school, my mum liked my company and didn't see the point of going every day. She would just write me a sick note when I went back. How she never got caught by the attendance officer I'll never know.

@Papergirl1968

Ohh, skipping reminds me of the trend for jumping through elastic held around the ankles of two other girls. French skipping?

Yup.

'Granny put her knickers on, IN-SIDE-OUT'

@Papergirl1968

Ohh, skipping reminds me of the trend for jumping through elastic held around the ankles of two other girls. French skipping?

Yes, but it's funny how certain girls always managed to have the lions share of the play and others were Enders constantly

@bendmeoverbackwards

Also, no one cared about attendance. Several kids were absent for weeks on end and no one in authority seemed to follow this up

I was one of those kids! My attendance was only about 60% at primary school, my mum liked my company and didn't see the point of going every day. She would just write me a sick note when I went back. How she never got caught by the attendance officer I'll never know.

That's a point, it was easier to skive (I might have got an A+ for skiving).

Wasn't that skipping game that girls played progressively more difficult?

I think it's was similar to forming a 'cat's cradle' with string around your fingers, but instead it was around ankles on a larger scale? You had to skip in a simple pattern, then the rope pattern around ankles became more complex (criss crossing) and you had to skip ever more intricately. If you touched the rope, you were out.

Is that roughly it?

French skipping

In my primary and junior school when it was your birthday the headteacher would lift you on the piano, the school would sing happy birthday to you and at the end yell "jump" and the braver kids would jump and the others would be lifted down. I always jumped. Can't see that happening now.

At the end of term the headteacher would encourage boxing between the 4th years (year 6 now) and the rest of the school would watch in fascination!

The cane was in his office but I don't remember it ever being used. He would wallop boys backsides if they had been reported. He would do it infront of the whole school. Sometimes he would do a "double trouble" where the boys would be bent over with their heads touching, they'd get a simultaneous whack and their heads would bang together. One boy who was new to the school got whacked on the bum for talking in assembly and he ran out crying and the whole school laughed. Myself included . Really despicable behaviour.
I left for secondary in 1987.

wooden board runners or chalke being thrown at your head
canning with a meter ruler on the back of the knees or hands
Being made to do PE in huge knickers and an airtex top (polo)
being made to eat liver and bacon
two children naked in the bath... oh yes at birding school!

I remember a boy who lived in our road had only his father. His mother I think had left. His dad was a long distance lorry driver and was away for a a week at a time.

He was about 8 years old and his dad left him money to buy food and off he went to Dover.
I think he only went to school to get a hot dinner. He was about 4 years older than me

Kids getting the 'bumps' on their birthdays. Basically a Tom Brown's Schooldays-esque throwing to the ceiling in a blanket minus the ceiling and blanket. Teachers would look on and smile.

Boys getting the ruler across their hands.

Teacher ripping up a kid's long worked on painting in front of the class because said kid wouldn't stop winding up others.

Asking to skip maths to finish art under the school stairs and being allowed to. Totallly unsupervised, natch.

Being made to line up to show the school cook (who really wasn't arsed) what we'de left on our plates.

Being made to eat cold, grey, lumpy mash when I was going down with chicken pox and honking it back into the plate. Funnily enough the dinner ladies left me alone after that

Pen knives in pencil cases were big.

Also:

Teachers smoking in the playground at break time. By the time I went to secondary it was limited to the staff room which smelt like a den of thieves if you dared knock so...progress.

Sunny Smiles fundraising photos which were hawked up and down the road in aid of a children's home charity. Basically an invitation to pick the orphan with the most winning smile.

@CathyorClaire

Also:

Teachers smoking in the playground at break time. By the time I went to secondary it was limited to the staff room which smelt like a den of thieves if you dared knock so...progress.

Sunny Smiles fundraising photos which were hawked up and down the road in aid of a children's home charity. Basically an invitation to pick the orphan with the most winning smile.

Oh gosh yes. I too remember teachers openly smoking. Ha!

Also if they were called away from the classroom for any reason they would just tell us to read or do an exercise until they returned, no other member of staff had to be found to mind us in their absence.

Post 11, at 'big' school, the teachers all floated around wearing their graduation gowns.

Being hit on the flimsiest of excuses.

My mother was a teacher in the 70s (before I was born) she tells me she regularly used to take children home for tea!

Ahhh, 8yo DD and her friends are madly into skipping in the playground at the moment. It’s funny to hear her singing all the rhymes I knew from 35 years ago!

My mother was a teacher in the 70s (before I was born) she tells me she regularly used to take children home for tea!

One of the GCSE English teachers at my secondary used to let the students drop assignments round at his house if they missed the deadline. I thought that was so cool and generous and was bitter that my teacher didn’t allow it.

Trying to levitate and summon demons in the cloakroom at primary school!

PE lessons at secondary school involved us walking into town and either going to the swimming pool or the squash club (only the swimming pool was supervised by teachers so most of us hung out at the squash club for an hour)

There were two pubs near our sixth form college. It was well known that the teachers went to one and the students went to the other.

I went to Uni in the 80s and the last two rows of the lecture theatre had ashtrays built into the wooden desks for the smokers.

This would have been late 80s as I started school in 86 but I remember a boy who wouldn't sit in his seat, kept standing up and walking around no matter how many times the teacher asked him to sit down. She finally lost it, grabbed one of those huge hugs of PVA glue, poured it on his seat and sat him down in it.

Early 90s. I was told off in chemistry class (probably deservedly) and I cried. Teacher took me home afterwards to see her new puppy to cheer me up. Looking back, I am jaw-dropping appalled by how grooming and inappropriate that now sounds. But really, it was just a puppy, and she was nothing but lovely with me - absolutely nothing happened either than or subsequently. Different times, I suppose.