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!

Having to eat all your school dinner or you would be punished and not be allowed to leave the table ( primary).
Girls taking typing exams because they were considered not clever enough for O levels.
Lining children up to judge art homework from best to worst, oh the humiliation each week.

Girls being steered towards nursing and teaching. Boys towards emergency services and army

We didn't have showers after PE - the shower area was used as the games store room 😆

@0None0

Boys first on the tegister

I had completely forgotten this, but yes!

RC primary school in 1980 - 'stand up if you went to Mass on Sunday'. Cue shaming of those who didn't (which would've been down to their parents anyway). (I went to 3 different RC schools, this didn't happen at the other 2.)

My brother, aged 13-ish, another faith school, 1984 - made by the maths teacher to stand on a chair and repeat 'I am gay, I am gay, I am gay'. The member of staff in question was still teaching there until quite recently .

Girls quietly accepting it when told a career they have been considering us not for girls. I was told I couldn’t be a dog handler

When there were not enough chairs in a sixth formers classroom, the boys were expected to give up their chairs to ‘the weaker sex’

Being slapped on the legs for getting sums wrong. It happened to my friend and because I had copied her wrong answers and was next in line I wet myself.

The married school gardener (aged 30,) having an affair with a 14 year old schoolgirl, getting her pregnant, and then leaving his wife and four kids, and moving into a flat with said schoolgirl.

These days, he would have been strung up, and thrown in prison, and been put on the sex offenders register. (This was the late 1970s.)

I saw them 20 years later (late 1990s,) and they were still together. They had 6 kids! Then I saw him again 10 years after that (around 2008,) when he would have been 65, and he was with a different woman. She was no more than 35, pushing 2 kids in a pushchair, and he was dragging 2 others along with reins... By then, he must have lost count of how many kids he had! I think it was about 14!

Boys carrying girls bags

I started school in a catholic school in 1969 . The nuns regularly smacked us and pulled our hair . The headmaster caned you . Being called stupid/ lazy etc was a daily occurrence. Having to wear PE knickers from the spares cupboard. The nit nurse coming every term to check our heads and seeing the unfortunate ones who had them with shaven heads the next day . Also if you got smacked/ caned / rulered and went home and told your parents they asked you what you'd done to deserve it . Gosh it sounds so brutal now .

Boys owning the playground for football. Girls allowed to play quietly in odd corners

Ooh - and if it was wet play in the juniors, the Y6s were allocated 2 to a class lower down the school to watch over - break and lunch. A dinner lady would stick her head round the door once!

Our play ground backed on to a public rec. In the summer we were allowed to go and play in the rec at lunchtime. The public were still there. We had 2 dinner ladies watching 12 classes!

Sorry, the gardener would have been around 60 in 2008, not 65. (Bad maths by me!)

The school nurse doling out paracetamol for headaches/period pain, no questions asked

Primary school 1960's/70's - boys got the slipper, board rubbers thrown at misbehaving children, girls did gym, boys did football (I loved football!), school dinner was meat, potatoes and "greens", walked to and from school by myself, picking up friends along the way.

Secondary school - very strict (all girls) and taught by nuns (are there schools like that still?).

Headmaster hugging us on his lap if we felt ill ( infants)

There was a lot of humilation as the main form of discipline and throwing of board rubbers.
More positive there seemed to be more freedom for teachers to just take advantage of the weather or current affairs and do a totally different lesson to the plan

1980, still at junior school. Took a trip in a boat across the Thames estuary from the Essex coast to the Kent coast. I remember sitting on the side of the boat in the open air, looking down into the water. No life jackets for anyone, and everyone feeling very sick.

And, like a pp poster, piling into the back of an ancient land-rover, some on the benches, some sitting on the floor, to visit a farm. The teacher told us to duck when a police car came the other way! Again, this was junior school about 79/80.

I inadvertently stepped out the lunch queue, and was dragged by my pony tail to the end of the queue by the dinner lady. I was 8.

Lots of throwing of board rubbers at senior school too.

I only started school 4 years after you OP.

No corporal punishment at all

Definitely don't remember any sexual harassment by teachers, but I went to a girls Catholic school and the headteacher was a nun, so that sort of thing would not have been approved of!

I remember the teachers been mostly kind, funny, interesting. Schools were a lot less pressurised than they are now, we didn't really get detentions for minor stuff like forgetting a pen , only for bad stuff like fighting and swearing at a teacher. They were much more flexible with regards to uniform, equipment, rules and teenagers had a lot more freedom eg. allowed out at lunchtime, allowed to hang out in classrooms at lunch and break. Teachers had more freedom to do fun stuff or be a bit random, I don't thing the curriculum was a strict or formal.

A teacher was the wife of the Headmaster. He kept a slipper for us, and painted it red on the bottom. His wife knitted him a slipper sock so he could use it with more force…
Those were the days!

I think my school was pretty rough really. I wasnt’ a ‘hard’ kid and the fights were pretty regular. More bullying that was physical. However I look at some schools now and the mental bullying or ‘woke’ fights on social media are pretty insidious.

Told I should be at the girls school (as a boy) hockey ball thrown by teacher. Communal showers not any better in boots schools either

Glue sniffing and being chased around the school field by teachers for smoking.
Drying wet socks on the radiators on a rainy day so the whole room smelt of cheesy feet.
Ink wells in the desks.
If anyone was sick, the caretaker came and covered it with sawdust.

When I was at school it was ok for girls to be lesbians. I mean no one thought it was cool but you didn’t have to hide It. No one suggested that you were born in the wrong body and should be sterilised, put on drugs for life or bind your breasts.

Yes some unpleasant boys might suggest that you should have sex with them to sort you out. But that was seen as a nasty comment from bigots.

Now saying that is seem as progressive and lesbian girls are told THEY are hateful bigots for not wanting to have sex with men. Schools encourage lesbians to self harm.

Throwing the blackboard rubber at the naughty kids.
Getting the slipper
Teachers shagging students, in upper sixth. Was seen as romantic rather than sleazy
Girls On a rota making lunch and tea for the teachers and Worse still none of us minded.
Kids getting expelled. Boy in my DCs secondary school brought a knife to school and didn’t get expelled.