What petty resentment are you holding on to years later?

[ClumpingBambooIsALie]

Mine is that I was put in for Foundation level GCSE Double Science despite having good grades on my coursework, only found out when I got into my exam and saw the Foundation paper in front of me, and was therefore capped at a CC. Twenty years ago 😂

What's yours?

when i was around 8 or 9 at school me and a boy were messing around on the school field he was picking up large pieces of mud and i was trying to kick them, we probably shouldn't of been doing it but it was just harmless fun! a teacher came up told me off and she said to me 'I'm surprised your can see over your stomach to do it' (i was chubby but not massively large) same teacher told me in front of the whole class i was disgusting because I didn't shave my legs, I wasn't even 10 i wasn't allowed to shave my legs. i still feel the burning embarrassment now writing this. i wish i had stood up for myself or at least told another teacher at the time!

When we went on holiday as children my brother and I shared a room, usually twin beds.

The family were driving to Spain, I think, and we had an overnight stop in Dover. The bedroom my brother and I had wasn't a twin but as we were 10 and 12 mum thought there was plenty of room to share for just one night.

Except my brother would not let me into the bed, when I tried I was literally kicked out of the bed.

After a few kickings and hard landings I managed to steal a sheet of the bed and slept on the floor.

In the morning I tried to tell my mum what happened and I had a strip torn off me for sleeping on the floor when they had spent good money on a room.

Much later as adult my brother and I have totally different lives. Due to disability I live on a council estate and am mostly on benefits although I do try to work when I can.

My cousin was getting married and I was ashamed I could not afford to go.

My brother and his wife have been in full time employment for decades and they went to the wedding and stayed over with their children.

Fine, they have much more money than me and my brother and that cousin are close.

But then my mum phoned to tell me how wonderful it had been and then slipped into the conversation that when she went to reception to pay the bill she decided to pay for my brother and his family.

A few days later I got a call from my brother telling me off for not attending the wedding. I said I could not afford and he informed me that, 'mum would have paid'.

I don't see my brother often.

In the 60s, the year before I started school I my mum would drop me at a playgroup once a week while she did her shopping. There very very few toys, think balls and hoops kind of thing, but there were some special toys set aside for the daughter of the playgroup leader, just for her, while we had to queue up to play with a hoop or ball all while watching the leader give her the shiny new toys to play with. If any other child asked to play with one of the new toys they were told no, they are for “my Susan”. The play group leader was a bit shouty as well. I hated the whole atmosphere and injustice of the place.

Oh too many. I was frequently labelled the naughty child. I don't think I was just hyperactive and thoughtless which led to a lot of telling off's which in my head were unjustified.

Anyway, here's one (not behavior related)....I use to take ballet lessons and for the school nativity they needed 2 people to be the dancing donkey. I kid you not, I was given understudy for the BACK end of the donkey. Understudy. Back end.

Yeah Im bitter.

Hardly any my parents were excellent and scrupulously fair. I always suffered from pretty bad travel sickness - still do. Remember a snooty teacher eye rolling me and saying I must “have eaten too many sweets” as I was neatly sick in a bag whilst on a coach smelling of cigarette smoke driving along windy Welsh lanes on a school trip.

I hadn’t had any sodding sweets!

I really wanted a Saturday job as a teen. My cousin who lives just up the road worked at a local pub/restaurant about two miles away. I got myself an interview and the plan was we would both go together (she’d hang around while my interview happened) and then walk home together. A few hours before the interview which was during the school holidays (so my parents were at work and couldn’t give me a lift) and my auntie and uncle decide it’s not safe for two teens to walk to the pub on their own so she’s not allowed to go! But they knew I would go on my own anyway! I walked the 4 mile round trip on my own.
I wasn’t offered the job because I couldn’t guarantee I’d always be able to get to the shifts offered (as my dad would have to be home in time to give me a lift) - but if the cousin was working at the same place I would have been able to catch a lift with them!
It still annoys me now 30 years later that I missed out on the job despite showing i could get there under my own steam and that my ‘family’ didn’t want to rush their daughters safety but were happy for me to go on my own!

My mum made me miss my best friend’s birthday party when I was 8 because my room (which I shared with my sister) was untidy. My sister had trashed it on purpose so I wouldn’t get to go. This was not out of character for her, but my mum refused to believe me. As an adult, I think she knew (very unlikely she didn’t) and possibly just couldn’t be arsed to take me- but it broke my heart as a kid.

In the last year of Junior school we had to do an exam to see what grade we were at for school selection.
I came top in the class and got into the local Grammar School.
One of the other girls, who spent most of her time kicking my shins, didn’t get in and told me I shouldn’t have got the place she should have, her friends did the same.
I was an extremely unconfident child and it shattered me.
I always felt I was undeserving of a place and spent 5 years not reaching my potential.
It’s is over forty years later and I still feel resentful when I think about it.

Oh, I remember another one from primary school. There was a girl in my class with a very similar name to mine (think Marie and Maria) . One day the teacher asked Maria to come to the front of the class to speak to her. Obviously I did not move as she had not called my name. Next thing I know I am being shouted at by the teacher, I tried to apologise saying I did not realise she was talking to me as she did not say my name. I then got sent to the head teacher for being so rude. I really hated you Mrs McCauley

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

But yeah you'd think that by age 15/16 they'd let teenagers have some responsibility, and go for the damn intermediate/higher paper if that's what they want to do.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie Dm's a maths teacher and they often had this discussion with her pupils. It's not as simple though as they can get higher on the higher paper. The way it used to work was: Lower level grades E-C Higher level C-A

But that meant if you had a pupil who was likely to get a D, but might get a C, if you put them in the higher paper, then if they got a D they wouldn't actually get a grade at all. Also a lot of pupils were put off by a paper that they couldn't do a good proportion of, so would do worse on the higher paper on top of that.
It's not done just to be awkward.
The difficult decisions had to be made when you had someone who was inconsistent and should get a C, on a good day would get a B, on a bad day would get a D. Then you had to decide whether the risk of them failing the exam and getting no grade was worth the chance of getting a B. Very few pupils thought it was.

My petty moment was a tracksuit I had. I was a very girly-girl and had no trousers except this red tracksuit which I was very proud of. My brother, despite being a lot younger was nearly as tall as me, and I came back from being out to find dm had sewn the hems up and given him the tracksuit because "he's so short on clothes". I rarely got new clothes (having a big sister) and he often got new clothes, so I could see that I wasn't getting another one. Also he was so short on clothes because he produced holes in them from just standing still.
Within a week he'd gone through the knees of this tracksuit and then was bought a new one.

I had similar with my bike that I came back to find it had been lowered and stabilisers put on. I was offered my sisters old one which, even at the lowest setting was way too tall for me. Apparently I was being mean because he had totally grown out of his bike (he'd been happily riding it the day before) and I could still have a bike.
I fell off my sisters bike (which apparently was being dramatic)-I still have the scar on my leg, and didn't ride a bit again for around 10 years.

So so many. But the original and the best - the headmistress who accused me of trying to “push in” to a queue when I was just having a little dance beside it and who HIT me HARD for being ‘naughty’ - God may she rot in hell where she must be, seeing I was five, she was ancient and it was about 40 years ago

Hey, getting that off my chest feels soo good. Maybe I should write these down.

I had a lovely little ride on plastic horse as a child and I loved that thing. When I left home at 17 I found out my DM had given it away to a neighbours child. By the time I discovered this it was too late to go round and get it back and I suppose I would have felt silly doing so. I still want my horse back some 40 odd years later.

@Chocolatier9

So so many. But the original and the best - the headmistress who accused me of trying to “push in” to a queue when I was just having a little dance beside it and who HIT me HARD for being ‘naughty’ - God may she rot in hell where she must be, seeing I was five, she was ancient and it was about 40 years ago

Hey, getting that off my chest feels soo good. Maybe I should write these down.

Bloody hell

I hope there’s a special corner of hell reserved for that breed of teacher (and there were many like her).

I was a straight A student in school, and was also a prefect, involved in the sixth form committee, the orchestra and the choir. When it came time to apply for university I went to speak to the teacher charged with advising people who wanted to apply to Oxbridge. He basically told me you had to be a county level sports player or a grade 8 musician and therefore I wouldn't get in. So I didn't apply.

On reflection I'm glad I didn't go to either but I resent being discouraged from applying.

Outing but can't be bothered to NC.

I did a terrible thing to my little sister about 45yrs ago and she still reminds me about it. I swapped one of her Weebles for a Pippa doll! I still have to look remorseful everytime she brings it up sorry sis!!!

School when I was very young. Teacher left the class and told us we must recite the timestables. I started the class off on the 3's. When she came back another girl said she had done that. I was indignant and was like 'I STARTED THEM ON THEIR 3's'.

Not me but someone I know.

One Christmas my brother's friend received a very cheap looking jumper from his mum and step dad. That was the only thing he got. His brother on the other hand who wasn't yet 2 received a mini motorbike which he wasn't even old enough to start riding for another few years plus a ton of other presents. If that had been me I'd be livid and so hurt but credit to him he took it so well.

So many petty memories! Like having my chinese-style scroll painting effectively stolen by the girl next to me, because she rubbed out my name (in pencil) from the back and painted hers name in black so it couldn't be removed. It was my flippin' painting! Hers was crap.

Being asked to leave Guides because I didn't wear the proper uniform, my parents couldn't afford a navy blue skirt for me to wear just 2 hours/week (school uniform was grey). I tried to argue that the ethos of Girl Guiding was more important than what I was wearing, but to no avail. I believe the uniform is now not only very different but also optional ...

My biological father spending all of the inheritance from his mother (my paternal grandmother) sending my two half-brothers to private school, instead of sharing the spending/wealth across all four of his children. As I only saw him every school holidays, unlike now where parents share custody, I'm guessing that we were out of sight and out of mind.

Daily Schmail published my letter in their Junior Letters section in the early 1980s. But they got my name wrong, the typesetter had their fingers on the wrong keys, so nobody knew it was me.

When I was about 13 I got knocked off my bike by a car, was injured, had to have a lot of time off school and started back just before sports day. I was told I would not be excused just because I was physically recovering so put myself down for the 100m. I thought that would be over quicker! On the day, mixed race and the HOY was on the tannoy commentating on everything in front of the whole school, about 1200 students in all plus staff. I don't think I'd even got off the start line when everyone else finished! The HOY berated me the whole time via microphone telling me to make an effort and run faster. That was not helpful, Mr Scott.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie Dm's a maths teacher and they often had this discussion with her pupils. It's not as simple though as they can get higher on the higher paper.
The way it used to work was:
Lower level grades E-C
Higher level C-A

But that meant if you had a pupil who was likely to get a D, but might get a C, if you put them in the higher paper, then if they got a D they wouldn't actually get a grade at all. Also a lot of pupils were put off by a paper that they couldn't do a good proportion of, so would do worse on the higher paper on top of that.
It's not done just to be awkward.
The difficult decisions had to be made when you had someone who was inconsistent and should get a C, on a good day would get a B, on a bad day would get a D. Then you had to decide whether the risk of them failing the exam and getting no grade was worth the chance of getting a B. Very few pupils thought it was.

Assuming the PP is the same age as me, at that time there were three tiers, not two, for Maths GCSE on the exam boards I'm familiar with — Foundation, Intermediate and Higher. On the Foundation paper, the highest grade you could get was a D, but colleges and employers almost universally wanted C or above. So, naturally, the PP found being capped at what is widely viewed as a failing grade very demotivating. For other pupils, sitting the Foundation paper wouldn't have had that psychological effect, but in PP's case it did, and that's why I think flexibility is needed. I'm aware of how the system worked, and yes, pupils need guidance, but I think if they really want to take the risk they should be allowed to, and have it explained to them. 15 is old enough to be allowed to take some safetynetted risks IMO. I also don't see why students shouldn't be allowed to take more than one tier if they want to — back in the 80s DP took both a CSE and an O Level in one of his core subjects, scoring a C at O Level (considered a good pass) but a 2 at CSE (a 1 at CSE was generally considered roughly equivalent to a C at O Level).

The Intermediate paper for maths awarded grades B to E, while the Foundation paper awarded grades D to G. If PP was working somewhere around a D or E but might have a bad day and get an F or a G, then yes, sitting Foundation would prevent failing altogether, but would also rule out the possibility of doing well enough to get that all- important C. Foundation maths at that time for some students just felt like being passed a slip of paper saying "you've failed already, we're not going to even let you try". Of course, the main issue is that D-G grades in mathematics aren't valued for the qualifications they are, when they really should be, but an individual can't do anything about that.

Or, I suppose, 1–3 grades, now.

@crayray

I was a straight A student in school, and was also a prefect, involved in the sixth form committee, the orchestra and the choir. When it came time to apply for university I went to speak to the teacher charged with advising people who wanted to apply to Oxbridge. He basically told me you had to be a county level sports player or a grade 8 musician and therefore I wouldn't get in. So I didn't apply.

On reflection I'm glad I didn't go to either but I resent being discouraged from applying.

Outrageous and totally untrue as well. Oxbridge really don’t give a fig about co curricula stuff.

I'm aware of how the system worked, and yes, pupils need guidance, but I think if they really want to take the risk they should be allowed to, and have it explained to them. 15 is old enough to be allowed to take some safetynetted risks IMO. I also don't see why students shouldn't be allowed to take more than one tier if they want to

It's not that simple though, the content of the papers was very different and a D on foundation was not the same as a D on intermediate. It might be that to get a D you needed to cover 4 topics and that the entire foundation paper would be made up of these.

The intermediate might be 6 topics with only 1 question per topic 1-4 and then the other questions on topic 2-6 that had not been covered at all so the most you can get is 4 questions right.

Also if you are going on to college you would be expected to resit and it is better to have a solid foundation to build on from a solid D grade at foundation.

I understand what you are saying about GCE O Level and CSEs, I did both for chemistry but the content was the same.