Smacking at school 80s

[Ilostit]

Leading on from another thread about the 90s. I was prob about 6-7 so 1985-1987 ish and I was smacked by my headteacher. It only happened once. I don’t remember why (I was a very well behaved child but came from a troubled house and I may have played up if things were bad at home).

I was called into the office called a naughty girl and smacked.

I hate that it’s one of my memories from childhood. My parents never physically abused me. That Headteacher is the only person to have ever hit me.

Was anyone else hit at school in the 80s?

I finished Junior School in 82 and the Infant and Junior School Head teachers had given kids hidings/the slipper. Not the class teachers. None in my secondary girls' school

Bloody hell it sounds awful!

No one was hit in my school in the 80s. My brother had the reputation of being naughty though. He's been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult...

I now work in a primary as a TA. The kids are tiny, so tiny in R. I can't imagine kids being hit at school.
Kids with SEN must have had an especially hard time of it.

@Fuckmyliferightnow

I was smacked at the age of five, it is my very first memory of school. The same teacher was smacking 10 years later when I did work experience in the school, it would have been 1992. The child was 4 years old, he was crying because he struggled to write the letter e.

Poor munchkin! My mum remembers back in the 60s when she was in reception and they were just learning to write a friend of her wrote 'I have a pig sister' (meaning 'big sister) and was given the strap! Absolutely insane.

Surely corporal punishment in schools was banned by 1992 though wasn't it? I started in 1993 and there was never anything like that.

@DinosApple

Bloody hell it sounds awful!

No one was hit in my school in the 80s. My brother had the reputation of being naughty though. He's been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult...

I now work in a primary as a TA. The kids are tiny, so tiny in R. I can't imagine kids being hit at school.
Kids with SEN must have had an especially hard time of it.

Yes I'm sure they did. I remember a reason the Infant Head put boys over her knee in hymn practice was because they were fidgeting too much. A friend said a boy in her primary school late 70s/early 80s was smacked every day and she now thinks he had SEN

Haven’t read the whole thread but in the late 70s the belt was regularly dished out in Scottish schools. A leather belt bashed out in the hand of people who misbehaved and a huge threat to those who had to toe the line. I remember being terrified of a French teacher who used to make people come to the front of the class and sing a song if they hadn’t done their work properly

I remember someone at primary school getting the slipper, but it wasn't the slipper itself that sticks in my mind. More the fact that we all had to gather around as he bent over the desk and watch, like some sacrificial ceremony or something. Really wasn't quite right.

Then at another school, a stand in teacher completely lost it and repeatedly hit a boy in the head. We never saw the teacher again thankfully.

I'm quite pleased we don't have that anymore.

One if my earliest memories of school is of being hit with a paintbrush across the hands. One of the thick wooden ones that were about 12-15" long, so I was basically caned. This was in the late 80s, I would have been about 7 or 8, I think. I remember not being able to write that afternoon, or get undressed for bed very easily that night, it hurt a lot. Can't remember what I did but I was extremely shy & my mother always said I was very polite as a child. nightmare teenager though

These memories are so sad. I was at school in the 80s and don't remember anyone ever been physically punished. I do remember the day it was outlawed though (in state schools) - I vividly remember it being talked about on John Craven's Newsround.

So many sad stories on this thread. I'm so glad schools don't do this anymore.

I do remember one of my mum's friends giving her childminder permission to smack her son, if he misbehaved. This would have been in about 1995, so can't have actually been legal.

Yes remember it was quite common in primary school in the the early eighties, usually child taken to the front of the class to be smacked in front of the other children, seems shocking now

When my mother was a girl in the 50’s, her and her siblings (9 in total) went to a tiny school with two teachers. The headmaster hit one of her brothers one day with a stick I believe.
Anyway, my grandma was a single parent, a widow, and she took no shit from anyone. She went down there and threw stones at him! He never touched any of my mothers siblings again. This was always a humorous story told to us all. No one messed with grandma.

It was quite common in primary school to get smacked for being naughty. Nothing brutal but just a smack on the bum or the leg. I don’t think it did us any harm. Me and her friend were once sent to the headmistress which was a bit more serious because she put us over her knee and smacked us. It was more symbolic than painful though. At secondary school a group of us got the slipper from the gym teacher for taking a shortcut on the cross country route. My dad found it funny because he had got into trouble for the same thing years before!

I’m 55, corporal punishment as still going strong when I was at school. I got smacked at infant school, middle and high school had the slipper, ruler and cane, I never got those but I did have a teacher who liked to kiss the girls in his class, for our birthdays , top marks in tests doing well at anything really, I got kissed for coming first in the school fancy dress 😱always on the lips too! He was also the teacher that did the ruler or cane for the majority of other teachers, a sadistic twat he was
High school I had some teachers that liked to throw things, chalk, board rubber, the occasional chair.
I was also hit at home.

I'm pretty much the same age as you OP and this happened in my Scottish primary school. Smacking happened in the classroom in front of everyone from P1-P3. I was never smacked but lived in fear of it. I remember watching friends being put over the teacher's knee at school and feeling sick and terrified. Once it was my friend's birthday and she got smacked for talking about her presents. I was outraged and said to the teacher that it was unfair to smack someone on their birthday. I don't know what came over me, I was usually too scared to speak out. I didn't get hit but she yanked my head back and forward by my ponytail until I cried.

It was absolutely inhumane, looking back.

Our headmistress was ferocious and there were lots of terrifying tales from older kids about getting the belt from her. Legend had it that she still had the belt and would use it in exceptional circumstances (it was still legal but pretty much frowned upon whereas smacking was still fine). I don't remember it ever actually happening in my time though. Corporal punishment was finally made illegal when I was in P3. The Headmistress retired at the same time and it's only typing this out that I'm realising there may have been a link. The new Headmaster was a lovely man and the atmosphere at school changed completely after that.

I got the belt at primary school. When my mother found out she took me to my room an hit me with the porridge spoon. Not a great day. I have never and will never lay a finger on my kids.

I think I'm the same age as you (born in 1979), never experienced anything like that at primary school.

We had a politics teacher in secondary school who was prone to explosive temper outbursts and throwing things like bits of chalk / blackboard dusters etc across the room, though.

I was born 71 and in my infant and junior schools only the Head teachers smacked kids. The head mistress in the infant school would smack kids in front of the rest of us, sometimes over her knee several times. Eg. For fidgeting I assembly. Junior it was the slipper behind closed doors. I don't think it was done that often. Never to me. Was boys I think. Secondary girls' school never. I was smacked and hit at home until about 16. I've never smacked my kids and don't agree with it. Oldest is 18 now

I was smacked in year 1 in 1992 by my teacher. I remember her asking me why I had misspelt a word and me quietly saying I didn’t know why and she slapped me really hard on the bum twice. Weirdly I don’t remember seeing her hit anyone else at all. I was a very well behaved and quiet child so have no reason why she did it. I didn’t tell my mum as I thought she would tell me off. I wish I had as she’d have been horrified.

Fucking Hell. Your poor poor mum.

It's insane that in the whole of British history abusing children has always been accepted as the norm, and we've only really now seeing the first generation of adults who haven't been routinely subjected to it.

My mum was not against CP but her refused me to be caned across the hand as I played the piano. She didn’t mind me being smacked across the bum if I’d been naughty but reckon the caning across the hand could really do damage as she had seen it done to other kids. She told me just refused to put your hand up and tell the teacher to ring me.

Dragged out to the school office and slapped what felt like 30 times. (It probably wasn't that many but 10+). I remember I had my legs curled round my chair so the chair got dragged half the way as well.

That teacher was a massive arsehole.

Slapped almost daily by my mum.

I was a perfectly ordinary, quiet child.

I was also smacked on my very first day at nursery, aged about 4.

I didn't want my mum to leave me there so she picked me up and plonked me on the knee of the teacher. I struggled to get away and kicked the teacher's leg so got a good smacking for that.

Although I received CP both at home and school I don’t feel that way because it was reasonable. I was smacked on the bum occasionally at school when naughty and certainly mum was not afraid to put us over her knee and bounce her hand off our young bottoms when needed. But nothing we didn’t deserve or was unreasonable IMO.

I got the ruler on the hand in about 1986. I don't remember much else happening except blackboard rubber and chalk throwing and one teacher loved to drag "naughty" children across the classroom, throwing chairs in front of them so they would fall.
One teacher masking taped a girl to her chair who wouldn't stop getting up from her seat. So awful.

That to me is abuse. Teachers misusing their authority.interesting my mum doesn’t feel she was abused even though she got the cane more than one as it was fair and she deserved it