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?

At the colonial school I went to we were smacked or slippered in the lower school if we were naughty. In the senior school we got the slipper and the head did have a cane but I don’t think she used it very often at least not the times I was sent to her thankfully!

We used to get our bums smacked at primary school. I remember on one occasion three of us girls were caught having a water fight by the taps during break and were made to stand with our noses to the wall by the duty teacher. When the break was over we each went over her knee for a smack bottom.

I was never smacked in school but I do remember sitting at the back corner of a classroom full of kids and getting a board duster thrown at me by a maths teacher and finding the whole experience absalutely hilarious, laughed my head off I did.

The duster hit the wall behind me.

I was made of strong stuff in 1989🤣

That was the case for us too. It never happened to me, but I do remember in primary school children were given the slipper. Often in front of the class.

In secondary school if corporal punishment happened it was the cane in the headmaster's office. Again, it didn't happen to me, but I knew some children who got it.

I left school with the sixth form of 1984, and corporal punishment in schools was banned soon after that. Not a moment too soon.

I was given the belt several times in the 80s. I am the most mild, rule following person you could ever imagine. The belt was given as a class punishment and we all got it.

I was at primary school from about 85 onwards and was never smacked. There was a teacher in Y1 who was fond of shaking us if we'd done something wrong.

I have vivid memories of being smacked in 2 separate private nurseries for doing barely anything wrong. I still remember the feeling of injustice now. I don't know if I ever told my mum, she wasn't a hitter and I can't imagine she'd have taken kindly to it. Nor was I a particularly badly behaved child. Maybe they were just in the wrong job

I don't remember anyone being hit but I do remember one teacher would throw your pen out of the window (from about the third or fourth floor) if you were writing when he was talking. You weren't allowed to do any work in class and could get your pen at the end of the lesson. He would also draw a small circle on the blackboard and you would have to stand with your nose touching the blackboard in the circle if you were caught talking!!!

1985 is the last time I remember seeing corporal punishment in my school. That was a teacher using his belt on a student.

Strappings, belts, rulers, having chalk and dusters thrown, students having to stand with their nose against the wall. I remember all of that. Fortunately I got off lightly.

I left school in 1985 just as the belt was starting to be banned in various LAs (Scotland), but throughout my time in school there was never any slapping of children by teachers. There was the belt and an occasional teacher would throw chalk (or a duster) at a pupil not listening, but that was rarer. The belt was given in class at the time of the offense and not that often, I saw it perhaps once every month or so.

We used to 'get the strap' at our school. It was a strict catholic school. I left in 1982.
I have to say it had zero impact on me. It didn't hurt, I wasn't bothered by it. I'm not proud of it nor am I bothered or resentful. It was just something that happened for misdemeanours that we did!

I can remember a dinner lady smacking a child for trying to climb on the shelter roof in the playground. This would have been in 1986.
I was smacked at home but never in school.

We had the three tier school system when I started school (mid 70s) but it hadn’t been in place that long, maybe three or so years. So the younger years (I believe up to todays Y2) were still considered the infant school and as far as I was aware there was no smacking.

Once you got to the old juniors (Y3 and Y4) the teachers could give you the ‘slipper’ which in fact was a plimsoll. I only really remember one of the teachers wielding it in the dinner queue, to tap the bum of misbehaving kids. The two teachers for these years were therefore much feared - until you got into their class. They were both great teachers, so the use (or even threat) of corporal punishment was completely unnecessary really. They could have easily commanded respect without it.

Middle school (early 80s) had the cane, it was on the top of a cabinet in the HT’s study. It was considered only to be used on the boys. There were rumours of ‘naughty’ boys who’d been caned but no boy ever told me of their personal experience of this punishment and I don’t think anyone was actually caned when I was there.

High school, as far as I was aware, had nothing. Although it was still very much legal then. It was a selective all girls grammar pre the education restructuring in the early 70s and I think the discipline hangover (including some teachers from that era who just seemed to emanate control) was such it just wasn’t needed.

I don’t know if the three tier thing was considered a bit progressive and therefore more nurturing, and teachers were less inclined to use physical discipline.

I often see people in Facebook nostalgia groups saying how it ‘never did them any harm’ but I just cannot imagine how an adult in a position of trust thought beating a child with an implement was ever acceptable.

I remember when Cathy got the cane in Grange Hill, I was horrified! I also remember that Mrs McClusky seemed very reluctant to do it - maybe reflecting the real life change of attitudes.

I remember the only male teacher hitting boys across the knuckles with a ruler or throwing the board rubber at them.
I also remember my brownie leader washing out someone’s mouth with soap for swearing.
My entire karate class was hit by a large willow cane.
I was smacked at home too, it felt like nowhere was safe.

I was also experiencing a lot of domestic violence at home (more than smacking), getting rulered and smacked at school. I remember a teacher lifting a boy up off his feet by the collar and pressing him into the wall, whilst screaming in his face. I also felt like I was never safe. I got diagnosed with CPTSD a while ago (am 51).

Nope.

I was born in 1980 so would have been about the same age but there was no smacking at my school.

I was smacked at home a few times.

My Grandad (who was an infinitely calm and gentle man) had a permission slip written out for him to authorise him to use corporal punishment in the classroom during the 50s. My Grandma still has the slip, though doesn't recall him ever using this authority to dish out physical punishment. My Gradad died some years back so he's not around to ask.

Not personally but I must have been around 5 and I remember a little boy being laid over the teachers lap and she smacked him on his bottom with her hands. It was in the hall in front of the whole school.
It was probably around the same time as op 1985/6 I'm not sure but it's one memory that has stuck with me.
My dh is a few years older and remembers children being smacked in school probably around 1982/3.

I started school in 1979 when I was 4. From my first week, I have a very vivid memory of the teacher jabbing me hard in the ribs with a boney finger and saying “Don’t you go home telling tales!” No idea why.

I went home and asked my mum what ‘telling tales’ meant, as I hadn’t come across the expression. Of course she wanted to know what had happened, and marched straight to school to complain to the Head. Horrible teacher wasn’t there the next day, and indeed never came back. She presumably had previous.

A few years later at junior school, when I was about 7, we had an absolute monster of a teacher who everyone hated. She used to smack children with a plimsoll - ‘Percy Plimsoll’ she called it. It was always the same kids who she hit. Looking back, they were the ones who were also clearly suffering neglect at home. Poor kids.

At senior school it was ‘just’ the usual wooden board rubber being thrown at heads by a maths teacher.

I’ve been struggling with the realisation, which my childhood friend (with a bad memory compared to me and a children social worker) categorically recalled, that I had a racist teacher aged 5. My friend recalled she’d hit me for anything, or nothing. I could read well but couldn’t spell phonetically. She got angry one day as I’d correctly completed the class work. Hauled me to the desk like I had been naughty and gave me words to spell aloud, which I did but not phonetically. So I was smacked repeatedly for what felt like forever but was probably only 10-15 minutes.
in addition I was being bullied and if I spoke up she’d scream at me.
Aged 5 I looked white and had no idea my mum was very dark Asian in a very white area.

I went to school from 1980 onwards and never heard or see anyone get smacked in the schools I went fo
Teachers shouted at kids at tiles and physically stoped fights etc , but to be fair teacher shouted at you and you had been a brat your mum would come and collect you and tell you off too
I think they had it right , most of the time they were great but if you stepped out of line you were told
I even remember teachers cuddling upset kids when i was at school , not sure they are allowed so much now
Not sure when corporal punishment was banned but never happened at the schools I went fo

It was banned in state schools in 1986.
I had another year with a teacher who smacked indiscriminately. But that was fine. It was being smacked the year before for getting my work right that confused and made me terrified and anxious for life.

I started school in Yorkshire, the local council had banned teachers from corporal ounishment.

We moved to Lancashire when I was 9.

Yep got the ruler. From a nun with the nick name, Sr Mary Thwakum.

She found some writing in a text book and decided which of the boys had done it, he wouldn't admit it (because he hadn't done it) so she asked him every day and he denied it so he got the ruler (she had a special extra thick wooden metre rule) until the boy who had done it admitted to it.

At secondary one of the English teachers went to slap a girl across her face, she put her hand up and he was absolutely furious with her.

He should have not been let within 100m of a child.

There were teaches who used violence and there were teachers who didn't. It had nothing to do with how you behaved.

I was smaked on the arse in primary school, in front of around 50 ish children. Then I was taken to his office and locked in .for the rest of the day ,there was a stack of old books with ants crawling all over them . I remember my dad went to see him ,the head after,,later ,,, and I didn't have to go to school if I didn't want . I believe this was around 1989 .

Yes, it happened to me at school and at Gym club. I was an Infant from 1987 to 1991. (UK)