What school rules from your day did you absolutely despise?

[Trothetoy]

The tie having to be at least 10 bars

Knickers and t-shirt for athletics.

Girls having to wear gym knickers & netball skirt for PE - never allowed to wear shorts or jogging bottoms even in sub-zero temperatures.

My school was fairly slack about rules but the whole "no wearing your coat when changing classes" did my head in because my school was a large campus made up of several buildings - we had to go outside to change classrooms (also we had nowhere to leave our coats so had to carry them along with everything else - just daft).
Edit: thinking back it was a headteacher who was only there for a year or two that had that rule. Once she was gone it changed. We didn't even have to wear uniform from 4th year (Year 10 in new money). She was a bit of a cow. No one liked her. Not even the teachers 😂

Having to eat everything at school dinner times. You had to have everything being served, no choices. Every day there was meat - I didn't like meat and still don't yet was made to eat it. I used to hide it in my handkerchief.

Utter misery every lunchtime! This was in the 1960's

Having to back your books with bloody wallpaper or wrapping paper (or worse, in the case of my history teacher "a poster of your favourite celebrity" (I did not collect posters of any celebrity, my favourite or otherwise, so I had to go buy a random magazine and use whatever came with it) - our choices were then critiqued in front of the class. Mortifying!

Primary School.. Having to finish your lunch even if it was something you didn't like. I remember being about six years old and in tears whilst the dinner lady stood over me until I'd eaten every scrape of mushy peas?!?

Communal showers with a teacher standing by checking, absolute invasion of privacy .
Looking back it must have been a nightmare for many children .

wearing a jumper unless a teacher says you can take it off. I was always boiling!

Toilet monitors dispensing two pieces of paper - regardless of need! If you were on your period and needed a crap - tough

Only the boys were allowed to help get the apparatus out for PE in infants school… because 5 year old boys are known for their significant strength? 🤔

I used to love backing my books! 😂

This was the rumour when I was in y5/6, thankfully didn’t actually happen when I went to secondary (late 90s). Absolutely unacceptable go force children to get naked in front of their peers and teachers!!

God I hated this, It's not like we all got super sweaty and dirty, There was really no need. At my school we did swimming once a week.. Two teenage girls to one tiny cubicle and that was after the horrendous shower.

Not being allowed to wear your own coat outside of school. It was a vairy posh school that thought reputation and looks were the most important thing in the world.

It was a wool coat, not remotely waterproof, with no hood that stank of wet dog whenever it rained. And I had a half an hour walk to school every day and half an hour back which was great fun in winter, particularly when I was putting a soaking wet coat back on to walk home in…

This actually did happen at my school.

The teacher would stand in the changing area and make sure everyone had showered. You could take your towel into individual shower cubicles though, there was a minority of girls who stood naked in the changing rooms (although actually with hindsight a fair few did!)

Oh I’m sure it did!! I’m just saying I was so grateful to discover it didn’t happen at mine as I think it was common back then. Individual cubicles is marginally less awful.

This was my experience too, at primary school in the 1960s. We weren't allowed to get down from the table until we'd eaten everything on our plates.

I used to refuse to eat a lot of the stuff they served up for school dinners. There was nothing the school could really do about it. I sat there in the dining room until afternoon lessons began and was then allowed to scrape my plate into the waste bin and go to class. Even in the '60s, they weren't permitted to force it down my throat.

My parents wouldn't allow me to go home (which some of my friends did) for lunch, preferring instead to pay every week for school food that I rarely ate!

We had this at junior school (late 80s/early 90s), at high school I don't think the showers even worked. We just liberally doused ourselves in impulse and dewberry body spray!

I was shite at it which probably explains why I didn't like it 😂

Lining up in order of height to go into assembly. I was the shortest and had to go first every single time 😪

We had a similar rule. You didn't have to absolutely clear your tray but you had to ask if you could move onto your pudding and you had to ask if you could leave - based on whether that particular dinner lady thought you'd eaten enough.

There was a rule that if you took anything from the salad section you had to eat ALL of it. I once decided I would like to try cucumber so I asked for some and got given a massive spoonful. I tried it and I didn't like it but Mrs Curtis would not let me leave the table until I had eaten all of it. I still hadn't finished by the end of lunchtime. I stood up as the bell went - and vomited all the cucumber out over her shoes.

having to keep blazer on in summer

Having to wear brown woollen tights, not black. They revoked the rule the fourth year of secondary school and black tights were in and there were loud cheers.

Not being allowed to wrote in red felt pen or crayon because it was rude....

Forgotten PE Kit meant do it in your knickers

Yep, communal showers with the (female) teacher watching. Horrific.

Can you imagine if they tried that now...