What school rules from your day did you absolutely despise?

[Trothetoy]

The tie having to be at least 10 bars

Having to stand when a teacher entered the room.
Having to ask to take a blazer off.
The one-way system... my form room was at a particularly annoying point which meant a half kilometer walk loop to otherwise get to the nearest exit and toilets within 15 metres straight line.
PE kit. Gym knickers and skirts in all weathers. Leggings absolutely prohibited.

Not being allowed to wear jumpers/tracksuit bottoms for games no matter whether there was snow on the ground in the middle of winter.

Not a rule, but the practice of picking teams for sports. I was always last to be picked - ritual humiliation.

We had a stupid rule at primary in the early 90s that we couldn’t go to the toilet during lunch play (it meant going through the car park so maybe that was why) but the dinner ladies were bitches and made no exceptions at all and would laugh - so I decided to tell then they couldn’t stop me as I would wet myself and I wasn’t prepared to do that for their entertainment (I was 10 and argumentative). I walked past them and they were furious and after I’d been they cornered me and told me I was going to be put in ‘the book’ I remember asking ‘so the punishment for going to the toilet is having my name written in a book??’ They said ‘yes it’s THE book’ I had no idea why that was even a threat not realising it was just a list for the teachers of all the kids who had been naughty each day and the reason why 😂 I carried on going to the toilet if I needed to and got my name in the book frequently but no teacher ever spoke to me

Had to take off coats as soon as we got inside (including in corridors etc) and weren't allowed to carry bags on shoulders.

Cross Country in the local park in gym knickers with a tshirt tucked in.

Hugging, kissing etc aka "canoodling" was banned.... it didn't actually affect me but the fact there was specific punishments for it seemed overkill!

Having to do PE in athletic shorts which were essentially large knickers, complete with tight elastic round the leg holes. If you had your period you were allowed to wear netball skirt over it, therefore announcing to everyone that you were 'on'. Plus having to say 'excused' when answering the register so you didn't have to have a shower afterwards. Showers were a long line of communal showers, no shower curtain, you left your towel at one end, hurry through the showers and then walk naked back to collect your towel, right next to the teacher who marked that you'd showered by checking you were wet!!

All girsl school

I developed early and was shy about it

Communal showers and teachers watching you go in and out. No-one actually stood under the jets and washed, we just ran through. Horrific

I ended up gettting a note saying I had athletes foot and never showered again, but washed in the horrific toilets

At least there was a cubicle there if you need to go to the loo

11 stripes on tie, and a particular knot I hated doing
No coats allowed indoors and no jumpers/cardigans at all. Our school was linked to a religious building with no heating, we had no hot water in the school and most of it was made of stone which made it freezing cold.

Thankfully us boarders were able to go to our own rooms to shower, but day pupils had to shower in the shower block- which looked like a dungeon.

We had to walk on the left hand side of stairs, corridors, paths etc. Which meant you couldn't cross a hallway- you had to walk to the end and circle back. My bedroom was opposite the kitchen, and I had to walk all the way down the corridor and back up to get in!

PE knickers and a top for PE.
No trousers.
You had to tell the PE teacher if you had your period so you could be excused the showers. She would note it down so you didn’t lie later on.

Gym knickers, gym skirt absolutely ridiculous type of uniform that was totally enforced.

Not leaving the dinner hall until you'd eaten absolutely everything on your plate.
School went back at 1.30 and the dinner hall was in a separate building at least 5 minutes' walk. I can remember a teacher standing over me, watching as I repeatedly gagged on cold semolina then finally releasing me at 1.28. To make matters worse, I got into trouble for being late back to class.

Communal showers were horrendous. Our pe teacher noted how often you had your period and you got interrogated if it was more often than once a month. I remember being desperate to get a verruca as that was that only other way to get out of showers. We had our feet checked before showering too.

It's so stupid, My step daughter is 13 and told her teacher last week that she had come on her period and needed to go to the toilet and was told to wait until the end of the lesson, another 40 minutes... She ignored her and went anyway.
What is the point of these stupid rules, it teaches children nothing.. you wouldn't tell an adult they couldn't go and put a tampon in so why do we treat children that way?

We had to ask if we wanted to take our jumpers off. Even in July! Our school was boiling, too. And then when I was in Y10 they introduced blazers for all new starters (so thankfully my year didn't have to wear them) and they weren't allowed to take them off without permission either. Or the jumper underneath.

We also had to have a certain number of stripes on our ties. In Y10 and Y11 we had plain black ties and there were certain teachers who would actually measure them with a ruler...

Stupid rule about not being able to use the front stairs unless you were a prefect or something. Only our classroom was right next to those stairs and we always had to go back the full length of the first floor corridor to the next set of stairs to get anywhere.

Having to wear certain colour ribbons if you had long hair, beige socks or American tan tights (known as baked bean colour in our school).
Not being allowed to enter buildings through the front door or go up the main staircase unless you were staff or 6th form, meaning a big detour to the back door.

School PE lessons full stop. Absolutely everything about it.

They were lessons in abject humiliation and misery, including with the communal showers as a number of posters have already discussed. Teachers making us strip off and watching us go through it. Turning it to cold as well.

Allowing the two most sporty kids to pick their netball or hockey teams from the rest of us. I and one other girl were always last to be picked.

Hockey or netball in the snow wearing just a pair of shorts and t-shirt. Apparently it was character building!!

Being given barely 30 seconds to change back into school uniform at the end of a PE lesson, resulting in most of us being turned out of the changing rooms in no more than our underwear when the lesson bell inevitably went.

I could go on, but as I said, it was all apparently character building.

Being made to drink milk at break. Warm milk because it had stood by the radiators for a couple of hours

Thick green knickers

Having to drink your milk in primary. I hated the warm milk we were given.

Backing books, I got into trouble for doing mine in clear plastic.
Lunch! Eating in the freezing cold and drizzle in a concrete yard that smelled like bins. Sometimes if we were really lucky, a food fight would break out and you could go to maths smelling like someone else's old yogurt.

I don't believe I ever showered after PE unless it was a swimming lesson.

One rule that wasn't really a rule, but was strictly enforced by the head of year whose office was nearby, was that only Upper School pupils could use the toilets in the Upper School building. Which doesn't appear overly restrictive, but for the inconvenient timetabling of lessons for other year groups in that block. If you unexpectedly needed the toilet when out of bounds, you had to balance out the urgency of your need against the likelihood of being caught by Mr Very Scary. Or indeed being told off by your subject teacher for taking too long to schlep to another building. I did get caught once, and from the resulting telling-off in his office, you'd think we'd been prevented from burning the place down.

Same at my school! Was just gym knickers and a tank top for athletics or gymnastics

Very short PE skirt, long yellow socks and short sleeved top in winter playing hockey. Allowed to wear school jumper at teachers discretion. If you forgot your gloves it was 😱.

Teacher in track suit and hat and gloves screaming at us that it wasn't cold.

Convent school, Midlands. The 80s.

Yep, communal showers, overseen by the PE teacher. Unless you had your period, in which case you could get changed in the loo. I wasn't the only girl to have my period for five years straight...