What school rules from your day did you absolutely despise?

[Trothetoy]

The tie having to be at least 10 bars

There was the "period register" in our PE lessons if my memory is correct (I've blocked some of it a bit as they are not pleasant memories).

Teachers would be looking in girls' pants to check that they were telling the truth about that and not just trying to avoid the dreaded communal showers. It would be marked in a register that they kept.

I was at school during the seventies and early eighties. I left with the sixth form of 1984. Thankfully I managed to drop school PE when we did our options for O Levels (no GCSEs back then). You weren't supposed to drop it, but I noted quietly (and happily) that it had not been timetabled in for me and said nothing. They didn't notice until we were about to go on study leave at the end of 5th year (which is now year 11). I just played stupid and pretended to have not spotted it/known nothing about it. 🤣

If I'd been forced into continuing with PE it would have become the only lesson I would have bunked off from.

🤔 let me see...
Being told you "can't turn over" without eating the main. I refused, aged 4 and the bloody head teacher ended up talking to me about it. I burst into tears. I hated lunch time.

Having to wear blazers no matter what.

Carrying all subjects text books in bags at all times. No lockers. Arseholes.

Having to kneel down to measure skirt length.

Being inspected in the showers to make sure we had showered after p.e (aged 10). Was so anxious.

Having to back books. Why? The most pointless task ever. Wall paper I think i used once and got laughed at. Sticky back plastic was the shiz.

All of them.

Special-needs school in Florida, residential, we weren’t allowed to go in one another’s rooms, we had to just hang around the doorway…

this one, I can’t understand it, but it was still very frustrating for those of us who were 12 years old, and had to be on a bus five hours or six hours twice per week, we weren’t allowed to eat, apart from the packed meal, the school gave us, which usually had a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and we were given a cookie and a cup of water. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t let us just have our own food, since we were eating, anyway, and it was usually disgusting. I did like the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but often they would be filled with bologna and cheese, or some thing else…

another one, those of us who went to main stream classes in high school we’re not allowed to listen to our Walkman on the bus over there. I don’t understand why… I used to put mine on because I also had language CDs with me, so I would just say I was listening to my German CDs…

I know how schools are in Germany, even the school for the blind in Marburg, it is very very relaxed in comparison. Main stream high schools, not sure about now, but they used to let you leave the school if there was a free hour, you could go into town and go shopping or go out for coffee. I think now they are more strict and the parents have to sign a waiver, but it is so relaxed compared to my school.

Having to sing in front of the whole class, and be graded on our singing, in Music lessons.

The ability to sing in tune is genetic and recessive. I do not have this gene (which is a shame because my great-grandparents were obviously capable opera singers).

For me, it was pure humiliation. For my peers, it was having to listen to yet another awful performance and pretending not to giggle too obviously.

Communal showers after PE. Wouldn't have minded a shower, as we didn't have one at home and I was only allowed to wash once a week, but I didn't want to stand in the vague direction of a bit of water with no soap or shampoo in front of everybody else.

Having to walk across site in swimming costumes and barefoot to use the pool in full view of the classrooms in the snow, sleet and rain.

Not being allowed to wear glasses during PE for health and safety. Lost count of the injuries sustained as a result of not being able to see a bloody thing.

Having to cover books with wallpaper or wrapping paper, because I'd get into trouble when my mother refused to buy any.

Anything else that required access to money. Because the answer would be no, even for the compulsory things.

Having to stay in the playground in all weathers and being locked out of the buildings because teachers didn't do lunch duty. I didn't have a coat, I didn't have a blazer, I was cold. And with no staff present, it meant there was no escape from getting a kicking.

Not being allowed to use the much shorter, direct path to the front of the school. This was a privilege given to 5th year pupils and staff only.

Even if you were in the classroom next door at the end of the day, you still had to go all the way round the building, through the quad, past a row of classrooms, round the corner, past more classrooms to get to the first bus going home. If you missed the bus, which I frequently did because of the stupid rule, you'd have to wait an hour for the bus to come back to pick the next lot of kids up.

Getting the cane in front of the whole school if you had moved or spoken after the first whistle and before the second.

I'd forgotten about having to do that! It was sooooooo annoying, and pointless!

I’m obviously not alone in hating lunchtime at school being made to eat everything. We were grouped around hexagonal tables and no-one was allowed to get puddings unless everyone had eaten everything. You then had other pupils getting on to you as well as the teachers. Just awful.

looking back I can’t understand the logic. Fair enough if you asked for something and then left it but when you are forced to eat something you expressly said you didn’t want makes no sense.

I can only guess that it was because it was not long after rationing ended and perhaps that was behind the thinking at that time.

Not allowed tights or a belt at primary school. The winter wind went right up my tunic and out of the neck.

In secondary school- in some subjects, we had to do class work in the front of our books, and homework in the back, I once accidentally did my homework in the front of my book for geography, and spent a whole weekend sick with worry about it, because my geography teacher was strict.
Having to make a speech and read it out in class, I was a very anxious child, and standing up in front of 30 other kids was very intimidating, I remember shaking with nerves.

In music, we had a nun teaching us, she was nice really, but she was teaching us to play the drums, she had a proper drum kit, she'd play a beat, then each one of us in the class had to play the beat in turn- again, I was so shy and anxious, playing the drums in front of the whole class was awful, I used to dread Fridays music lessons, and I know others did too.

The slow eaters table in primary school. We weren't allowed to get our food until after everyone else had got theirs - where's the fucking logic in that?

Similar but only the girls were allowed to make the teachers cups of tea completely unsupervised for their break while at primary school. We were taken out of lessons to do it

Catholic school and very strict on uniform compliance especially skirt lengths. The teachers would ask us to kneel on the floor and if your skirt didnt touch the floor you got written up. Im 36 so this wasnt a million years ago. I found it humiliating and it was usually the same 5 bitchy female teachers that did it. Doubt they'd get away with it now....

Girls' school - no uniform in the sixth form but not allowed to wear trousers. Absolutely bloody ridiculous rule, then and now, apparently because 'professional women don't wear trousers to work' - a) I'm not at work, genius and b) it's 1986 not 1906.

And having to ask permission from the staff room before using the payphone on the landing, because we might phone our boyfriends at break. A) who gives a shit and b) the teachers hated having their breaks interrupted for this nonsense as much as we did.

At least after a passionate speech at the school council I managed to get the second one removed. For the few years before payphones died 😂

Many things which wouldn’t be tolerated at all now (at an all-girls high school 1982-1987)

• Communal showering after PE monitored by the teacher. Creepy and humiliating
• Wearing awful big baggy grey gym knickers and having your PE kit checked by the teacher to make sure you had them
• Having to wear a blazer and tie at all times even in sweltering heat
• The cane!!!

Also want to add that the point of school should be to prepare children/teens for adult life. In this way, many of the rules I objected against were the completely arbitrary or hypocritical ones that have no relation to real life, like being forbidden to go to the toilet when you need it, or being made to wear clothing totally inappropriate for the weather e.g. a polo shirt for PE when it’s snowing, or a thick woollen jumper and blazer in the summer. Bonkers!

Primary school - Girls not being allowed to join the football club as there was no female member of staff/volunteer if you were injured. Similarly if you injured yourself then you had to wait until a female member of staff was found to put a plaster on you etc.

Secondary - blazers were compulsory at all times. They would rather a room full of stinky wool blazers and folks fainting from overheating than allow us to remove them.

I got given semolina with brown sugar. I told them I didn't like semolina yet I was still given it. I tried to sneak past the dinner lady to put it in the food bin but she made me sit back down and stood there until I'd choked down every mouthful. Needless to say about 30 seconds after the last mouthful had gone in I then puked it all back up all over the floor. That same dinner lady also took my left over sandwich out of the bin and made me eat it. Cow bag!

Yes to the blazer and coat issues already mentioned! Including having to wear my coat over my blazer.

I hated that I was forced to study music and art until year 9 when it is clear by then who is into this stuff and who isn’t. Much more useful stuff could have replaced it.

The stench of the wool gabardine coat - vile! And so not waterproof!

I hated this - some of us were more developed than others and it was just excruciating and embarrassing at a time when life is constantly excruciating and embarrassing.

I went to a standard state school in the 90s and I don’t remember any weird rules at all. I also used to love covering my books and would choose different wrapping paper for different subjects. I remember my English book had Snoopy!
I went to a pretty slack school with minimal rules.

Secondary school. Male teachers weren’t allowed to belt (give corporal punishment with a leather strap) to girls, so the offending girl was sent to knock on the staff room door to ask for an available female teacher to belt them, and they had to tell them how many times it had to be administered. Female teachers could belt either sex.

The belt was given for ridiculous reasons too.