Daft school rules

[sunhasgotthis]

Inspired by another thread. What were ridiculous rules or procedures when you were at school or at your kid's school? We had a toilet paper monitor who handed out sheets of toilet paper. We had to specify number of sheets (up to three) in the communal area! Seemed totally normal to me at the time though! Another was boys in infants weren't allowed long trousers.

In seniors, a particular P.E. teacher would pull towels off people as they came out of the communal shower to check they had nothing on underneath and were wet. She single-handedly put a number of girls off sport and exercise at school. Awful.

In kid's (primary) school it's probably just practices that some schools still do, despite research showing little benefit of (and in some cases harmful) - pen licenses, behaviour RAG display, attendance awards, busywork homework etc.

My high-school had a swipe card system for us to clock in and out. They did registers exactly like normal, but we still had to queue for one of 2 swipe machines 6 times a day. A decade later I got a job there and the swipe cards were long gone.

At primary school the toilet block had one cubicle labelled "Year 5 and 6 only". This was the only one with a sanitary bin. My friend began her period at 9 years old, in Year 4. A teacher once saw coming out of the "Year 5 and 6 only" toilet and started berating her. My friend explained she was on her time of the month and the teacher said "So you think that gives you permission to break the rules?" My friend just cried so much the office had to call her mum. Her mum was understandably fuming, but the teacher kept doubling down that being on period wasn't an excuse to use the only cubicle that was set aside for girls on their period.

My favourite rule was that the head boy was allowed to have a goat.
It was incredibly frustrating that he chose not to have a goat, nor did anyone else attempt to own one.
I often ponder on the specifics of the goat, why not a sheep or a badger?

When the ‘healthy eating’ policy came into place and the vending machines were replaced with a single one that only sold fruit. So literally no one bought a thing from it.

Not being allowed to wear a coat.

My school was strict with uniform- everything had to be from 2 stores. Our shirts were a weird pattern so couldn’t just buy from Asda or similar. Skirts had weird pleats so couldn’t buy those from anywhere else either. Then obviously blazers and ties were school specific as well. Cost a fortune every year.

I've just remembered we had the "staff" corridor in my school too!
Hosted the staff room and various other offices.

You'd have to go round to get to the reception and school hall which involved either outside and around school building or up and over stairs.

Luckily I don't remember anymore rules for the sake of rules.

If we did they are nothing compared to the ones seen today.

Summer uniform on Sundays (boarding school) was a hideous polka dot dress. They decided to change it to an equally hideous flowery print dress which was no doubt meant to be more modern - but we hated it more because at least it was clear the polka dot thing was uniform; people tended to think we had actually chosen the flower print dresses and just had really bad taste.

Do your government schools make children wear blazers, in primary school! Why? What's wrong with a sweater/jacket/jumper? Genuine question.

Enforced communal naked showers… big standard comp. Not sure if teacher was a sex offender or if they just got off on the power trip.

It's mostly private primaries that have blazers but I believe some state (government) primaries do. Can't think of any near me though.

Lots of state primary schools here do. They’re all academies trying to pretend to be private schools. Ironically the private schools are going no uniform to differentiate 😂

My children went to five primary schools... blazers only on the uniform list at one (a junior school, it wasn't compulsory)
3 had polo shirt and jumper uniforms (shirts allowed)
1 had shirt and tie.

My girls aren't allowed to show their ankles. No I don't have a time machine that I use to send them to school in the Victorian era. This is a 21st century school.

@CrazylazyJane by year one surely they can tie laces? I certainly remember being taught to tie bows (raincoat belt in my case) at 4 to start school and my mum getting exasperated with my db because he was struggling to tie his laces in the summer before starting school at age 4 and 4 months. My dc had buckles not Velcro because Velcro fell apart so quickly, wasn't easy to find proper buckles.

Out school skirt was a proper kilt (ie a wrap over rather than a pleated skirt). We had to wear a kilt pin to hold the two front panels together.
A girls school a couple of miles away were banned from wearing kilts and kilt pins (they didn't have a uniform policy) after one was used as a weapon.
We also had to wear American Tan coloured tights.

1980s Scotland

Girls had to do home ecc and boys technical

Girls had to do netball and boys football.

Is it a state school? My step daughter's school had a similar rule where the girls had to wear tights underneath skirts are year round. Are the boys allowed shorts or does the rule apply to all children?

We had the towel thing too, but I don’t remember the Maria Colwell connection. What happened to children that got out of showering? I vaguely remember showering once, after that I got out of it. I hated my pe teacher, she was the epitome of the worse PE teacher, teacher full stop. I got out of pe almost every week. I also remember the male PE teacher never supervised showers with the boys, everyone liked him.

I remember the billows of smoke that came out of the staff room from teachers smoking. And one teacher had his old paddle on display, he’d sigh while looking at it wistfully saying he missed being able to use, im not sure if he really did use it in the past but he sure use to look like he wanted to at times.

State catholic primary: in morning assembly the headmistress would greet us with 'good morning children' and we'd chorus back 'good morning Miss Smith' accompanied by all of the girls curtseying and the boys saluting. Vivid memories of the crowd of heads and hands bobbing up and down.

And also, who in real life dances after lunch...

We had the communal shower block where the teacher stood at the end to ensure we all washed, including our hair.

Girls had to line up in front of the deputy head after daily assembly and have their skirt length physically measured.

No coloured bras under white shirts.Skirts must bee knee length , on children shooting up, puberty not drugs.

Out uniform reminder this week said "just like it is enforced in the world of work" ... oh really, you mean where everyone is sitting at their kitchen table on Teams?

We had to back our books, too. I used posters of my favourite pop stars from Smash Hits magazine!

In my secondary school the boys had to shower after P. E, but the girls were not allowed to. Something about washing long hair. So if you had P. E early in the day, especially in the warmer months, you just had to walk around sweaty. It was pretty grim.

We had a lift that only teachers (and one girl who had one leg) were allowed to use, and a staircase and hallway that only teachers and sixth formers could use

I remember one summer term where it got so hot that the tarmac on the playground had started to melt, yet the deputy head (in her floaty summer dress and sandals) was inspecting pupils coming back into the school building after lunch and making sure they had their jumpers and blazers on shirts buttoned right up and ties tied properly.

If I recall correctly there was a fair bit backlash and it ended up in the local paper as some kids ended up with heat stroke. The building was (is) very old and used to be a convent, so was freezing in winter and boiling in summer.

Nonsense. DS1 has just gone into Yr6 - he has only got the hang of laces this summer.