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.

Secondary School girls had to :-

• Walk on the left side of the corridor only.

• Stand up when the head walked into the classroom

• Banned from eating outside on our way to and from school in uniform. ( I saw one girl rebel by wearing a police cone on her head walking down the high street, it was brilliant in my 11 year old opinion).

• Forced to wear a thin gabardine through bitterly cold winters with no insulation.

Primary school as followed.
I have nothing good to say about school when i was in it and nothing good to say about schools now.
Hated the place and every teacher init.
Apart from one teacher she was lovely.
High school walked out at 14 never went back best day of my life.

@sockarefootwear We had shirt sleeve rule at secondary school too. I left well into this century and they still had it then. We also had skirts measured and the day light rule. This meant that there must be daylight between all pupils at all times. It was meant to stop people holding hands, hugginf etc.

Also this is going way back but in my infants the Dinner Nannies 'didn't suffer picky eaters' so force fed us if we didn't eat. They would actually hold us down by the arms and shovel food in our mouths (took two of them to do that, 1 holder, 1 shoveler) until we where choking on it.

Problem is I have dietary issues and if I didn't eat it it was because I new COULDN'T eat it. I explained this but they didn't believe me, it was as if no one believed in allergies back in the 80s/90s.

I often would vomit and get sick after then be berated and punished for 'making myself sick on purpose' in protest. Yes because 4/5/6 year olds are deliberately vomiting in protest of your cottage pie Mrs. Burns.

It wasn't as bad in juniors, there tended to be more option and while dinner nannies would stand over you and watch you and claim you couldn't leave until it was finished but they didn't physically force it. Once dinner was over they would just send you to class, meant I missed break time many times though.

My kids in infants now and theres so many rules about dietary stuff, its taken REALLY serious now to the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

You should pull them, thats ableism.

Some studies have shown that 1 kid in 28 (possibly more accounting for the undiagnosed) will have some form of co-ordination disorder.

We had the shower thing - at first they took away all the shower curtains and when there were complaints put up transparent ones so close to each other that they stuck to anyone who was in there. And a teacher stood by the entrance and marked us in and out and watched to make sure everyone actually got wet and 'washed'. It was awful at the time -and crazy in hindsight.

We also had the skirt rule (but no such policing of boys' uniforms). Aah, the 90s.

Having read many responses now, I'm surprised the coat thing was so common.
In real life my school was the only one I ever encountered that did that, I wonder if posters are younger and thus attended the school that where built off the back of ones like mine.

Prior to me starting and like all the other schools my friends, partner etc... attended it was just had a blue jumper they had to have on them pair with a white top and grey trousers. No strict rules they could get away with wearing all sorts (converse, denim jackets, jewellery, dyed/frosted hair etc...) as long as it didn't wildly take the piss.

No lesbians in the main building communal areas.

All girls catholic school and only applied to Yr10-13 to avoid influencing the younger girls.

Main building was where the yr 7-9 form classes were. Yr 10 & 11 had form classes in a separate building as did sixth form.

The known lesbians weren't allowed to come into the main building with everyone else, they would be told to come in via the closest fire exit or escorted by a teacher.

TBF, it was never an official rule. Officially it was the "trouble makers", but funny how it was all the out lesbians. That rule was scrapped after a couple of terms.

Oh, and you had to be outside during break times, whatever the weather. If you had paid for lunch you could sit in the canteen but if you had packed lunch you had to eat it outside, usually standing up. The only place you could be inside at lunch was in the library (working, in silence), nowhere else

Having to ask to take your jumper off

Changing back into uniform after pe when it was the last lesson of the day

My secondary school issued disposable cameras (or at least, they told us they did) to neighbours who complained about pupils loitering and smoking in the streets after school. Whether anyone was caught this way, I don’t actually know. There was a lot of rhetoric “the rules apply from the moment you leave your front door, to the moment you return to your front door”. My dad muttered that that would never stand up in court.

No running in the playground.
Extra housepoints for attending Rosary Club...

My senior school put a lot of us off PE with similar towel rules.

One of the PE teachers would stand by the entrance to the shower and herd us through, punctuated with helpful comments like "if you're self conscious it's your own fault for being fat!"

Understandably, many of us had deeply concerning issues with our menstrual cycles as we had our period every single week of term, as stated in a note from our moms.

We were not allowed to have a drink with school dinners. We had to collect and eat our food then put the tray away before collecting a glass of water. I mean...what?!

There's been a lot on this thread but "that's your own fault for being fat" actually made my jaw drop 😲😲😲

My goodness, all those girls affected by irregular and inconvenient periods - what a bizarre phenomenon, bet they were really scratching their heads over that one! Am guessing they went back to normal during holidays and the exact second they left secondary school 😂

I can't think of any daft rules. My teachers must have been sensible. The head teachers in Infant and Junior schools still used corporal punishment. Which seems very dated now. I started Infants mid 70s.

Oh we had the weird shower teacher as well, but the worse part was having to hang your knickers on a hook prior to the shower.

I remember whole school assemblies too, ours included a speech from the head teacher and singing 'all things bright and beautiful' and ending with the lord's prayer.

Ah yes, I loved smash hits, don't think I could ever bring myself to cut them up 😅

😵

We had boarders uniform and day girls uniform for founders day etc. The boarders uniform included a Sunday dress, an apron, a tippet (a shoulder covering) , a cape and a straw bonnet. The day girls was a kilt blouse and jumper with a gabardine coat and a black hat.

Nothing that bad really. But In my secondary school we were not allowed to use the front door, only the side and back doors. Front door was for teachers and 6th formers only. I remember making a special trip through the front door just for the sake of it when we started 6th form.
My DD is in the same school now and it still feels like I'm doing something wrong when I go through the front door for parents evening.

Also the covering exercise books thing, because books wrapped in random bits of wrapping paper looked better than just leaving them as they were apparently? There was also a colour coded book system for each subject... but then you had to cover them up anyway!

Also we had to write the date at the start of every piece of work which had to be underlined twice in red pen, using a ruler not freehand!

DS is dyspraxic. He is still wearing velcro shoes at the age of 12 as we've simply not been able to teach him to tie a bow. He'll move to slip ons in due course. If he was at your school I'd be pushing for reasonable adjustment - crazy rule

In primary school there didn't seem to be any rules at all, we had no doors (as they were barriers to creativity or something) and called teachers by first names. I don't think we learned maths, spelling or handwriting and never ever did one test.
So, I was shocked when I went to a posh strict secondary school. The one thing I remember was getting kicked out of science class for having too many earrings. But we were allowed pierced noses? The other weird one was we weren't allowed to eat while wearing school uniform in the street. But I lived about 10 miles away and it took me an hour and a half to get there each way. I was like. Right, once I'm in a different borough I can break out that giant bag of crisps...

@Peonypoppy yes the constant periods did seem to clear up during school holidays but would return with a vengeance next term, particularly during during the term we had swimming lessons!

The overweight comment was made worse when I tried to join in and do more exercise at after school clubs only to find out you could only take part if you were good enough to compete at inter-school competitions.

As I was shit at everything my burgeoning interest in sport for fun/weight loss was well and truly stamped out.

I was shocked to find out fairly recently that the very nice mom of DD's friend was a PE teacher, I had no idea that they could be nice!

It seems things are different now, or DD has been lucky but, despite also being a bit rubbish at sport, she has had some lovely, supportive PE teachers who have literally applauded her efforts even if she didn't actually score/block/break an ankle. And no forced nudity or body shaming!