WTF moments from childhood

[Lyannaa]

I vividly remember sitting in a circle at primary school and playing a game (facilitated by teachers). It was a variation on ‘spin the bottle’ and this boy named the girl he wanted to kiss. The feeling was not mutual from her end and she began running around and around the circle, trying to evade both the boy and the disgraceful teachers trying to hold her down. Vile. How was this a thing? All I remember was sitting there thinking ‘thank goodness this isn’t me’.

This was 1989…

This is appalling, and I've read similar stories elsewhere on MN so I know it's a thing. Why is this happening in the 2020s? In my Sydney primary school in the '70s Thursday was sports day and we arrived in our sports uniform, which for the girls was a modest-ish, mid-thigh cotton tunic with short bloomers. There was no getting undressed in front of each other, let alone the boys. That would have caused a public outcry even then. I dunno, maybe Australian schools were way ahead, but I never had to do anything like what I hear was done in UK schools.

Please make a strong complaint and get your school council to change this disgusting expectation. Your kids should be able to wear a neat, smart PE uniform to school on a PE day.

Being unable to swim and not really liking the water so a school friends mum who 'helped' during school lessons once dragged me out into the water with her and "swam me" (dragged me) the full length of the pool whilst I screamed cos I was terrified on the deep end especially. The teacher allowed her to do so despite my obvious distress. She never tried again though thankfully.

Another teacher took myself and a friend who helped her in lunchtimes to mcdonalds with no knowledge of the school or our parents. Very sweet of her to do so as a thank you but now as an adult I realise what could have gone wrong.

Its been 30 years but I vividly remember my year 4 teacher holding her hands out in the strangle pose and growl 'this child!' to the teacher from the next classroom about me. Both classes were lined up ready to go into our classrooms and I'd commited the sin of asking her a question before being inside the room.

Top and bottom were early 90s. Middle is secondary 1996.

Primary school. Early 80's. Very remote (not UK), one teacher school, we lived on farms. There were floods & we were the only family able to get to school for two weeks. Principal lived on-site in a caravan.

Every day the teacher sat DB & I in the annexe of his caravan, putting the tv on & buggered off until just before pick up, when he walked us back to the school building, obviously to look like we'd been there all day.

I mentioned it to DM recently & she'd had no idea! Its wrong on many levels!!

Then we moved & I remember the year 6/7 teachers blatantly favouring certain students & publicly making fun of me. I found out that DM had noticed & had a go at them about it.

In the 90s I was 11 and sister 9 we were home alone while my dad went to the shop and my sisters teacher turned up at our house! We let him in( I guess because we knew him).Said he was lonely because all his family were in Australia. My dad came home fuming,told him to leave and never come back but didn’t repot it to anyone .This same teacher often went to students houses and birthday parties. Called girls in the class his ‘favourite girls’ and other weird shit.Even typing it now gives me the creeps.Im in education and just cannot imagine a world where this happened.

Mwhahaha! I make up stories like this rather than say “Today we are going to learn how to look after plants.”

Mwhahaha! I make up stories like this rather than say “Today we are going to learn how to look after plants.”

In year 5 and 6 our class had a roster for cleaning the staff room every day. We loved it as we got out of class ( it was a pair a day) . My rather naughty best friend and I got our revenge by putting salt, pepper and a dash of washing up liquid in the urn every time it was our turn to clean. Making kids miss class to wash your plates and mugs! That would not go down well now! Early 80's.

Oh and another ‘ the farmer wants a wife’ game .where you all stood in a circle waiting to be picked to be the farmers wife and if you were the wife you were just made up about it ! What a sexist game.

You poor thing I remember wearing a bra or having periods were reasons the boys thought you might be a slag wtf!!

I actually learned at uni a couple of weeks ago, corporal punishment in schools was only abolished in England in 1986/7?

I’m assuming you are from the Land of the Scots, which I believe was ever later!

I remember in the last year of school someone would be crowned King or Queen of something (possibly a May Day thing, can’t remember?) but how they selected this was getting the whole school to vote and we all had to stand in a line with a number and basically be publicly judged. Was such a lovely school in other respects I don’t really understand it!

Also 110% seeing the young male teachers in the clubs on weekends and they would’ve know we were borderline under 18 and would meet up and dance with students. This was mid 00s and most of them are still teaching.

British Forces school abroad, girls had to wear gym knickers for games. I really hated the commentary from passing soldiers as we played hockey or ran the cross country. I got into trouble for whacking a hockey ball hard at a soldier loudly describing what he'd like to do to me. Apparently I over-reacted "hysterically" and as Form Captain I needed to lead by example and had to apologise to the smirking twat. Still raging about that one!

Went to Belgium on a school trip. 40 kids with 4 teachers but 2 were having an affair so it was basically 2 teachers for 40 kids once we got back to the hostel. Me and my friendship group were in a local bar come 7pm every night.

Having to strip, hang or fold your clothes up and then walk to the communal shower. Shower properly and then walk back to your peg/towel. I'm sure that contributed to my body issues as a teen. Our games teachers stood watching and would send you back if they thought you hadn't washed properly.

1989 til mid 90s.

Junior school in the 70s, we were "lucky" enough to have a small outdoor swimming pool at the school which was up an incline with several steps. We had to trot up there in our cozzies and crack the ice before we got in😂Also had blackboard rubbers thrown at pupils. I think this is why Gen X is so hardy.

In the 90s we blacked up in English and performed a poem called Granny in the Marketplace in dreadful Jamaican accents.

Omg. 55yrs ago for me. In kindergarten I was the oldest and tallest and heaviest. Everyone plotted on the graph. I’m the heaviest and start crying. Teacher comforts me by sitting me on her knee. I was feeling better until she said. “ ok you better hop off now before you break my knee”. Haha
I think that was the start of my weight paranoia that has at least kept me mindful of staying slim.

Having to do ‘cross country’ runs round the local streets wearing the shortest, most revealing skirts up to the age of sixteen.

When I was about 6/7 (around 1991) I had a male teacher that used to bully me about my weight, he once handed out pencils to the class and when he got to me he had a bigger pencil, he said “here’s a big fat pencil for the chubbiest girl”. On another occasion he was talking about marriage for some reason, he sang “here comes the bride, 50 inches wide” to me and said “that’s what will be sang at your wedding”

My parents went in to the school complain but he denied it, luckily my parents believed me and I moved schools.

I was a chubby child but not exactly fat, I was bullied about my weight so had eating disorders from a young age, one of my biggest issues was getting changed for PE and those awful knickers, my teachers never stopped the bullying.
In the end my mum said I was no longer to do PE, she had a huge battle with the school and it took a psychologists letter for them to agree. I went to sit in the library during PE and my PE teacher once called me a lying manipulative little girl. I never told anyone about that.

When I was 15 (just, my birthday was a month before) I had a relationship with a new male teacher who was 26, he said we had to keep it quiet until I left school.
My best friend convinced me that it was wrong so I split up with him, he wasn’t happy at all.
A few months later after I left school I had a Saturday job in a cafe and he kept turning up until I asked my boss to ask him to leave me alone, it was common knowledge in the school when we were seeing each other because kids are observant, I’m pretty sure other teachers knew but nothing was ever said and he carried on working there for about 5 years after I left.
I’m pretty sure that he picked me because I was vulnerable with so many self esteem issues, it was common knowledge I had eating disorders and I was very flattered at the attention he paid me.

It’s no wonder I hated school! The worst thing is that a friend of my mums who was a teacher in the 80s and 90s said that teacher and student relationships were common, I see a pp has mentioned it earlier in the thread. I hope it’s not the case now and just hidden better.

This is what my child's school does - very sensible and so much easier!

I'm not in the UK and never understood the changing for PE. It definitely wasn't a thing in my area in Australia at least. Even now in some schools the young ones have a specific uniform to wear on PE days but they dont change. In high school there was an option to use the showers after PE in the summer but most only did it after swimming and while at the pool.

I assume the knickers mentioned are similar to what we called 'Runners'? That you put on over your underwear? We had to wear runners if we wanted to wear a skirt/dress in primary school which we found funny because really what was the difference, our knickers covered just as much when we were hanging upside down on the play equipment etc.

What i hated was having to wear runners to play in the local basketball league! The boys and men wore shorts! The older women wore netball skirts or normal shorts! Us girls up to about 16/17 had to wear runners, i was really annoyed that they bought in shorts 1 or 2 seasons after i left when basketball shorts were the in thing for fashion off the court as well for a while.

Nowadays, I'm sure most schools could be easily swayed to allow students to wear a PE kit on PE days, certainly primary school? All our local schools do this, they have a designated day to wear their PE Joggers/tracksuit and trainers etc. Surely easier than young children dressing themselves and can be seen as a safeguarding measure? Rally the other parents and put it to the schools?

1970' primary school. The head teacher's house was adjacent to the playground. Pupils were taken out of lessons and sent to weed his vegetable patch. Not pitched as environmental science or gardening club, just a duty we had to do. Nothing untoward happened - just that sense that we were there to serve the HT!

Middle school - rota for pupils to leave lesson 10 mins before break, go to staff room, lay the cups out, brew huge pot of tea. After break had to return to wash the cups up!

My junior school had A B and C streams and a few people would move "up" or "down" at the end of every academic year.

On the last day of the school year, everyone went to the school hall to find out about next year's classes. We all sat on the floor in rows in our current classes, in height order.

They'd call out the new classes in turn and when your name was called you stood up and moved over to the new one.

That's how the kids who'd "gone down" found out about it. I remember moving to my new class and looking back at two kids still sitting disconsolately in the old class.

At secondary school as a junior in the late 1960s:-
In the dinner hall the pupils (we weren't called students in those days) sat at tables of 8 with the older kids at the top ends and the younger ones further down.
The dinner ladies (never dinner men!) would deliver serving dishes of food to the top ends of each table therefore the oldest kids always had first dibs.
If the table seniors were girls then everyone got a fair share of the food, but if they were boys, then depending on what was on offer there was quite often very little food left by the time the dishes got halfway down the table. All too often the younger kids left the table hungry.
No supervising teacher ever came round to check that the food was being fairly distributed and no youngster dared to complain for fear of retribution from the older kids. The law of the jungle was just accepted.
On one occasion our somewhat formidable headmaster called together several of the junior classes for a "get to know you" session. He actually asked us if we were having any problems in the school and a brave one of our number took the opportunity to tell him about the older boys grabbing most of the food at dinner time.
The headmaster's only response was '"Well the big boys do get hungry" to which several of us said in chorus "Yes, so do we" and someone else rightly pointed out that "Our parents are paying the same amounts of dinner money as theirs are".
The headmaster had no reply to those remarks and just moved on to his next topic.
Can you imagine older kids these days effectively being allowed to steal the food of younger kids on a regular basis with no-one in authority, not even the parents giving a toss?!

I have a Charlie t-shirt my Dad brought back for me in the early 2000s!