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…

Most don't anymore since covid on pe days they go into school in PE kits so no need to change (I know this isn't all primary schools)

Jesus! Some of these are horrific. I know we all complain about schools now but at least safeguarding exists to protect children.

Late 1960s reception class - in a circle singing the farmer wants a wife. When it got to the verse - the dog wants a bone - the teacher pointed her scholl sandled foot at me and told the 'dog' to choose me - a fat juicy bone. Then the whole class patted the bone - basically hit the top of my head. Never forgotten it

Warning!.......this one is rather gross!
It was the mid 60's and I was in junior school - aged about 10. My best friend and I had been tasked with sorting out the school lost-property box. This seemingly hadn't been done for years and was overflowing with countless odd plimsols, cardigans, jumpers, books, pencil cases, and LOTS of cotton handkerchiefs.

We were instructed to check all the clothing for name labels and reunite with the owner - if they were still at our school as everyone moved to senior school aged 11. Any garment not labelled with a name tag was to be put on the jumble stall at the forthcoming school fete.

Our teacher decided that the handkerchiefs would also make a bit of money - but they had to be clean to be able to sell them. We were ordered to wash every single one regardless of how soiled they were. Each and everyone of them had been used and were heavily soiled and we had to go to the school kitchen after the cooks had left and use the kitchen sink to wash these handkerchiefs.

After washing them by hand we spread them out on the draining boards and worktops to dry overnight but had to retrieve them early next morning before the cook arrived at 10am (school meals were prepared at a central kitchen and delivered during mid morning but serving was done in the school kitchen). We then had to iron every single handkerchief after inspecting it to make sure we had washed off all evidence of ever being used. I've not used a cotton handkerchief since. 😖

Mid-90s, my friend lived about 2 hours away in the New Forest and her mum came to pick us up in an ancient 2 CV. There were holes in the floor where you could actually see the road, and at one point she casually handed me a bottle of beer to open for her as we were driving along in the pitch dark and rain 😫😫😫

Teachers smoking at play time and in the staff room

Being forced to do PE with period flooded pants. Nobody would call my mum and even if they did she wouldn’t come.

PE teacher actively monitored everyones periods. Even though most of us were just starting and irregular. They were so cruel to us. one of them is still a teacher and another is now a headteacher. Unbelievable!

We were allowed to “clean” the art area, corridors, classroom or paint pots instead of doing maths. only girls had the choice. Boys had to do maths because they were superior.

children smoking in Year 6 (although apparently Year 6s vape these days as DC school condemned it in their weekly newsletter last month!)

We had sex education in year 8 and our drama teacher did it. She told us that we can put a shower hose down there and rinse out our vaginas after sex to stop pregnancy.

Skiving was normal. And never discouraged.

We were allowed to use school internet for chat rooms 😂

I am forever WTF’ed by it all! I’m in my 30s. So we’re talking late 90s and 00s

Secondary late 80’s

A biology teacher that everyone said was a pervert and only ever gave girls detention 1-1 and he would sit pressed up against you.

A female PE teacher who would check every shower to make sure girls were naked.

A make PE teacher that would tell girls off by making them stand in front of him and bend over and touch their toes (in our tiny PE skirts!) he would then kick out bums with the side of his foot.

A young good looking school caretaker that slept with several of the sixth form pupils, everyone knew, and it was laughed off as him being a ‘lad’.

Year 4. Forgot my pe kit. Made to do pe in a pair of knickers. No t shirt or vest. I remember trying to arrange my plaits to cover my chest. This was around 1983

This happened to me as well. In around 1995ish!

Not from my childhood but my dc's. Primary school xmas concert - it may have been Busgy Malone themed - one of the all-girl pupil dances ended with 10 of them standing in a row with their backs to the audience, bending over and flipping their skirts to show their knickers. Most of the audience laughed but I was shocked that 9 year old girls had been encouraged to do that. Wtf was the teacher thinking?

Yes. 70s primary schools were horrible places

Oh and we're talking about 2005 here

I'd forgotten that song - we never thought twice about it but now, who could gave thought that was appropriate!

I met Charlie too. Was it in The Gambia? I think he was drugged 😂 That's why he was so friendly!

Primary school mid 80s - teacher smoking in classroom. If you didn’t have a vest on to wear with gym knickers in PE you had to do it just in pants!

Later in same school, I had got a bit chubby and one cruel teacher used to openly shame me about my weight, calling me fat and telling me I ‘so badly needed to lose weight’ in front of the whole class.

Senior school - male teachers being a bit pervy, one took us to pub after our a-levels and bought us loads of drinks. Similarly in year 12 we went on a trip to France and we were all drinking and smoking at hotel dinner tables with teachers - that wouldn’t happen now 😂

Secondary - We had a teacher who used to ask the kids for fags at break times 🤣 Unbelievable now!

my mum was a dinner lady and the very angry head forced this girl to swallow her lunch of fatty cold mince with peas and carrots, dehydrated potatoes. this girl never could finish the disgusting meals so the head thought it was time to ram it down her throat half an hour after being served, though mum had to clean it up she said she was supressing a smile when the girl vomited it all back up over the heads legs and shoes. poor girl

Mid 80s, we used to have a permanent paddling pool built in to our school playground. When we got out, we had to take off our swimming costume and run around the oak tree naked to dry off!!!

So many I’m in my 40s, in a very middle class area.

Pe in just our pants, if we forgot our kit

A teacher who made us kiss his hand to go to the toilet, threw rubbers at the boys and shouted across the classroom asking if I wanted a kiss.

Teachers going to the pub at lunchtime and coming back stinking of booze.

Having showers at school, where the teacher would check we were all wet by looking if our bodies were wet. We used to run in FAST and try and make our arms and legs wet.

Mixes rugby in year 9 and 10.

Being discouraged from taking A Level physics, while the boys were encouraged, even though I got an A* at GCSE. I was told biology would be better.

School show where the party was held at the teacher’s house and we all (year 9 to year sixth form) all got drunk.

An English teacher who took us all out to a pub (all girls, A level, so not all 18) and let us all smoke.

We told our parents nothing.

At secondary school we used to walk from school to the local park, dressed in our PE kit - Aertex shirt and brown baggy knickers! Our teacher told us to ignore the men who lined up on the footpath around the court to watch us play! This was in 1968.

Being banned from class quizzes and competitions, because I won them all.

Being locked in the boys PE cupboard by a male PE teacher for a whole PE lesson, with a broom, and being told to clean it, for “talking back”.

Being marched across the entire playground in site of most of the classes for swimming lessons in our swimming costumes, in a mixed school.

Having to do trampolining with the boys in PE knickers. 😖

Being refused extra work constantly, because I finished it too fast.

A DT teacher who would go into his cupboard during lesson and swig whisky. He was always drunk.

Being told I would never amount to anything, that I would only get Cs. I aced my exams and ended up a doctor!

These are just a handful of incidents of many. This was the mid 90s! State school.

One of our teachers used to do the same for sixth-form at end of summer term and Christmas.
One girl I knew but was not exactly close to had a 35yr old married man as a boyfriend when she was 16. He used to pick her up and drop her off in his MK1 Golf convertible...

So many but the one that stands out was in Maths class, the teacher had us vote who we thought weighed the most and the least and then they were weighed infront of the class and their weight was read out! This was mid 90s. I remember being terrified that someone would suggest I weighed the most and that I would have to be weighed infront of peers. So shaming and bizarre.

School knickers in my long-ago day (navy or brown at my schools) were much more substantial than anything you’d buy for girls today - in particular there was a much wider gusset. At my first school they were part of the uniform, and were often worn over ordinary pants.

Not school but a swimming lesson in the late 80s. I was 5 or 6. I was a strong swimmer but never liked going underwater. We had to do the ‘retrieve a brick’ thing. I couldn’t do it. Everyone else had done it and the teacher wanted to move on.

She told me to stay at that end of the pool and keep trying and when I had done it I could rejoin the group who were going to the deeper end to do something else.
Our lesson happened during public swim so there were other people in the pool.
I remember getting cold and upset because I was left to get this brick but I couldn’t do it. An older man saw me and came over. In fairness I think he had seen me get left and recognised I was upset and stayed with me. I remember him trying to explain how to get the brick but I’d sort of shut down by that point.
At the end of the lesson when I left the pool (I never did get the brick) he actually came out to see my mum and explain what had happened. She’d been watching from the viewing gallery but couldn’t work out what had gone on. I just remember shivering in a towel feeling like a right idiot because I couldn’t get the brick.

Imagine a swimming teacher now leaving a young child on their own to do an underwater task while she took the rest of the group away.