Crazy school rules you remember when you were at school

[Notyouthful]

At my high school, they decided to do a one way system to go around the school to lessons. For 2 months, I was on crutches and three times a week, I had lessons which were in neighbouring blocks, but in the opposite direction to the one way system. I was made to go around the whole school. Surely they could make an exception for myself and a friend (carrying bag) to go the quickest route? Never been on crutches before and since - I got tired very quickly.

When it was PE when in crutches and for another month after that and if was outside. I was made to sit on a wall, not allowed to sit on a chair. I was bored out of my mind. Once a week, the lesson was the last one of the day. My parents took me home. Much to dismay of the teachers. Well I wasn't learning anything freezing to death.

Same school. They made a block of loos for each school year. I was having extremely heavy periods - that heavy that I had to change between lessons. Some lessons changeovers were opposite side of the school to the toilets for my school year. Having to follow the one way system (see above) too. I was always late for lessons. It was embarrassing.

Another school year, I had PE on my final lesson of the week. We were expected to get changed to go home/board school bus. At the time, I was living 10 mins walk from the school. What was the point in getting changed for 10-15 mins then getting changed again? Mobile changing rooms backed onto the main road and there was a hedge with a gap which could squeeze through.

We had to have a red pen to underline dates, titles and page numbers if doing exercises from Maths or French books for example.

I never went to the school in question but I can remember my mum and I reading through the, "Typical School Day" part of a prospectus for a C of E school in deepest, darkest Lancashire - not far from where you might drown in a dribble of a river and not get found for weeks - and there was an awful lot of shoe changing. Something to do with parquet floors in the assembly hall but it was more complicated than that.

The school I eventually remained uneducated at had a chemistry teacher who was an environmentalist with the emphasis on mentalist who once wrote SAT in huge letters across the page of my exercise book.

I panicked, thinking he meant "Saturday Detention" which was the worst thing in the world - it was a boarding school and utterly mad in its own way. Even though I was a day pupil I could be called back in there on a Saturday because it was a round the clock, 24/7 torture facility much like Guatanamo Bay.

Turned out that he meant, "Save A Tree." As in, don't waste paper by starting your next science experiment write up on the next page. "Well I can't go back and use that page now, can I? You've written on it instead."

I can't even go into the débâcle that followed.

We had to wear PE knickers in house colours, we had to bend over in out netball skirts to check k we were ok.

No black bras.

No patent shoes.

Having to do cross country no matter what. I had a note from my parents that I couldn’t do it as was recovering from a torn achilles. They made me do it and my dad went down to the school and complained to the sports teacher!

There were two sets of staircases in the school. So they made one for going up and one for going down. Quite sensible, I suppose, so you don't get kids crashing into each other running up and down to lessons.

Except we had a fire drill and as we rushed to nearest stairs the teachers bellowed at us that they were the up stairs so we couldn't use them! Crazy! So if there was a fire on the down staircase we'd all have to run into it and perish? Maybe that was the teachers plan, knowing what shits we were at school.

Before you started the school you were randomly given a language to study and you stuck with that through the whole school. No option to change or try anything different.

Not a rule but I grew up near a quite boring tourist attraction. Every year our whole primary school would visit this morning attraction and we didn't have any other school trips. Nothing ever changed and when I drive passed it now when I go and see my grandparents I still shudder at the boring memories.

Had to wear Moses sandals as indoor shoes. Even though the school itself has multiple buildings, prefabs etc that we had to walk outside between classes multiple times per day. Vividly remember doing this in the snow in the sandals with freezing toes then soaking wet socks.

Against all expectations I did very well in the only cross country I ever did at Guatanamo Bay, Lancashire Branch. I think I actually experienced going through the pain barrier.
Still lost a stone in three days on the Lake District Geography Field Trip though and slept for 48 hours round the clock on a beanbag with the dog when I got home.

One minute I was watching Cheers on Channel Four on a Friday night, next thing I knew it was Sunday evening, Songs of Praise was on and my uniform was being ironed.

I ended up joining the French Foreign Légion for a rest.

At Primary (80's) there was no choice about food, you had to have a bit of everything on your plate AND if you didn't eat it you had to sit and look at it as it got colder and more congealed and more gross while The HT stood over you ordering you to eat it. The "nicer" teachers would allow you to go if you ate one fork full of it.
It wasn't just our school though, Dh came to The Uk in 1981 and he remembers being forced to eat food (and thinking all English food was gross) and throwing up on the table in the didning hall

Boarding school so lots of odd rules. No talking at mealtime before the bell rang. Must have a black vitamin pill every morning. Complex rota for baths and hair washing.

We weren't allowed to run with scissors, as a consequence the inaugural event of the sports day Egg and Sissor race took rather longer than most of the spectators could bear and, it had to be said, was a bit of an anticlimax.

Had this at my school too. I remember being forced to eat a chestnut mushroom, tried to get it down and ended up vomiting all over the prefects shoes.

Still hate chestnut mushrooms.

Have heard some even recently though. A school where the boys aren't allowed to put their hands in their pockets. Do the girls not have pockets?! How are they getting away with having rules aimed at one gender? And what a weird rule! Also looked at a primary school recently which says 'water bottles must be reusable, clear and not made from glass or contain metal'...so that'll be plastic then? Has plastic been cancelled so extremely that you can't even use it in a sentence, but can still insist that the entire school have plastic bottles??

"No canoddling in the corridors"

The rule itself was fine, it w h ridiculous phrasing.

An the PE knickers.... we did cross country in them, in the local park. A lot of men seemed to like spectating

Our head teacher announced in assembly that God had spoken to her and we were to do our homework on Friday evenings not Sunday evenings.

She also yelled at a classmate in the main street of town on a Saturday morning because she was talking to some boys.

When teaching RE to our class we had to sit with our arms folded and not move for the whole lesson while she discoursed on the transubstantiation of the host. I just daydreamed through every lesson and have idea to this day of the rights of the issue. Nor do I wish to.

Headmistress stood at entrance with a ruler measuring how thick your tie was tied and how much leg you were showing below your skirt before your socks.
Couldn’t eat outside except on one one. That would seat at max 4 so queues to sit on the wall and fights to get kids off it.
getting kicked out of PE as I had a badge on my school sweatshirt. !! The badge said “ sports captain’.
having to once write why I was late for lesson when I was twenty mins early for next class. Teacher watch had the wrong time.

Weird weird rules about lining up for school lunches that only the ‘one man stress machine’ that was the Head could remember.

No earrings, no make up, and no trousers for girls. No exceptions. You turned up with any of the above and a parent had to collect you from the office even if school hadn’t started.

PE kit only fit for summer athletics was compulsory all year round.

Only bright kids could do Latin.

Left and right stairs were up, middle stairs down. Even for fire drills.

No access to the vending machines unless you had PE that day (they were on the PE corridor).

A pedestrian gate that led to a foot path and could knock about 15 minutes off your walk to school was padlocked shut at all times. Not near a road and visible from the school door, but deemed dangerous.

The phrasing at Gitmo Lancashire was, "No petting."

Navy blue knickers….just why?

I had a very frightening biology teacher who enforced a rule that the top line of every page in our exercise books was not to be written on, ever. Anyone who did had their page torn out of their book and were thoroughly shouted at in front of all. A crazy rule! Looking back I can see she was very controlling and well out of order. But to this day, I never write on the top line of any page!! 😂

Ours were bottle green. The whole uniform was bottle green with a bow tie affair for the girls (who had only recently been let in as it was a boys' school really.) apart from Fridays which was CCF and you wore the appropriate Force's uniform.

I chose RAF as they seemed to do the least and was confined to recognising aircraft silhouettes from a book. Indoors. Still had to do shooting practice though.

No trousers for girls at our school - all year round
The girls ( not the boys - never knew why) had compulsory showers after pe but if we were on our period we could skip the shower,
the teacher would put a red dot by your name in the register. You could only miss one shower a month as she kept record - I do remember one girl insisting she was on before the 4 week deadline and had to show the teacher her soiled sanitary towel to prove it
grim times

PE knickers. I had really heavy periods and my parents asked if I could wear cycling shorts or leggings for modesty. They said no so I rarely did PE. Absolute wankers.

There was also an art teacher who had a rule that you had to sit up straight, work in silence and absolutely lost his shit if you absent mindedly leant on your hand/thinker pose. It was so irrational.

Posh school in 1980s. The wearing of jumper and blazer was set by the calendar, not the weather. So roasting hot start of term in September was blazers and jumpers on as it was winter term. And first week back after early snowy Easter was shirt sleeves only as it's now summer term.

The one way system! Next lesson is in the next classroom along but you have to head away from it, down the stairs, along the long bottom corridor, up the other stairs and head back to 4m from where you started! That was a trial which was deemed a failure and they changed to one side of the corridor/staircase for each direction, resulting in lots of chaos with the passing lines of students interacting,.plus spitting on the heads of people lower down the stairs. It had been so much simpler when everyone just went where they needed however they wanted, but no!

Crikey those old thick gym knickers. Ours were red with white stripes and we wore a red pleated gym skirt that was Velcro. Had to just wear the knickers if you forgot the skirt. Embarrassing.

Rural Yorkshire in the 80's up a great big hill.
Heating came on in October and off in March end of. One year when it snowed at Easter and there was ice on the inside of the windows The Head managed to get permission to turn the heating on in March