Things you did at school you wouldn’t be allowed to do now.

[TwillTrousers]

I’ve only just remembered this. At primary we played ‘basketball’. 2 kids would stand at either ends of the hall standing on a chair holding a wicker bin to catch the balls in (all wearing pants and vest). In fact I can remember standing on chairs a lot, now banned of course.
I can also remember going to sing at the hospital sitting in the boot of a teachers reliant Robin in secondary.

School ski trip, where you just skied on your own unsupervised in the afternoon when there were no lessons.
memorable last day when the ski hire shop had to drag the teachers out of the pub at 7pm to explain that 4 sets of skis hadn’t been returned and this was their first clue that kids were missing.

A friend and I used to hang out at a male teachers flat, with another male teacher. We’d often play mixed doubles tennis. We were 14 I think?

I’d arrive at primary school at 8am because both parents worked. I was happy to play in the playground for an hour until school started.

Being allowed to choose what order lessons you did one afternoon a week. This was considered very revolutionary. It was chaos mostly. On the down side, being forced to eat watered down scrambled eggs and retching. One girl projectile vomited over the table. We were all crying. Probably about 6.

A day off school at Christmas which was in the school newsletter as ' Christmas Shopping day' much to my parents annoyance!

Ice cream man driving into school and selling ice creams. No gates padlocked - you just stayed in school. You could walk out without being challenged at any time, or back in.

Being screamed at for being shy which pretty much destroyed any self esteem for decades. Being forced to attend moral education lessons and being told not to tell our parents about this activity.

No one being encouraged to do anything after they were 16, only a very select few ' picked' to go to sixth form. It did not depend on your exam results, and was never offered as an option to all if you worked hard at exams.

Not being allowed to do physics because it's a boys subject and completely pointless as I'd get married at 18 and need to know how to run a house.

I was made to do home education instead and perfect being able to toast bread under a grill without the corners turning up, which could be considered physics I guess.

The great billows of smoke and wine bottles in the staffroom. There is a theme, on this thread!

At primary, being made to sit cross legged on the floor and stretch your arms to the ceiling for the lesson if anyone misbehaved- chatted or was a bit silly. Aged 5 onwards. I remember my arms really aching and if you dropped them down even for a second, the teacher would go BESERK and make us do it for longer.

@Beesandhoney123 We didn't have the punishment of stretching arms in the air, but at primary school, we used to play "Simon says" or "O'Grady says" a lot. I remember finding it exhausting putting my arms up, and I used to get myself out of the game as soon as I could. I wonder if it was covert exercise.

And as for boys' and girls' subjects: the head of my primary school was ahead of her time, and used to rant about how in the stories we read, it was always the boys out having a good time, while the girls were at home helping Mother.

I attended a special group once a week where we did thinks like hopping, skipping, jumping, balancing, standing on one leg, catching bean bags, and so on, which I thought was rather fun. I learned many years later that this was a remedial group for "gross co-ordination"!

I've mentioned this elsewhere, and it's not a school one, but a youth group one. I went on an overnight stay (boys and girls) aged six, and my dad came as a helper. He slept in one of the boys' dormitories: unthinkable now. He suddenly took me home after one night, without telling me why, and explained many years later that this was because some of the teenage helpers were having sex in the children's dormitories in the daytime, and some of the children had walked in on them.

When I was five the teacher sent me and another girl to the shop next to the school to buy ice lollies for the teachers. It was a hot day. My mum was shocked at me being sent out of school but in those days (fifties) parents never complained.

It happened more recently. In 2016 I was working as a supply teacher in Oldbury. I had to call my agency and say, "I've never had this before, but there has been a bomb threat and they have closed the school"

I remember if you forgot your swimming kit you could walk home during the school day with a friend to go get it! That was in the early 90s and in primary school.

schools not being prisons you and others could walk in and out of the school site no locked metal gates just a permanently opened gate

I didn’t grow in the uk so no uniforms , makeup and hair colour where fine ,we somehow had more freedom and a lot less bullying and violence than kids here . I’m in my early 40s by the way .

Yep every lunch time ,mine was a Catholic school and we had two playgrounds one for girls one for boys so we had two ice cream vans .

Let out at lunch time to wander around the local town centre
Not actually in school but near to.my school there was a newsagent thst would sell single cigarettes and a match for ten pence to school kids in full uniform
Showers after PE all in a line with no separate cubicle or even shower curtains.fpr privacy 🤔

My school was like this in the 80,s
I might be wrong but I thought, all the extra security was brought in after the Dunblane tragedy ?

"Showers after PE all in a line with no separate cubicle or even shower curtains.fpr privacy 🤔"

If you didn't shower because you had your period, you had to tell the teacher and she kept a record of it in her register.
Also termly foot checks for veruccas and athletes foot and to check that all your PE kit had your name on it including those awful PE knickers.

My girls grammar merged with a local secondary mod and we were narked about the choice of deputy head so we went on strike on the school field and friend called the local newspaper. Didn’t go down well.
My 6th form (late 70s) had a student bar 😁

Being able to leave the grounds at lunchtime. Sometimes we fancied going to get a pie from a shop or go to a friend's house, home, the chippie etc. Having an hour meant we could do this and no check ins or outs, just walk on out any direction.

Playing kiss chase!

Kiss chase!!

At Christmas one of the students was blacked up to play Black Peter and got round with Father Christmas.

We also had visiting students who came to school. It would be so complicated to arrange now.
My primary was completely open with a low fence, secondary you could just walk off site. It’s sad to see the massive fences but a man got into a school near me and stabbed several girls, killing one. It’s why we have them now for all those calling them prisons. It was a safe part of town but he was mentally unwell.

Being made to stand outside the headmasters study all break time in my see through knickers because I forgot my p.e kit.

Dissecting a sheep's eyeball..I actually refused to do it.i was about 13 and not confident, but it felt disrespectful to me.i was shocked I didn't get into trouble for it.

Dr.Scholl sandals were all the rage, although not allowed, many wore them.i committed the double sin of also having nail polish on my toe nails.
The geography teacher(who for some reason disliked me) told me to stay behind.she inserted her finger inside my shirt collar and twisted tighter and tighter till I felt my eyes bulging, whilst saying "well miss painted toe nails".
I thought I was about to pass out, so knocked her hand away.She screamed at me to get out.
I sometimes think about it , over 50 years later, and wonder what would happen if a teacher did that now.

If ever we had a little outing somewhere, like going to sing in the town hall or a netball match, when the mini bus was full, the remaining pupils would just go in the teachers’ cars - even in junior school. That wouldn’t be possible now due to the car seat laws, and beyond that it’d probably be a safeguarding issue. This was from the mid 90s to mid 00s.

in the top year at my primary school, the headmaster would call me to his office to ask me to run down to the post office to buy him 20 Silk Cut. We also, aged 8 or 9, boiled the kettle to make the teachers’ instant coffee at break time.

When I was about 14 you had to wear a grey skirt and it was fashionable at the time to wear a long midi length old Army and Navy Store skirt !! 🤣never be allowed now , we thought we were so cool!

Our register was only taken once each day, at tutor time first thing in the morning. We’d walk out of school straight afterwards and miss all of our lessons. No one ever noticed or cared.

The teachers taught us the exam content but it was up to us if we wanted to make an effort to learn. There was no pressure or stress upon us to do well in the exams.

We had a girl with anorexia who had to be weighed by our form tutor every morning, in front of the whole class.

One teacher took the whole class to the local cafe every time we had a lesson and bought us all cakes and biscuits. We just spent the whole hour there chatting with friends. The whole year group failed our GCSE in that subject.

We were allowed to smoke in the sixth form common room.

We went to the pub with teachers after school and at lunchtimes in sixth form. Also went to teacher’s houses to socialise after the pub.

Cross Country running involved a large section of running on the hard-shoulder of the very busy, 3 lane A road to get to the local woods. The boys playing chicken the whole stretch. Unsupervised.

One teacher would throw the heavy wooden blackboard rubber at anyone’s head if they annoyed him, regularly causing a gash or bruise.

Isvak sounds awesome! Very sensible too, wish they did that in schools in Finland.

In primary school, once a week two year 6 children would walk to the county council office (about ten minute walk away) to take post there. I was gutted when they stopped this by the time I got to year 6 (because some van had been hanging around outside the school looking suspicious).
School uniform wasn't compulsory in primary school so my mum didn't buy it for us but most children wore it. I enjoyed lording it over the other kids that I didn't have to wear uniform
Secondary/high school we were allowed to leave the school at lunch time, going down the chippy for lunch was popular and the garage across the road made a lot of money from students buying sweets. Then they changed the rules and we weren't allowed but our RE teacher told some of us the code for the door near her classroom so we could go out and get back in again without being caught. She also let anyone who wanted to skip a lesson sit in her office. She was absolutely lovely and a good friend to the troubled kids.

Things kids are allowed to do these days in Finnish schools that probably can't do in the UK - get sent off from around 8 or 9 years old into the forest to do orienteering or cross country skiing without supervision (teacher just waits at the edge of the forest for them to return), making proper hunting knives in metalwork, in upper school students have to bike/walk to the primary school for tech lessons, by themselves during breaktime, no supervision. In the summer when they do athletics they have to bike unsupervised 7km to the next town where the athletics track is, do 2 hours of PE, then bike back. There's no releasing children to parents after preschool year (5/6 years old), they all just leave by themselves after their last lesson and most walk or bike home by themselves (and can be released without a parent in preschool if you request it in writing)

Cross country runs through the housing estates for PE Lessons. We used to go to my friends house have a drink & snacks then get the bus back to just around the corner from the school & jog back in.