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.

Shagging the teacher.

Smoking in a corner of the playground
drinking alcohol on the school trip
holidays in term time

At my primary school, the kids who were condemned to missing their play had to sit on a carpet outside the staff room, in full view of everyone else going out to play. I was so well behaved that I didn’t experience this until my last year there, when I committed the ultimate sin of putting something away… when we hadn’t actually been told to do it yet. But I almost felt excited. I remember grinning at the other children going out to play.

Another time, when some children wrote “kitten” in their books without having been told to, the teacher threw their books on the floor, and made them stand at the front and hold their books up in disgrace.

Junior school mid 70s (so Y3-6) on hot summer days we were let out if the playground, which was just a square of black tarmac, to plain in the public park next door. No boundaries, no supervision!
For wet playtimes and lunchtime when we weren't allowed outside, 2 perfects from the top year ( so age 10/11), were sent to each classroom to supervise. A dinner lady would pop the head in once at lunchtime.

Taxidermy club.

6th form college - you were free to smoke in the grounds (it was legal to buy cigarettes at 16 in those days). At my comprehensive school, smoking was pretty much turned a blind eye to as long as people were discreet - classic behind the bike sheds stuff. The corridor the staff room was on was like an ashtray so the teachers probably had some sympathy.

Primary school - it was tradition for the headmaster to 'give you the dap' ceremoniously on your birthday, one stroke on your backside for each year (obviously not hard enough to hurt) - your classmates had to drag you into his office and then afterwards, give you the bump. Corporal punishment in schools was still happening then, so people did get the dap as a punishment. 'Dap' being a plimsoll for anyone who doesn't know.

Secondary school - you could buy cans of shandy in the canteen. It was Panda shandy, something like 0.001% ABV, not anything like Bass with proper beer in, but can't imagine it being allowed now.

There was a play put on when I was at junior school as a joint enterprise amongst several schools in the area, and rehearsals were at one 15 mins drive away - parent volunteers gave lifts and I remember several times about 8 people crammed into an estate car, three in the 'boot', four on backseat, one on the front.

First year secondary being sent out onto the school field with a tape measure and a pot of thick red paint as my friend and I were supposed to mark where the hurdles should go on the track, where the relay change overs should be etc. We got ourselves covered in it and discovered it didn't wash off then were roundly shouted at by the PE teacher.
Making pots of tea and delivering them to the staff room- a cloud of smoke billowed out when they opened the door to take it off you.

Oh and going down to the pub on a Friday lunchtime when in sixth form obviously

PE: compulsory communal showers with zero privacy after hockey/netball etc. Oh, and 'fat callipers' - where measurements were taken one afternoon after that infernal 'beep test', to measure how much fat was held on specific parts of your awkward adolescent body, in front of your peers... the 90s... good times😬

Mine is quite a niche one, but...manipulating my O Level subject options so that I didn't take any of the science subjects. I can't see any teenager doing GCSEs getting away with that now!

This was at a grammar school back in the late 1970s. All three sciences were taught and examined as separate subjects. At the end of Lower Fifth/Year 10 when we made our O Level choices we could drop up to two of them. Those of us who weren't especially good at maths were advised to drop physics and chemistry but keep going with biology as it was the "least maths-y".

...However, for people who were particularly gifted at languages, already in the top ability group for French, and who'd chosen the year before that to continue with Latin to O Level (rather than drop Latin and pick up either German or home economics for three years, to O Level), there was the option at the end of Upper Fourth/Year 9 to drop one science subject and pick up a two-year compressed course for O Level German. I'd already done that, dropping physics.

So at the end of Lower Fifth, I "innocently" announced my intention to drop two science subjects and got shot of chemistry and biology as well. None of the staff noticed until midway through Upper Fifth/Year 11 when they filed the exam paperwork and by then it was far too late for them to insist I should try and catch up with a further five months' work in either subject.

Despite dire prognostications that I was sabotaging my entire future by committing myself to A Life Without Science Qualifications - especially as it wasn't at all certain I'd pass O Level maths - I carried on into sixth form, got A Levels, passed various professional exams, later did a degree through the OU, and had a long and satisfying career.

I didnt have to do any sciences for O Level either. You were strictly Arts or Sciences from 4th year (yr 10) onwards although everyone had to do maths, English Literature, English Language, History, Geography and French. Everyone had to do Latin in the first two years.

We had a biology teacher who would randomly walk up behind you and drop a live stick insect over your shoulder onto your book 🤔 same guy would put on little wire framed glasses and do the ‘knickers knackers knockers’ thing from Benny Hill, he looked uncannily like him. Funnily enough everyone loved his class and i for one did remarkably well at biology until he moved and we got some horrid staid old boot instead.
also the dirty old man french teacher who made sexual innuendos all lesson.

In primary school we used to get given some money by the teacher and sent to the local shop by ourselves to buy the ingredients for cooking (well me and my friend did because we were goody two shoes and could be trusted).

We also used to go into the caretakers bungalow which was on site at break time to play with his rabbits and guinea pigs.

I love taxidermy club and giving primary school kids coffee.

I also had PE knickers at secondary school. One pair fit me the whole 5 years they were so massive. We did not have showers at all though.

I also remember in sixth form (separate to the school) my tutor was very young and had just qualified. We got on very well but he wouldn’t cross the line. I remember him apologising because he was having a housewarming and he had invited the boys but couldn’t invite me as that would look bad!

We had an alcoholic teacher who would go to the pub and occasionally be completely wankered, kept his job though.

I ran the tuck shop, ate loads of it!

Doing cross country in your PE skirt around the local streets. There was a shop that sold 'singles' enroute so some girls stopped for a smoke.

Occasionally seeing someone being dragged down the corridor by a teacher who was bellowing at them. This was usually a boy who done something stupid in a science or workshop based lesson.

An art teacher who swore a lot including at pupils. He was probably the most liked teacher in the school.

Sitting 3 to a seat on the coach to and from school everyday. This was secondary school so 1 person would be sitting on the arm of the seat. I think the 52 seater coach had around 65 kids on it.

I’m physically disabled but attended a mainstream school. I wasn’t capable of team sports. The PE teacher humiliated me on a regular basis until she left after 3 years - no one did anything

Get in a car with a teacher. To get a lift

Teachers would now be fired for doing that

We had this. One of be the male teachers used to hug me on a regular basis as well !

My (Boarding) school had a smoking room. You hav to be over 16 with written permission from a parent to use it - it was quite strictly enforced
we also had a bar, you had to pay upfront into an account and then use it as a tab so no money changed hands. That was how it got around the law apparently.
I was a Day pupil but could use both. A new Head Teacher came in and stopped the smoking room so everyone had to go behind the music school instead.

We had a school bar! It was in the sixth form building and I think we were restricted to half a pint of lager per event eg a debating competition.

Cross country - running for miles down isolated country lanes with hardly any supervision from teachers. Probably would be a safeguarding issue now!

I'm in a private Facebook group for my old school, and another 1970s Old Girl said how grateful she was that, for the seven years she attended the school, travelling from a town 12 miles away, she was given a lift each way every day by one of the maths teachers, Miss T.

Miss T refused ever to take a penny from her parents towards petrol costs, and probably saved the family £££ in train fares over the years.

Home dinners! Just walking out and going home at lunchtime with no locked doors or gates.

Wearing your own clothes! It's utter BS how strict my children's primary is.. they've been there since age 3 (attached nursery) and not had a single non-uniform day since they started. Even on special occasions like school parties. Just pointless for young children.

When I was 14 I went on the Music Tour to Italy.

It was basically a booze cruise. The GCSE students were only supposed to drink wine and beer but the A level ones could drink what they want The U14s weren't supposed to drink... but they did.

While the teachers watched, enabled and got drunk themselves.