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.

Catholic grammar school. In 6th form we’d drink whisky with the school chaplain in his office next to our common room. Happy days.

Junior school:
Several trips to Portland Bill, everyone jumped off rocks into the sea wearing rubber rings if couldn’t swim. Far too deep to touch the bottom.
Swimming lessons in unheated pool from after Easter to October half term, regardless of weather (including during a thunderstorm) or when Easter fell so was sometimes from March.
Getting the ruler across my knuckles for the smallest misdemeanour, boys had the cane. The headmaster and deputy headmaster were brutal, I remember the deputy smashing a desk lid down on a boy’s head, knocking him out. The poor kid had teeth broken and a big laceration across his head. The rest of us were told not to tell our parents; the boy’s parents were told he’d slipped in the boys toilets when messing around.
School was brutal in the late 50’s.

Being made to drink milk that had been frozen solid and defrosted on the radiator. I still can’t drink milk to this day due to that.

Smoked

ITA: teach the kids to read using a phonetic alphabet and books printed in ITA. Then switch them to the normal alphabet a few years later. It was bonkers.

When I was 10 my teacher cast me as a Turkish villain in our Christmas play in the mid-1980s. I’m a very pale English person so she put dark brown makeup all over my face.

If the photos ever get out I’ll be cancelled.

The same year, everyone in our year was sent off in pairs, no adult supervision, to different and completely unfamiliar addresses in our town, up to about two miles from school, to knock on the door hand out harvest festival boxes of food to elderly residents. We were actively encouraged to go into their homes and have a chat with them. I can’t imagine a school sending a pair of 10-year-olds on a two-mile walk to hang out in the home of a random old man these days.

When I was at secondary school we were given the option to attend evening life drawing classes for GCSE Art. We were about 15 I think, just sitting there for two hours in a room for three weeks, staring at a completely naked adult man who was sprawled on a couch. In the second week of the three, he dozed off and got a semi in his sleep. I enjoyed those three weeks very much indeed but I can’t really imagine it being an extracurricular class for 15-year-old girls these days? The other three weeks the model was a woman who looked like Neil from The Young Ones, so that was much less enjoyable. My older brother did the same classes, but his were for A-level and he was 18 by that point, so it was uncontroversial.

Oh God, yes to this. I can't drink milk for that reason, either. The smell of those mini milk bottles in summer was awful.

Foreign exchanges are still very much a thing.

Hopefully some safeguarding involved these days though :)

I was surprised to see year 3’s using craft knives (under supervision) recently when I was volunteering in a primary school.

”This is a k-niff”, their teacher said. “It is s-h-a-r-p.” Before giving them a briefing about using knives safely, in particular, putting it down when not using it.

Once the teacher took the whole class on a walk
to her house. We all walked there, watched a film in her living room sat on her carpet and then walked back to the school.

Class parties you took a note home for your mum and you had to bring some party food in like sandwiches, crisps, biscuits. These days school are so strict because of hygiene and allergies.

Primary school wasn’t strict on uniform. There was a uniform but children wore all sorts of variations and even their own clothes. You were probably considered quite posh if you had a full uniform.

We had a school pond, it wasn’t even fenced off and on at least one occasion a child fell in.

We had squash and biscuits every day for a snack.

We had a boy forced to eat peas who very deliberately turned towards the dinner lady and spray vomited them down her. He didn’t have to eat them again.

The same boy peed on the same dinner lady’s feet when she wouldn’t let him go to the toilet. She really had it in for him.

Junior school late 1960s our class (10 year olds) had a rota of children chosen to wash up the teachers coffee cups and tidy the staff room after every break time. It was considered an honour to be chosen.

I’m sorry, I’m sure you grew into a fine upstanding citizen, but that’s really unpleasant! My school also had institutionalised bullying by prefects. Using it to make younger students’ lives a misery was always a choice, and not everyone offered it took it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Going out shopping with a male teacher at lunch times. He never signed us out. It was ok until his car got stolen and we were late back. He got a rocket for not signing us out. Also used to lock his class room door and a few of us would eat lunch in there. Bonkers now I think about it. But nothing happened.

Yes to PE knickers and doing hockey on the field in deep snow (no joggers...pe knickers and skirt I think) with the ball painted black.

Male PE teacher wandering through changing rooms when we were showering.

Staff room....every teacher smoked and it absolutely reeked.

School bus... three on a seat made for two, no seatbelts and standing in the aisle. Driver would emergency stop for a laugh to make us fall over. He also used to twang girls' bra straps. We had to run for the bus at the end of the day or it just left you.

Junior school...we were post monitors because we lived past the past office and we got let out early to take the school post! Loved that one.

Bell monitor. It was an actual bell. You'd go out one door and run across to the other door ringing it. 🤣 Used to love it when it was icy cos you could skid.

So so many things.....

I was in the sixth form in 1983-85. On Friday lunchtimes one of our A level teachers regularly drove a group of us to the pub (he was also shagging one of us - not me - it was an open secret), buy us lots of lager and take us back to school in time for afternoon classes. We all had double history on Friday afternoons and spent the lesson going back and forth to the loo because of all the lager. Looking back, it must have been so obvious we were all tiddly but no one ever said anything to us.

Eat nuts. That’s the only one I can think of!

At my primary, it was usual for the teacher to lock the classroom door when we left the room for assembly etc. perhaps because we had scissors that actually cut in those days. She would say “hurry up, or you’ll be locked in”, and once she actually did, when two children dawdled.

Although we didn’t have corporal punishment, there was lots of yanking children by the arm or hand when telling them off, sometimes dragging them around. I remember defiantly saying “stop pulling my nice jumper” when this happened to me once. Fortunately that teacher liked me, or I would have been in big trouble for being “rude”.

Walk to school with my younger brother who was 5 (I was 7) across two main roads. But loads of other kids were also doing that so we weren’t on our own as such. DS can’t believe that my mum allowed it but this was the early 80s.

Scout expedition to Wales (we’re in London) with only a couple of Ventures (ages 17-19) for supervision. Was away for a week - parents had no real idea where I was and of course no mobiles or anything.

And like most other kids we played out all day in the holidays. DS used to always ask me what mum would do if she wanted you and thought it was wild that either she’d just wait for us to come in for dinner or if urgent would find a passing child and tell them to go and find us and send us home! I do think DS missed out somewhat by not having the freedom I did.

Another one from primary school. We had a classmate who had CF and as a result was really small for his age and he couldn’t walk very far or fast. We were planning a day trip (probably year 5/6) and we were told unless we all agreed to have a rota for giving our classmate a piggy back for the journey then he wouldn’t be able to go! Now of course we all agreed to that and had a rota to carry him in 20/30 minute blocks (with a mate carrying your rucksack) but what was his mother and the teachers thinking in making the other kids responsible for ensuring he got to come along!

Dm only took me to school for the first couple of weeks after that I made my way there and back by myself. I was also allowed to go to the library after school relying on the lollipop lady to see me across the road I was barely five. We had moved house by the time dsis started school she caught a regular service bus unaccompanied from the second day.

You had to have 1 of everything on your plate even if it was something you didn't like and then got punished with no playtime if you didn't clear your plate.
I could never get my head around how I was "wasting food" when I hadn't asked for it and mad it clear I didn't want it in the first place
DH arrived in this country aged 9 and once he got sent to school here he thought we were all insane

My mum was a dinner lady, and the really nasty headmistress was forcing this boy to finish his dinner. He had been kept in until after everyone left, then was force-fed this disgusting, cold, greasy, gristly stew potato and cabbage. he was gagging, then all of a sudden he vomited all over the headteacher and the floor. mum said she was pleased the woman got it all over herself, but Mum had to mop the floor.
In Junior school, the staff room was thick with smoke, yet two of us would be chosen each break to wash up the cups and ashtrays.
There was a guillotine just left out in the corridor, and kids of all ages, 7 to 11 years, were sent to use it!
Our caretaker used to sit in the boiler shed opposite the canteen and read dirty magazines. boys used to go in and have a look at them

The PE teacher sold us pirated copies of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on VHS for £2. We were probably in 2nd year/year 8. I wasn't allowed to watch much TV and was still very innocent, so was absolutely agog 🤣