Most ridiculous rule when you were at school

[Anotherrungup]

I was born in the 70s. Boys weren’t allowed to wear long trousers until they were in junior school! Thermal comfort was a privilege reserved for older children! At senior school it was ‘proving’ to the teacher that you’d had a shower after games - creepy as fuck.

If that staff room window let out the sort of poisonous, heavy smokers' fug that emanated from the staff room at my school (1970's), I don't blame them!

I don’t remember any particularly silly rules - I’m glad to say, as silly rules and me don’t work well together, lol. Although there were a few teachers with God complexes, lol. The school I went to now insists on uniforms etc (didn’t wear them in my day) which I wouldn’t have liked at all. That seems pretty common now though, and I get why, although I don’t remember any particular peer pressure re clothing at the time at all.

Girls were not allowed to wear trousers until I was in 5th form (y11) when they changed the rule. It was about 1988/89.

We were not allowed ball-point pens under any circumstances. We had to use those stupid cartridge ink pens that leaked everywhere.

Oh yes we had the same
You had to bring your own ink in to school to fill them up
nightmare
and it had to be blue of course

We had to ask to take off blazers and jumpers.
You couldn't wear your own jacket, had to be a school regulation one.
Boys couldn't wear long trousers until Year 4.
"Shirt sleeve order" which basically meant you could only walk around in your shirt (ie, no blazer) when the head gave you permission.
Girls couldn't wear socks in winter, had to be tights.

There was a special path that crossed a large area of grass. Only sixth formers could use it, everyone else had to walk around. What a privilege!

No patent leather shoes because the boys could see up our skirts in the reflection. Absolutely crazy, and I'm sure not actually possible.

A "zero tolerance to violence" rule that meant I got suspended for being stabbed despite being sat down doing my work when it happened and not fighting back (teacher instantly pulled her off me and bundled her out of the room).

I still have the scar on my arm where the broken pen went in over 1cm deep. The other girl was well known for lashing out at people unprovoked.

Primary school. Girls play netball, boys play football. Then, when the FA allowed women to play football, girls were allowed to play football. Boys demanded to play netball. They thought netball would be easy. Poor things, the girls run rings around them, plus generally 11-year-old girls are taller than 11 year old boys.

My school wasn’t too bad. The only one I can remember that seemed really stupid was that the First Years (year 7 equivalent) had to wear a pinafore. You could change to a skirt in Second Year. Such a lot of expense for parents because, let’s face it, nobody wanted to be seen dead in a pinafore after First Year. I was lucky though, as the only shop that supplied our school uniform ran out of pinafores and parents received a letter permitting them to buy a skirt instead. All the girls whose parents had already bought pinafores were raging!

Girls should not roll up their skirts because….. it makes the male teachers uncomfortable. Not because it breaks the uniform rule but because it makes the little snowflakey male teachers uncomfortable!

This was the 60s so of course a completely different era, but here goes —
A highly academic single sex (girls) grammar school in Essex. State, not private.
Rigorous school uniform rules. Skirt length had to be no more or no less than two inches above the ground when kneeling… and it was regularly checked too, the rulers would come out…
No trousers allowed.
Hats were compulsory. Felt halts in winter, straw ones in summer. I kid you not.
(they were incredibly unflattering and no-one looked good in them so they used to be folded or scrunched up. So they looked even worse when they made you unfold them and put them back on. )
Enforced by the sixth form prefects, who enjoyed their powers very much. No men in the school at all until one or two male teachers arrived when I was in the sixth form. Caused a sensation.
It's now a mixed comp! Still a good school.

Isn’t it Wierd how some things stated here I don’t find unusual.
Like your sports comment

Boys and girls at my boys schools 2004 -2022 couldn’t mix and match sports.
The only team sports they both played but never together was hockey.

Nice to hear some schools mix it up a bit now though

And of course no jewellery whatsoever apart from watches.
Makeup was so far beyond the pale it didn’t even need to be specified.

Me too, especially the cream at the top. (It was all silver-top, in the little 1/3 pint bottles. )
At my primary school we used to get hot cocoa at morning break in the winter. And weirdly, this was abroad and in a very hot country.

PE jumpers were hoodies, but you weren’t allowed to wear hoodies for own clothes days because ‘they were dangerous’! (If someone pulled the back of the hood, which kids in pe then always did!) This was only 4 years ago at DS’s primary school!

We weren't allowed to put coats on the back of chairs or walk with them over our arms. They had to be either worn properly or in a bag.

DC's sixth form uniform is business wear but no and I repeat no chunky knitwear. Every term there is at least one email about not wearing chunky knitwear. There is no definition given of what they consider to be chunky knitwear, just a understanding that just like pornography they would know it when they saw it. I would love to know the origin story for chunky knitwear, as it's such serious and long lasting hatred for it and has to come from somewhere.

It's a shame they didn't have a detachable pinafore, so it could just be removed for year 8

In my father's time, boys under 12 always wore shorts and I think in all weathers. The expression 'still in short trousers' means a boy of that age so trousers from juniors on it pretty good in comparison.

At my school girls weren't allowed to wear trousers at all, then they changed the rules and we could wear them in winter but a different colour from the boys'.

Sounds nice

Not allowed to do home economics..boy
Another for being checked for showering/watched
70s Scotland.

This exact rule exists now for my DC secondary school

Compulsory boater hats for girls.

We had a whole area just for sixth formers and teachers. It wasn't a silly rule though, it was the old school and the corridors and stairs there were too narrow for the whole school to pass by.
We also couldn't go out for lunch until sixth form because school was in a small town and we would have overwhelmed the place.