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.

Girls could only wear trousers if they were bottle green. That one lasted until I was in my 3rd year (yr 9 now).

girls can’t do metalwork / woodwork after 1st (7)yr. A sit-in by several of us who disagreed, together with several male pupils who wanted to do cooking, ended that one.

No mini skirts but hockey / netball skirts were ok if you had PE that day or practice. So that was an easy work-around

Not allowed to use one of the gates onto the grounds but as that was the one the teachers used to drive in it wasn’t too bad.

We also had to either wear our coats or have them in bags / cloakroom if not. And had to ask to take jumpers off. And it was long sleeved shirts all year round until a few of us played on the same rule that got us short skirts as polo shirts were part of the PE uniform.

No heels higher than 2” (ah, the 1980s!).

My senior school didn’t have too many stupid rules when I started but then started adding them:

• we had to ask permission to remove our school jumper (only one teacher expected us to obey this one);
• we could only wear black school shoes. Fair enough but they introduced that rule in the first year of September when I was in year 8 - so a bunch of us had brown shoes that year;
• if we were off sick we had to call the school office that day. Fair enough but we would have to listen to a long recorded message then listen to it ring and ring and ring (because the nurse didn’t want to answer). It got to the point where my Mum would write on my note that she couldn’t afford to stay on hold for that long (back in the 90s when phone calls were more expensive).

I don’t know. Just reread the post and can’t see it.

One building had a teachers & 6th form only staircase and a smaller staircase for younger years (building had been a manor house and the latter had been the servants staircase).
Kilt pins had to be worn on our kilts. The school down the road banned them because someone used one as a weapon. It made the local news.

School uniform. Pointless pile of crap.

I was in ‘top band’ which was bad enough to be part of a top, middle and bottom system and wasn’t allowed to learn touch typing as was told I’d never do a job that requires typing as that was for the middle and bottom band girls (the schools actual words).

We had to have our initials embroidered on our navy knickers in bottle green chain stitch.

We wore very tight pencil skirts with splits up the back. Our head teacher decided that the spilts weren't appropriate so we had to go to the needlework room at lunch time to sew them up. Clearly it hadn't occurred to him this would make the skirts so tight we could only hobble with tiny steps, until the split eventually ripped again. Then the process was repeated the next lunch time..and the next...
It was great in the winter as it meant we could be inside, and the needlework teacher was lovely. She made us cups of tea, told us gossip and called the head a silly old fool who knew nothing about fashion.

I see the confusion 👍

Only the top set were allowed to learn Shakespeare. Presumably the rest of us were too stupid.

Gymslips and indoor shoes and gingham summer dresses when i started Grammar School in 1980. Navy blue knickers for gym. They stopped all this after first 2 years, but the summer dresses had a resurgence when we were in 6th form - the same dresses - which by that point barely covered our modesty.

I went to school.in the 60s/70s and the rules in someschools.now are much more unreasonable.
I can't think of any petty rules from that time.
We weren't punished for not having a pen, or not having our shirt tucked in, or not always having our eyes directly fixed on the teacher at all times.

You were not allowed to cross the foyer where the Head and deputies had their offices which was also the visitor's entrance, you had to go around if your class was one end and next class across the foyer. You were not allowed on the staircase in the middle of the foyer either. You were not allowed on the beautiful lawn which had a border of rose bushes even to sit on in the summer. The Head then was awful but could be fair. I think the children can go anywhere now.

Not RTFT, but the strict rule in my early 60s girls' primary school was no running in the playground. Ever. Oddly, the boys in the same but separate school on the other side of the chainlink fence (bloody Catholic schools) ran around like maniacs.

In my secondary school, no black bras that might show under the shit poly/cotton shirts.
Keep left on corridors - very sensible.
If heat was oppressive, the blazer had to be slung over the arm, showing the school badge.
No eating on the street.

We had a booklet of (secondary) school rules presented to everyone on their first day.
Later on a few of us set the rules to music (psalm chants) - with of course a few choice additions to the banned locations list.
As a result about 50 years later I can still remember the first two rules word for word. 🤣

There is only one comprehensive rule. Thou shalt at all times behave well and sensibly, but the following rules give points of detail.
Unless in games clothes or during the period of summer wear, thou shalt wear the school tie.

And so on...

In fairness, no black bras that might show under the thin poly cotton doesn’t sound a terrible rule.

In the 80s when patent stilettos were fashionable. There was no rule about stilettos, but there was the rule about them not being patent. A girl from my class went to the head of year to ask why and was told it was because boys could use them to look up girls skirts. My classmate pointed out that not only was this deeply unlikely to work, it was also deeply misogynistic-if there was an issue with predatory males ( which there was/the teachers) then maybe the rule should be about that. We wore our patent shoes and some male teachers continued to what their pupils.

Love this!

Strict all girls grammar in 1971.

Many of the above:

Pencil in rough book
Covered books
Thick gym knickers
Box pleated gym skirts embroidered with initials
The shower checking
No eating in uniform
Hats were stopped in 1973 because they were v expensive and the sec mod pupils were nicking them

Summer dresses were mandatory - the office supplied x yards of fabric and ypur mum was expected to make them
Indoor, rubber soled suede shoes
Dark green socks when it was raining tp avoid splashing up the back
A really nice young teacher, who was really good and inspired us was dismissed because she let on she lived with her boyfriend
Grace before lunch, heads bowed, hands together.
The girl who got pg in year 11 was expelled, as was the girl caught thieving - the former was reprehensible but the latter represents the ability to sanction anti-social behaviour and that is a loss to education.

The uniform was not a leveller because it was pretty obvious whose gym skirt was professionally embroidered, whose dress was dressmaker made and who had russell & bromley shoes.

I was at secondary in the mid 70s and the only unreasonable rule I remember was not being allowed to sit on the lower branches of the laurel bushes which ran along the perimeter of our orchard (perfectly normal State school, just the extension was built where there used to be formal gardens). Apparently it was because there might be 'rats up there'.

I was not then nor ever have subsequently, been afraid of rats.

On really hot days, we had to wear our blazers and ties to school to then find out if we were allowed to take them off. Bonkers.

At my all girls senior school in the 1980s we were supposed to wear regulation grey knickers and every so often we had to line up for a “knicker check.”
Every girl had to pull back the waistband of the girl in front of them and then peak down the top of their skirt to look at their knickers. I promise this is true!

I was at a girls' school.

Our uniform included a knee length skirt and white socks. We were not allowed to wear anything else to travel to / from school, even in snow.

The uniform also included a coat, who knows how much that cost. It has a type of mac but with no hood.

I’ve just remembered another one - we had a toilet roll monitor in primary! There was a toilet roll in the communal area of the toilet and when you reached the front of the toilet queue you specified whether you wanted two sheets or three of that awful tracing paper stuff!

Oh no the tracing paper was not much use and needed a bit to get clean..a few bits what was that going to do.