To encourage you to share ridiculous school rules?

[malificent7]

As we are going back to school ( or rather our little ones are) I thought it would be fun to let off steam by citing ridiculous school rules and punishments.

My old school was private and therefore thecrules were particularly stupid. There was the 6" rule whereby a boy and girl were not supposed to be within 6 incges of each other. This was designed to stop sex and pregnancy but did nothing to stop horny teens screwing in bushes.
Now i gear it has banned all students from visiting a local town " in case they get into mischief. " What if mum and dad want to take them out for lunch there?

If you got in trouble girls had to weat skin coloured tights to school as part of being "gated. " all the cool people got gated... it was a badge of honour as it meant you did cool things like smoke, drink and snog boys.

Do share.

I always thought the hair rule at my DS school was stupid. No shorter than a grade 3. Long, dirty, unkempt hair apparently ok though.

No going out of the school gates without your gloves on [Black in winter, white cotton in summer]. Reverend Mother [it was a Convent] used to stand at the gates to enforce this - anyone not conforming had to sit outside her office and write out a suitable passage from the Bible!
Ooh yes - and lines! Never forgot this one!
"Churlish and inconsiderate behaviour caused by a minority inflicts on the majority a punishment that could easily have been avoided had the minority exercised a little self control and honesty" 50 TIMES.
All because somebody in our form didn't own up to bashing on another classroom door as we were filing down the corridor [in silence and height order keeping right of course!]
Those were the days.

My junior school had the indoor and outdoor shoes rule! And my senior school had a special staircase that only teachers and prefects were allowed to use. Also different years had pointlessly different uniforms, so every couple of years you would move into a different uniform (e.g. In the junior school you moved from a pinafore to a skirt and blouse. Then in the senior school you graduated to a different colour jumper, and you were allowed to wear black tights as opposed to bottle green ). There were also very strict mufti rules. No blue denim, black jeans were allowed but they had ton be new-looking, not faded. Bare legs were Not Acceptable. Shoulders should always be covered etc. etc.

If you broke a rule you would get a "stripe" and have your name read out in house assembly so everyone could glare at you. Sixth formers had special privileges like you couldn't be bollocked in public by a teacher, and we also weren't meant to be given stripes, so when the younger girls got stripes and had to stand there in shame we thought it was hilarious. Until a few of us skipped PE and the teacher came and found us and gave us all stripes. The humiliation!

Ooh and we weren't allowed to use the front door!

Also yoga was banned for being "un-christian"

How wonderful to have a school cormorant!

I'd forgotten weekly hairwashing night at prep school til a PP mentioned it. Those of us with greasy hair were permitted to miss silent reading on Sunday morning to wash ours for a second time - once we're reached 13, of course And it was bending over the sink.

Baths were taken at deisgnated times, in deisgnated bathrooms with deisgnated partners. There were two baths everywhere except on the ground floor, where you were assigned once a week for a blissful five minute solo bath. You ran the bath for the next person once you'd finished - 4 inches of water, and definitely no bubble bath etc Failure to adhere to these rules resulted in unspecified dire punishments - probably being sent to stand in a dark corridor in your dressing gown and slippers, to reflect on your sins...

And bed times were staggered, depending on age. The oldest girl in the house - around 13 and 10 months - got the latest bedtime: 7.45 in winter, 8 in the summer. In my year, this girl was expelled, for writing a letter to a boy she didn't know, who reported her to his house master (Jesuit school) who rang our headmistress. The fall out was epic - our year was pulled out of prep, made to sit on the floor of the deputy head's office in silence, individual grilling... With no idea what it was about or what was going on I'm fairly sure that the incessant terror inflicted on us at prep school must have given more people than me anxiety disorders as adults

Spuriouser we weren't allowed to use the front door either - until we were Prefects Did they think we'd wear it out?!

Girls' grammar:

No rolled up sleeves ever- ''are you here as the maid? Are you doing the washing up?'

Jumper always, no matter how hot the classrooms were. There were no lockers for blazer storage either, these had to be worn (and they were wool) between all classes and could only be removed if the class teacher approved. Most did, to be fair.

My favourite- stand whenever a teacher entered a room. Which meant multiple standings on a day when lots of messages needed to be passed to your (deputy head) biology teacher and even she was eye-rolling at the farce of it all. Greeting our very broad Yorkshire accented Latin teacher was the best of all though. She used to grin as we all replied to her 'salve puellae' (sp?) in broad Yorkshire. RIP, Miss Lunt!

Same here about no using the front door (til we were in 6th form).

At primary school, rule about chocolate bars always seemed oddly arbitrary. We were not allowed them in packed lunches, unless they had a biscuit in them. So mars bars, no, but a twix was fine. Kit kat yes, curly wurly, no. Never made any sense to me.

DS1 is at a sixth form where the dress code is suit, shirt & tie. V-neck plain knit jumpers are allowed. DS1 wore a round-neck plain knit jumper once last winter and was told not to wear it again, and that doing so was subversive I am amazed, my kids went to the local grammar, very good school with nice uniform from year 7 to 11 and smart no jeans for 6th form. My son and his friend decided to go in fancy dress one day, can't remember but I think one was Spiderman (could have been Batman) and one was Jack Sparrow I think. Not one teacher said a word, they just laughed at them. Their act of rebellion did not get the result they expected and I think the school stance was very effective.

Showers after PE were compulsory and the shower room was separated from the changing room by a corridor maybe 25ft long. Girls had to strip entirely naked to shower and weren't allowed to wrap their towel around themselves for the walk to and from the shower - towels had to be left in the changing room.

I had lots of sleepless Sunday nights spent worrying about Mondays naked run to the showers with my puppy fat and sprouting body. Strangely the boys were allowed towels.

We had to walk on the right side of the corridor with our bag on our left shoulder. If I remember correctly there was also a one way system in place.To this day I can't wear my handbag on my right shoulder.

All boys at dd's school have to be clean shaven. Apart from that I can't think of any daft rules.

Ds starts a new secondary tomorrow, not gone across any pointless rules yet.

I think I might have gone to the same school as a few posters!

We had a PE teacher who'd make us run (up a bloody steep hill) to the playing fields. She'd run too, and if she got there before us, we got detention. She was about 6 ft with legs longer than most of us were tall.

One of the schools I taught at had 'Sat rap' which was early morning detention on a Saturday. Getting myself out of bed to supervise miserable kids at 7am was my least favourite duty.

Convent school , one terrifying teacher. Used to say ''Repeat after me' I have gutter water running through my body' ''
As whole class punishment for minor infractions such as not standing up when someone entered the class or not falling silent for the attendance register.

Back benchers : ' you have gutter water running through your body' !! slowly though, lest she hears...

Not walking on the grass when it was frosty, as we would break the blades of grass

The 6th form at my (yr 11) DD's school issued a notice this year stating "females wearing trousers must ensure they're not showing provocative ankles"..... but strutting about in a teeny skirt (and with those provocative ankles on show) seems to go unchallenged!

We had quite a few, so my two favourites:

1. Running was only forbidden in some corridors (it was to do with what was underneath, and 'school' vs. boarding/living areas), and there was one particular route you could take from history to French which was run-walk-run-walk-run all the way - it was ridiculous. The deputy head sometimes used to loiter at a junction and laugh at us all trying to observe the changeover! (Since she was there, we did, anyway...)

2. We had a rule which went: No pupil to be found in possession of Tippex, Blutak, Glue, Selotape, drawing pins, gel pens, alcohol, fireworks or knives. I always loved the sudden drastic key change at the end!

Provocative ankles? Does your dd go to school in Victorian times?

My cousins school were not allowed to call the blackboard the blackboard. In case it offended anyone.

So instead they made primary school children refer to a black board as the white board despite the fact it was a black board.

Our incredibly pervy head of year used to measure the girl's skirt lengths to check it wasn't too short.

I once got in bother with him, my parents were called in, I pointed out that I couldn't possibly take direction from someone who was wearing Playboy socks

Meeting ended abruptly, never heard a peep out of him again

Here you go...

If you don't like a particular school's rules you can investigate sending your child(ren) to a different one. No school should be expected to change their rules to accommodate you no matter how silly you may think they are.

Not silly, but unusual - we had bomb drills as well as fire drills. The bell would ring in bursts, and you had to open the windows and doors and take your bags with you.