What did you dislike about school?

[Shandan35]

I would say PE

Doing gym in a tiny pe skirt and huge matching knickers.

Recapping anything used to really annoy me.

It now annoys my 6 year old and I never hear the end of “Do I really have to do this again? I’ve done this already Mummy.”

When I went to Uni it was the forced “Let’s all get to know each other,” and “Think of a word to describe yourself using the first letter of your name” that annoyed me.

And 1 rotbag girl who had a messed up home life and bullied me to make herself feel better. Shes a right mess now which makes me happy 😂

We had a tree that smelt like vomit whenever it rained it smelt worse, some people would step on the berries and bring the smell into the building

How narrow the curriculum was and how bored I was for about 80% of the time. I’ve got an enquiring mind and have never stopped learning in my adult life, but Jesus, most of what I was taught at school was very dull.

A bit left of field in comparison to everybody else's responses but I hated having no autonomy and that I wasn't paid. I remember very vividly sitting in school and thinking 'why am I here when I could be working and earning money'. I was so desperate to be an adult and hated being a child.

Must admit I hated being a child it was do this, get up, go to bed at secondary I hated geography maths no good at it, English hated the reading books, loved medical history taught myself that and social history wasn’t interested in the world wars.

Uniforms
Food- completely inedible
Nuns- some of them were pretty bitter women who absolutely hated childen

• children

PE and many of the other students who weren't there to learn, disrupted lessons and bullied those of us who did our homework.

PE was the only thing I liked! At least it was fun.

The rest of it was utterly shit, mostly. Even subjects I was interested in such as History and Art were dull and poorly taught in the 1970s with awful, uninspiring teachers. History - the damn woman dictated a text book (she had the only one) from the 1950s to us out loud and we frantically scribbled it down for an hour then she swept out the room. Repeal of the Corn Laws, etc. Dull as ditchwater.

Art - we had a really poor teacher who basically dumped a still life of some description in front of us and told us to draw it. I liked drawing - but no one ever taught us it. No lessons on perspective, or shading or anything else. You were just told to get on with it for an hour and he buggered off and had a coffee and a fag in the art supplies cupboard!

Most of the teachers.

PE for me too - and the PE kit. We played lacrosse on the sea front in all weathers and when it was howling a gale your skirt was permanently blown up. All the dirty old men in town used to sit and watch.

I did some work for Sport England a while ago and they wanted to discuss why women don't do sport. I was NOT popular amongst all the sporty women for pointing out that so many had very unfortunate memories of sport at school and therefore were unlikely to ever go near a ball or a track again.

Definitely PE and Art. Also a horribly strict head of year, who decided that our year group would have tougher uniform restrictions that other year groups.

PE. It was my only subject where we weren't in groups of similar abilities/sets, which just highlighted how crap I was at anything sporty, which was pretty much all it focused on (rather than lifelong fitness). The weekly humiliation of being one of the unwanted ones and being picked last for any team has left a lasting, negative, impression of sport (and PE teachers) on me.

The sheer poison of girls in a single sex school.
Much happier in a co-ed when I finally moved, it was a totally different atmosphere much more mellow.

PE of course, freezing cold muga while the teachers were wrapped up warm with their tea flask, favouring highly the sporty kids.

The lack of options at GCSE level.. I wanted a trade I didn't want to learn what they were offering schools shouldn't be churning out exam passing clones they should be nurturing students strengths imho.

Tbh I left in year 10 and then as a grown up I've studied many course quite happily at college.

PE.

And the grey school gym slips we were required to wear until we reached the sixth form (year 12).

It meant, as 5th formers (16 year olds), we attracted every pervert for miles around. I grew about five inches that year so mine was always too short. We looked like a bunch of St Trinians understudies.

The whole seething mediocity of the place,the pointless outdated curriculem which consisted of coping dates from the blackboard,which itself was copied from a text book by the teacher before fecking off to the staff room ,.
Endless walking to a different classroom 8 times a day ,waiting around most of the day , stuck indoors on a sunny day .
PE was okay but not netball which is just standing in one place until the ball hits you,again the teachers sole contribution was unlocking the ball .

The toilets. To this day I won’t go in stall toilets unless it’s and end one.
Oh and bullies ☹️

Bullies

@DimplesToadfoot, that's horrific, I'm so sorry that happened to you 😢😡
Have you ever had any support to help deal with those events?

Oh yes, I forgot about English Literature. I was a bookworm as a child, but the books we had to read at school were so dry and dull it was a struggle getting through them. Why, out of all the authors available, did they force us to read Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the like?!

Ah yes we had to wear netball skirts and gym knickers. And in gym just the t shirt and gym Knickers. This was late 90s. I hope they've done away with them now!

Smelly teachers, smelly toilets, smelly food and smelly kids. I can't bear bad smells so although I managed to manoeuvre myself away from the worst of it - packed lunches, sticking with a small group of friends, using the female staff bathroom , it was still pretty miserable. Some of our teachers, especially the men, reeked

Most of the teachers really liked me so I was able to negotiate special conditions, like the staff bathroom and staying in doing little jobs instead of going out at break time.

@CandidaAlbicans2

Oh yes, I forgot about English Literature. I was a bookworm as a child, but the books we had to read at school were so dry and dull it was a struggle getting through them. Why, out of all the authors available, did they force us to read Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the like?!

I loved English Literature including Shakespeare and Chaucer (still love both), but some books were not to my taste. I was able to summarise them and pick bits up though, especially about characters and the historical contest, which was good for me. We can't have it all easy!