What did you dislike about school?

[Shandan35]

I would say PE

@RickJames

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.

Agree about the smells!

PE and having to wear purple PE knickers which were exactly the same as normal knickers but thicker and you has to wear them on top of your normal pants. Made all the girls waddle like penguins and, oh, the chafing, especially when wearing a sanitary towel...! 😡

Disliked everything about school from the day I started until the day I left, apart from the friends I made and school dinners at primary (my mum was one of the cooks).

Would have been in heaven last year and this with all the school closures.

PE. I liked all the academic stuff, though.

Everything!

PE, maths and bullies here too!🙁

Le and nearly everything to do with boarding school!!

Definitely PE particularly team games

Pe and Irish.

Being academically bright - not popular at a rough comp.
Uniform, because the demonic over fiend will tear your limbs off if you dont wear a tie.
The food.
The constant sexism and harassment from boys, but I need to be grateful because they are showing me attention.
Social hierarchy.
PE and the over focus on team games and none on basic movement and fitness.
Forced socialization.
The lie that most of working life is like that. It really isn't.

Concerned Auntie: Would have been in heaven last year and this with all the school closures.
.........

Me too! My son (who is 31), would also have liked it, he always had plenty to do, was creative and inventive, and felt stifled at school a lot of the time. He would have used the 'no school' period very wisely despite not seeing friends. Most of his close friends were similar anyway (still are).

I too would have been in heaven even when there was no Internet back then. I'd have had my books and artwork to keep me busy.
The worst thing by far was other people and the enforced intimacy of school. It is dangerous to assume that that just because your parents had sex more or less the same time in the same geographic area that you will automatically get on.

Or it could be the typical British culture of not thinking children are fully human - witness the glacial pace when confronted with child sex trafficking in children's homes - took a worrying amount of time for people to realize that perhaps they need to arrest the sex offenders not the children?

we only need to see how this current government is treating children and young people in this current lockdown.

Once again I've killed the thread but to DimplesToadfoot I hope you are in a better place now.

At least most people actually realize that children have mental health needs to these days.

I went to an all girls school.
Hell on earth

I hated all of it, with the exception of the academic learning. I didn't attend much - skipped almost all of year 8 and most of year 10/11.

Hideous uniform that I'd be teased on the bus for as I didn't go to school in my local area. PE, including tiny PE skirt with gym knickers (but your knees couldn't be visible when you had your regular uniform skirt on...). Art. Any technology subject that required carting lots of stuff around all day. Assemblies - although I preferred the religious kind to the kind where everyone got a horrible lecture because of the bad behaviour of a minority. Homework - I actually did my best in class and didn't muck about, but I really resented the idea that I was expected to do more at home and was never free of the thought of school. So homework rarely got done. I hated the noise and crowding in corridors, and could never eat lunch at school because of overwhelming noise in the canteen.

Mostly I hated being treated 'like a child' and all the stupid petty rules that had to be followed for no reason other than that they were rules. I hated all the condescension. I couldn't wait to leave and go to work. Already at home I did most of the housework and childcare for younger siblings, and I was more than ready to be part of adult life. My problem was that I was shy and so instead of speaking up about unfair and petty things I'd just harbour a quiet and growing resentment.

On the plus side, it's turned me into a libertarian-minded individual with no tolerance for petty 'because it's the rules' types, and in my own work with children and young people I've always done my best to treat them as individuals.

Power mad, sadistic teachers

Fucking absolutely all of it

I loved primary school but struggled in secondary. Wish I could have stayed at my first secondary school but I only did Sept to Dec before we moved. I would have been a totally different person if I’d gone through my whole school life there. As it was, I got bullied at my 2nd school & my 3rd. Still, it’s made me an empathetic person & possibly more determined. Another vote for hating pe. I was completely unsporty & got picked last all the time.

@Wearywithteens

PE was the bane of my whole school life until year 11 when they allowed us to choose ‘non competitive’ options - I chose dance and loved it.

Too little, too late though - kids understand that ‘life is a competition’ the first day a kid gets a flashier lunch box - they don’t need torturing with the alpha kids being able to ‘choose teams’ (like ‘ethnic cleansing’ as Alan Carr quipped) then humiliated by psycho competitive kids in the freezing cold...Fuck PE 🖕🏼

^this

Personally I think I should have left school at age 14.
I really didn’t learn anything and the 2 years till I was 16 went so slowly and even then I wasn’t allowed to leave. I hated every minute.
Instead I was made to stay on till I was 17.
By the time I was allowed to leave, because I still hadn’t passed any exams. I think I was depressed for a long time. I had such hope at 14. But 3 years of tortuous lessons and 5 hours of homework every night brought me down. I think the homework might have been quite simple stuff as everyone seemed to get through it in 20 minutes but I now think I am most likely dyslexic and am going to the doctors to start the process to get tested for ADHD.

I agree, PE, and the bullying of the PE teachers to anyone not sporty. It's a pity, as it put me off sport for a long time.

Also bullying, and the school's reluctance to deal with it, and rewarding of badly behaved children, so that those who consistently achieved and behaved well were sidelined.

Everything it was hell. I wish I was a covid kid.
Uniform
Shoes
Tights
Ties
Bullies
No emotional support
Feeling like a failure even though I mostly got As
PE
Music
Art
Years I wish I could forget