What did you dislike about school?

[Shandan35]

I would say PE

PE

I loved PE haha.

I hated science and maths sadly
I hated the scary dinner lady
I hated certain teachers who seemed to have it in for me
I hated the cliques in class
I hated detentions

But really, I loved most of every minute and I wish I was still there!

• Uniform. Uncomfortable, itchy and what is with the compulsory semi-transparent shirts so everyone can stare at girls’ bras?!
• Boring. All of it.
• Seeing the same people all day every day when had nothing in common with them.
• Constant vague threat of violence hanging over the playground.
• Having no rights. Couldn’t wear trousers or boots despite the snow, couldn’t go the toilet when needed, can’t snack when hungry, can’t pop to shop at lunchbreak until age 16 when suddenly it was fine.
• Having to stand outside in the rain until a teacher had declared it was ‘officially’ raining.
• Teachers at my school had no ambitions or expectations for any of us and were clear about that. One used to throw things, another came in drunk, another had a nervous breakdown, etc etc. How I laugh when I read the government pontificating about how every day at school is important 🤣 at a good school maybe but many are not good. My time there was wasted and the grades I did got were mostly self taught from textbooks. In the run up to GCSEs I had to bunk off just so I could get some proper revision done.

Another thing about PE - at the last secondary school I went to, if you forgot your kit they made you do it in enormous baggy shorts! So embarrassing! And I hated the showers too. We used to run through, holding our towel above our head, so that we barely got splashed!
At primary school we had an outdoor unheated swimming pool which was lovely but when the sun wasn’t out, it was arctic!

@Skysblue

- Uniform. Uncomfortable, itchy and what is with the compulsory semi-transparent shirts so everyone can stare at girls’ bras?!

• Boring. All of it.
• Seeing the same people all day every day when had nothing in common with them.
• Constant vague threat of violence hanging over the playground.
• Having no rights. Couldn’t wear trousers or boots despite the snow, couldn’t go the toilet when needed, can’t snack when hungry, can’t pop to shop at lunchbreak until age 16 when suddenly it was fine.
• Having to stand outside in the rain until a teacher had declared it was ‘officially’ raining.
• Teachers at my school had no ambitions or expectations for any of us and were clear about that. One used to throw things, another came in drunk, another had a nervous breakdown, etc etc. How I laugh when I read the government pontificating about how every day at school is important 🤣 at a good school maybe but many are not good. My time there was wasted and the grades I did got were mostly self taught from textbooks. In the run up to GCSEs I had to bunk off just so I could get some proper revision done.

Were you at my school @Skysblue?! Exactly the same experience. I hated it, absolutely hated it and at the risk of sounding dramatic it has scarred me for life. My parents in their innate wisdom decided to move from a major vibrant British city to an insular small minded hell hole of a village in the countryside near a really really shit town when I was 8. They still can't give me a decent answer as to why. Luckily I'm back living in a vibrant diverse city again and will never put my kids through a "rural" childhood including such a crappy insular idiot filled school experience. Gosh didn't realise I still felt so strongly about it!

PE - just a miserable experience and put me off sport pretty much permanently
RE - utter waste of time
English - should have been great, but we had a lazy, boring teacher who sucked all the pleasure out of it
Disruptive behaviour of other kids never properly tackled.

I loved art and languages and had great teachers for these, and I went on to study both subjects at degree level. Also enjoyed the drama and debate clubs.

PE and Games. And maths because I was hopeless at it, and every maths reacher I had would get cross with me, and never really try to explain things. I realise looking back, that the subjects I liked were the ones taught by the kinder teachers!

PE, drama, physics, chemistry

I liked school for the most part. Agree about PE though....it was as if they were trying to traumatise us as much as possible so we'd never want to exercise again (was that the aim?) I never understood why it was necessary to wear tiny unflattering shorts in the middle of winter. Also we only had an hour and they always used to bring us in just before the bell so there was never time to shower (and even if there was, there was only like 4 showers anyway and most were communal) so everyone just used to spray themselves with perfume and reek all day not envy. Once I realised that it was possible to wear nice flattering clothes to exercise in and shower afterwards I started to enjoy exercise a lot more

Oh also it started too early, I have always been a night owl and my school started at half 8. Think I was in late detention twice every week Nowadays my company is flexible and I can start at 10am if I want to; suits me much better.

Being bullied.
The toilet roll being like greaseproof paper.
The favouritism to some pupils.

The horrible girls in my year. I realise now that I carried extreme social anxiety through into my mid-20's because of the bitching and bullying that went on at school. It took me moving on and finding proper friends to get over it.

PE, PE and PE.

Most of the teachers.

Domestic Science - 3 fucking years of it. Ditto Needlework.

Hymns - yes that was an actual lesson, at least we didn't get homework for it.

Skirts - no trousers allowed.

Nuns.

Cruelty from teachers.

Sanctimonious little snitches.

Art lessons. Needlework. I am rubbish at anything creative (except music). One year the Home Economics teacher said my attitude was very concerning. I just didn't like it, it was hardly concerning. Not everyone likes every subject and as a teacher you have to accept that.

One of my music teachers - we didn't get on. Lets say I am glad I didn't have to have a CAG or TAG - it would have been an outright fail if she'd had anything to do with it. As it was, although she gave me the lowest grade she could for coursework I managed to pull it back to a C with the GCSE exam. As soon as I realised that she, and not my other music teacher, was teaching us, I should have switched options.

@Throughabushbackwards

The horrible girls in my year. I realise now that I carried extreme social anxiety through into my mid-20's because of the bitching and bullying that went on at school. It took me moving on and finding proper friends to get over it.

Yes not sure I've actually ever completely got over it.

I never understood why it was necessary to wear tiny unflattering shorts in the middle of winter

I remember muttering about that one lesson. The PE teacher was dressed up in tracksuit and we had short sleeved t-shirts and shorts on and she yelled at me. Well maybe I was cheeky but I wasn't wrong.

Fucking pe. I'm grateful daily that adult life doesn't have compulsory pe.

Pe teachers total wankers at my otherwise nice school.

Oh yes I'd forgotten the dinner ladies too. Why were some of them so horrible? They'd definitely missed their vocation as a leader in the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth (BdM).

@Throughabushbackwards, @redsquirrelfan same here. I loved learning, still do. The other pupils utterly ruined the school experience for me. Still don't trust anyone and automatically assume people don't like me and are laughing at me. I'm late 30s now. Hard to shake it!
Lesson-wise, I didn't like RE and drama much. There were a few teachers who were crap as well, but TBH I sort of ignored them.

PE- the teachers, the clothes, the ridiculousness, the way it seemed designed to put you off sport.

Collective punishment. Teachers who engage in it seemed weak twats to me then, even more so now.

Pettiness about uniforms and makeup and hair. This has only got worse. I cannot dredge up any professional respect for someone who thinks it is essential to a child's education that they look a certain way.

Teachers being too fucking scared to challenge the psychopaths in training kicking the shit out of people at one end of the playground so pretending they hadn't seen it and focussing their ire on less formidable pupils doing appalling things like drinking a can of pop instead.

Home Economics. I wasn't very good, and the teacher was a bully. It had quite serious implications....I was forever 'sick' on Tuesdays when I had it, which affected how I performed in other subjects, and also affected my self esteem greatly.