Things that happened in the past that wouldn't happen now

[Fakeplastictrees55]

I did my A Levels in 2007-2009. I went on to study one of the subjects at uni, even though I was rather weak at it at A Level. I needed a high grade and it wasn't certain I was going to make it. I remember my teachers and I were at school one night until around 7pm, my 2 subject teachers were practically doing the coursework for me as the deadline was the next day and they knew I needed the grade.
Then one of the teachers dropped me off home in her car after finally finishing it. Unsurprisingly I got an A.

I studied a language and we had a native speaker language assistant, a lady in her 60s. She was a lovely lady, and at one point she invited me and the other students to her house to complete our coursework. We went during the weekend, it was all above board, she made us croissants and we completed the coursework at her house.

Just looking back now this sort of stuff would be safeguarding risks now and would probably never happen. Has anybody else got things like that they think of?

A ‘medical’ at primary school where they pulled the front of your knickers and let them go with a ping. This was common practice in the 60s. I’ve no idea why.

teacher colluding with cheating with coursework happens whenever there is coursework.

My class teacher lived very nearby when I was around 8 or 9, and my parents invited her round for dinner.
Kids were sent to get ready for bed. I wore no clothes to bed and (to my shame) came downstairs stark naked to say goodbye/goodnight to the teacher. I'm cringing just thinking about it!!

(I'm pretty sure it might have happened with other guests but I can't remember my parents telling me it was not appropriate )

You could smoke anywhere outside at my 6th form college (1990-92).

Smoking was only loosely policed at my comprehensive school in the five years before that - i.e. it was turned a blind eye to as long as people did it reasonably covertly. As for the teachers, you could smell the smoke coming from the staffroom all down the corridor.😀

I remember saying 'P' to be excused from the embarrassing mass shower in year 7 but they'd check the Register to see I'd already said P that month and force me.

Thing is, I unknowingly had PCOS and had totally random periods and bleeds. It was mortifying. They were also very heavy and I remember blood running down my inside thigh and having to mop it with my school skirt.

Strange how some things stay with you.

Where I live everyone still walks (or cycles) to school, yes even the tiny 5 year olds. It's still normal here.

This has just happened in my children’s school!

No it doesn’t. I work in schools and studied in schools. It is not common practice for teachers to keep students behind after school and complete their coursework for them. If it was common practice every school in the UK would have a 100% pass rate for coursework subjects.

as I said, it happens WHENEVER there is coursework. Keeping children in to do their coursework for them is completely normal

No it isn’t 😂 otherwise why doesn’t every single person pass all coursework classes with flying colours and top marks? It is not normal practice for teachers to complete coursework for their students.

My mum used to help out at primary school and coached us at a sport. On away days she would squeeze most of us into her mini metro. There would be two in the boot, some in the footwells and some on others knees.
In high school our geography teacher would smoke in his classroom with the windows shut and then we would have to walk into a smoky room and sit there for an hour. So grim.

At my school in the 1970s canings used to take place on the stage during morning assembly. Names for detention were also read out during assembly. I never received a public caning (I was smacked with a ruler during class a couple of times) but I did have a few detentions!

read what I said

I said it happens whenever there is coursework - which it does. I did not say where ever there is coursework

I got very angry about this when my sons were doing coursework in schools which conducted it rigorously according to regulations and I was working in a school where children had their coursework done for them

Here is a common scenario, from a very few years ago

Class is numbered 1-35

Teacher projects on board

First sentence:

1-10 write sentence A
11-25 write sentence B
26-35 write sentence C

second sentence
If you end in 1-3 write sentence A
If you end in 4-7 write sentence B
If you end in 8-9 write sentence C etc

So 35 children simply copy down the sentences they are told to in such a way that nobodies work is identical, and this is submitted as their coursework

Whereas my sons were doing the same coursework, timed, and in exam conditions

The whole class in year 4 being forced to do in door pe in only our pants, girls and boys. 1989

Smoking while walking across the school field with a teacher in year 10. 1995

Male class teacher in year 6 used to make all the boys get changed for pe in the cloakroom. Girls stayed in the class and so did he. One girl had a very developed chest, she once tried to hide behind the bookshelf to change her top (no bra), he made he come out so he could watch. Same teacher openly bullied a boy in my class every day and would hit him. 1991

May have been an idea to stop and consider that not everyone here is from the uk and won’t know what 5th year is and also there isn’t a fifth year any more, it starts at year 7 at English secondary schools so younger people won’t know either.

It may have been an idea that not everyone from the UK is from England, and there IS a fifth year for many of us.

I was at school when we still had the belt, had it twice and deserved it only once. My Maths teacher used a meter stick like a javelin at least once a lesson, the blackboard rubber and chalk being aimed at your head was normal. Desk tops being slammed behind you if you were chatting was the norm too. I survived, i don't have anxiety and i learned not to mess about in lessons and ruin every other child's education. But that was in the days when Teachers were educators not Social workers, agony aunts and all round best friends with the pupils.

In the very late 90s my form tutor took a group of boys from my class, maybe 6 aged about 16, on a golfing holiday. Doubt that would happen now. Due to fb it seems that group are still friends with the teacher - he's popped up in wedding photos etc.

NOW we do. @bellsbuss said it was back in the '80s, when the teacher was dating a girl in the 5th year, it was called the fifth year.

@Fakeplastictrees55 Didn't teach you much in the way of reading comprehension, did they at your school?

Our music teacher used to take a group of us who were doing A-level off to concerts and stuff both during and out of school hours. His wife was always there as well if that makes a difference. He also used to sometimes give me a lift home if he drove past and I was walking. Again his wife was always in the car as she was a teacher as well. I guess they would both have been CRB checked so perhaps it was fine but I suspect they wouldn't take the risk these days. They're retired now anyway.

Oh another one further back that I don't think would be tolerated now based on what I've seen/heard of primary schools (please do correct me if I'm wrong) In year 5 we were grouped by ability, nothing wrong with that. Can't remember what the groups were called, it was animal names so lets say Foxes, Badgers, Rabbits and Squirrels. Once a term we'd have an extended spelling test and the English teacher would get to a certain point where the difficulty was going to increase and say "Squirrels you can stop here", so at the end it was just Foxes who were still going. I get differentiation but I don't think it would be done so openly now.

I’m old enough to remember the nit nurse. Mind you I don’t remember any cases of nits.

So not at all what was being discussed then. The op was talking about being kept behind and her teachers completing her coursework on her behalf. You are talking about teachers having students memorise coursework/essay templates. These are two entirely different things.

For what it’s worth, even what you’re discussing sounds very unusual and regimental. It’s not the common teaching practice - I do teach a subject which is coursework heavy!

And to say it happens whenever there is coursework is simply incorrect. Most schools are not having students simply copy out sentences to make an essay. This is not common practice.

no, I am talking about teachers doing the coursework. This was the coursework. This is teachers dictating to 35 children at once, while making sure they all had a different assortment of sentences.