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?

We had the same in 2012 so not long ago at all, I only started smoking because everyone smoked including teachers asking for a light or a spare fag. We were all 16-18, nobody said anything and it was a nice way to get to know the teachers. I felt very grown up.

If smoking t wasn't allowed, I wouldn't have started, but you could go out of the double lessons for a fag if you smoked so everyone started after a couple of weeks to get an extra break. Only the really strong willed didn't start. It was really off to be honest. I can't believe it was only 9 years ago i left!

It totally was. Not sure if it’s still the case now. It bugs me too when parents endorse sports days by insisting that it’s ‘only fair’ that athletic children get the ‘chance to shine.’ But where is the equivalent? I never got to stand up in front of English and single out the children who struggled reading by leaving them to be chosen last. There was never a big day long event where all parents were invited and I read poetry I’ve written in front of them all while the less creative children were forced to humiliate themselves stumbling and stammering through a composition and being snapped at that it’s all about having a go. Physical education in schools needs a huge overhaul in my opinion - it needs to be about appreciating exercise and health, not being humiliated and singled out for not being naturally athletic.

We sat in tables according to our groups, I guess because we were doing slightly different work it made sense but there was definitely a feeling that the Squirrels (or whatever the group was called) were the "thick" ones.

This was also a middle school that mixed two first schools, one in a "naice" area and the other in the middle of a rather dicey estate and that brought about its own problems.

In Scotland we had sets in secondary for maths and English. So the better you were at the subjects the harder the course you did. Those in the top sets sat general and higher exams those in the bottom sat general and foundation exams.

They still do sets in our secondary schools.

My gran used to teach PE (trained in 1958, retired 1997) and did ‘potted sports’ so split into teams not based on ability but by age (so if doing entire school every team would have someone from nursery-P7 in it, team leader was P7) and basically went round timed circuits. Think you got a point based on how many people made it through the circuit - not sure.

I want to say there was a medal given for most points but also for the most supportive team leader - but might be remembering the latter wrongly.

The two times my gran did sports day I LOVED it. Still remember 28 years later seeing her standing on the field with her stopwatch and whistle and megaphone … I think most schools in the area still do it that way, guarantees everyone can participate unlike eg secondary school where it’s only the athletic/sporty pupils!

I remember Nitty Nora the Head Explorer.
My DM's main gripe was that, having unbraided my plaits to drag a metal comb through, she never redid the plaits to DM's standards.
The hygiene was a bit sketchy; between "clients" the steel comb went into a tumbler of disinfectant.
Boys got the cane, girls only (!) got slapped; I was on the right side of that deal, but I still thought it unfair.
In 4th year Junior (Year 6 in new money) the boys went off to do woodwork while us girls came together for needlework, having previous done simple sewing in class groups.
P.E. was done in vest and (admittedly sturdy) navy blue knickers, but as an incentive to gee up our sewing speed, we made, firstly a P.E. top, then a short wraparound skirt, which we then wore to the lessons.
These were handsewn with French seams. When Miss Ryder discovered a machine-sewn seam which had been done at home, she ripped it out!
As the skirt had six panels, and I was a sociable child who would rather chat with friends from other classes, my P.E. outfit only got as far as wearing the top.
We also had seating by test results; once a fortnight, the seating was rearranged, but I guess they thought that, as an "A" stream class, (Lower A, actually) we could take it.
I was a "baby boomer" and I still have the school reports to prove that I was in a class of 50.
It was a state primary, not a church school, but C of E status was assumed unless specified otherwise (three Jewish lads who didn't come to assembly and went home at lunchtime in the darker months so they could be home before sunset for the Sabbath). The rest of us didn't think twice about the end of day routine; chairs on desks, hands together, eyes closed, Lord's Prayer.

Smoking just about everywhere. Even on TV and I'm not talking about dramas/soaps/films....imagine Jonathon Ross or Graham Norton having a fag with their guests. Even hospital waiting rooms, public transport as well as of course pubs etc. When it was all stopped there was outcry, now it's hard to believe it even happen. I used to go round the shop for my dad's fags when I was about 11 or 12, no questions asked.

There was a girl in the year above me having a relationship with the geography teacher. She was in 4th year so that's 14-15, the first year of exam courses.

Going in the car without seatbelts.

Physical punishment for kids being common. I even got hit by the headmistress of my juniors for the crime of hiding in the loos with my friends when it was cold.

Oh and I went to a girls school. We were offered needlework and Home Economics but not metalwork, woodwork or TD. They weren't on the curriculum.

I forgot to add about random humiliation by teachers. The same head teacher who hit me for being in the loos shouted and roared at me in the staff room because my mum was picking me up for a hospital appointment, and I ended up in tears. When my mum brought up with her that I was crying when she picked me up, she told her (my mum) I was overly sensitive. I was 9.

I wasn't very good at cookery at school and the teachers used to laugh at my attempts. Even the other girls were unhappy at how she treated me. I used to spend every cookery lesson in tears. Then I started malingering on Tuesdays when I had cookery to avoid the humiliation, with the result all my other subjects were suffering too. It really affected my self esteem and for years I convinced myself I was unable to cook. It's only the last few years I've started learning to cook properly from cookbooks.

The second example was teacher (singular). It was one cookery teacher.

We had a smoking hut at sixth form, and then, when I went to the 'tech' to retake an A Level, we would smoke in lessons. Madness. This was 1980 - 83

That sounds brutal; I really sympathise.

I had a similar experience with my maths teacher. I remember him handing back test papers we'd done and when he slapped mine down on my desk him saying - in front of the whole class - "The worst I've seen. The weakest of the weak." I think I was about 13. I remember that awful feeling of tears prickling at the back of my eyes.

I was truly dreadful at maths and still am, though God knows that teacher didn't help. I was at an all-girls school and he constantly told us that girls couldn't do maths. Can't imagine that would be allowed now.

I went to a catholic school. We were taught the 'rhythm method' of contraception and were told if our cervix felt like the end of our nose we couldn't get pregnant. This was in about 1999, I finished A levels there in 2002.
To be fair, when one girl did get pregnant they actually didn't expel her!

The poster said it happens whenever there is coursework not wherever so of course it doesn't happen everywhere that's why she used that specific phrasing!! Hope you don't teach English!

NQT's 'getting off' with year 13 girls round town. Sharing fags on school trips. Our drama teacher once said on stage in front of 9-13 yr olds I'm going to do the elephant joke' and pulled his trouser front pockets out to look like elephant ears. He also wrote to several of the girls after he left the school.

I never knew that's why it's 6th form although it makes sense. I went to school in the 90's and senior school started at 13 years old and was y9, 10 and 11.

Nitty Nora, the bug explorer. Yep line up to have your head inspected.

Being sick and then being driven home by a teacher or travelling in a teacher's car to competitions / outings.

At primary being sent to read a book in a classroom because their teacher was off and they had work to do but I was there to keep the noise down.

Also a smoking room in VI form, which the VI form needed back to use as a classroom so they made the cloakroom into the smoking room, a room with no ventilation.

Being forced to eat whatever was for dinner that day.

Oh and I went to a girls school. We were offered needlework and Home Economics but not metalwork, woodwork or TD. They weren't on the curriculum.

Yep - three years of compulsory sewing and cooking, I could already cook and I had been doing loads of crafts but I hated them in school.

The school actually had a flat so you could learn to clean a bathroom, make a bed and use a vacuum.

Also taught rhythm method and 'Billings' method contraception. This probably still happens.

I went on a school trip to London when I was nine. On the last day they let us loose in Selfridges in pairs to go shopping! It was only when I moved to London some years later that I realise how bonkers this was!

I also remember the fug of smoke from the staff room, and the gym teacher having a period book. And the teacher throwing the wooden duster at us, and hitting me once by mistake. The same teacher used to make us learn a bible verse every day (not a religious school) and got very cross when one boy just said 'Jesus wept' But she bought us a selection box each at Xmas so we thought she was great!

My parents met in the 80s when DM was a pupil and DF the school librarian - still happily married, but can't imagine it now!

Whenever implies that any time there is coursework this is common practice. It is simply not. Perhaps in one school at one time there was an issue with cheating. That does not mean it happens whenever there is coursework. It does not happen whenever (as in at any time this occurs) when there is coursework.

We had a really pervy headteacher in primary school. All the parents knew about it and would talk about him when we were in earshot. He brought a big paddling pool to school and we all used to play in it in our pants. He also used to run the girls only after school gym class. Where he would manhandle us to do back flips off the big wooden horse or stage onto a crash mat. They all knew and did nothing.

hoot their horns
This has, probably irrationally as I'm ill, really wound me up. Why use such a strange term when what you mean is wank. Men will still wank over school girls. Paedophilic men will still wank over school girls. Cutesying it up isn't helpful

Isn't that something to do with the high levels of calcium that used to be in dog food but it's now changed? But yes I remember it. White and hard. And nobody picked it up back then!!!!

I was a pupil at what was considered to be the biggest comprehensive in Europe in the mid seventies. The school was across the road from a large country park and lake. Our English teacher who was a long haired hippy suggested as it was a nice day we have our lesson in the park. My friend was allowed to go home and get her dog and meet us at the park. We sat around while he rolled his fags and we laid on the grass in the sun. Two of the boys in my class ended up swimming in the lake with their clothes on and he didn’t stop some of the other kids carving their names in the fishing stands on the edge of the lake.

At the leavers disco a female teacher was given the birthday bumps and the headmaster stood by and let it all happen. She was seriously traumatised after as she was very slight and was being thrown in the air like a muppet by about 50 very large teenage boys.

One day word went round that all the chairs should be thrown out the window of every classroom and the tables soon followed. The teachers were terrified mostly and it was a miracle if you got out of there with a CSE.