to wonder if secondaries are really this bad?

[is30tooyoungformidlifecrisis]

I have heard such awful things about secondary schools these days and wonder if parents of teenagers can confirm or deny. Things like:

• Not allowed to take off blazers without permission and kids getting too hot, or opopsite I saw earlier today, not allowed to put on jumper without permission
• Toilets locked during lesson time
• Having to walk in a certain way around the corridors, have heard some students have to walk in silence around school

It seems like secondary pupils are treated like criminals. I'm 30 so have been out of school over a decade but it was nowhere near like this when I was at school - are these just extreme rumours or are they true?

YABU - No they aren't usually like this, that's just a few extreme rules
YANBU - This is what secondaries are like these days

Definitely was in my school in the 90s", we used to smoke in front of the teachers and not get into trouble, not heard of one nowadays!

Just to let people know the op has contact me with the name of the school and it would appear that this is actually true! What a shit policy.

My 9 year old and his friend were separated into different rooms and not allowed a playtime because they hugged.

Insane.

It's like Covid when we all went along with what we know now were ridiculous rules (in some cases!).

Particularly for little boys when we know young men struggle with emotions and mental health.

And we all know what amazing parents movie stars are! Not sure why that's impressive?

I wonder if your friend wore a blazer at school?
And, FYI, if he attended one of the colleges at Oxford Uni … he would have been required to wear Sub Fusc … a special kind of black robe, bow tie, white button shirt and black trousers and shoes to take EXAMs !!! Talk about pointless garment!

Yep same, we had all this. Was it well enforced in my slightly dodgy school - not really :) but not at all unusual.

We had blazer policies and a one-way system at my secondary 30+ years ago.

The toilets could be grim. Smokers favoured the ones near the playground. The main abuse of toilets was during break/ lunch and being a nice pupil, on the occasions that I did need the toilet in lessons, I didn't have issues. This was pre-phones when any illicit rendez-vous had to be organised in advance verbally or by scribbled messages. SMS and messaging services really changed teenage misbehaviour from the mid-2000s.

As annoying as the one way system was, it was there to safely manage crowds in a school with far higher pupil numbers than the original buildings had been designed for. My form room was particularly annoyingly located at the start of a lengthy loop. If you got caught dodging it, you were just sent back round.

Blazers were a daft rule. They're a daft garment in the first place as they're not warm and they're not cut with enough shoulder mobility to be able to sit in a comfortable writing position. Asking to take a useless garment off every single bloody lesson is a waste of time and distraction. I appreciated teachers with a general permission to take them off and always had that as my policy as a teacher.
I tended to avoid wearing the stupid thing and it was always screwed in my bag for emergencies. Generally because I was pleasant and otherwise neat, my non-blazer rebellion was mostly overlooked.
I was stuck in a cycle where DM left buying uniform until the day before starting, not a single 11-12 was left in the town and I had a 9-10. DM would not replace it because I hated wearing the stupid snug thing. I had it. It ticked her box. Fortunately I wasn't punished for having a shit uncomfortable blazer (and a DM with odd values plus other complications like major recent, sudden bereavement)

The blazers thing is particularly daft today because it's so out of touch with modern working practices. The DCs go to school looking like mini Yuppies with DH in a open collar shirt and comfy jumper.
As to tie policies, the only benefit of having had to wear a tie at school in adult life has been my ability to tie one to loop over scruffy pupil's heads- a skill now sadly redundant in the age of clip on ties.

My school had a one way system back in the 90s. It was literally so that when the corridors were busy you'd get people going in the same direction and try and make it flow better. Sometimes if you got let out during a lesson with a teacher for some reason you'd get taken down the 'up' stairs and it felt wild!

Is this a joke?

My kids school is lovely in comparison to some of these! There is a uniform but not strictly enforced, they recently made blazers optional. No rules on walking or hugging. DD currently has purple hair and no one has mentioned it. They are strict on no phones out on school grounds which I think is a good thing. They have boys, girls and mixed toilets to cover everyone. ND students have their own lounge and quiet rooms they can escape to whenever they want. It wasn't our first choice of school but so glad they got placed there after reading some of these!

I wish my local high school had rules which were enforced like this. It is full of drugs and violent criminals

Exaggerated as usual - in our city schools ( I work across them) uniform is enforced sensibly so no blazers worn after Spring usually - the wear it rule is mostly to stop kids losing them between classes.
Toilets - there are rules around using them between classes I. Most schools to stop kids from taking the mickey but kids can go with permission- more freedom given to girls or kids with SEN.
walking around school - move on the left is usually the rule because when classes empty and lots of oupils
are moving around it makes sense to have everyone walking in one direction.

It’s hardly draconian to have rules around uniform standards and respect, and the schools I went to 20 odd years ago had very similar rules.

Different schools have different rules and vary in how strict they are.

PP was saying she had no uniform in UK 90s - I know that was true as nearby school to mine (with insane blazer rules) had a split campus - one down same road as us different catchment and they had no uniform and we saw them most days going in and out with no uniform.

DC school was awful with locked toilets - they were not being available breaks and lunch or not enough open first 6 months after installing shutters - but they've relaxed a bit and got a better system in place partly I think due to many complaints - but they were dealing with an insane amount of vandalism and cost just prior.

The toilet rule is necessary and it was the same when I was at school 15+ years ago. It’s purely to stop kids dossing about in there in between lessons or fighting or smoking in there. Teachers monitor them during break and lunchtimes too for this reason.

Blazer rule on hot days is stupid though, I agree.

Sounds like the school I am a Governor at

Seriously? I thought that was a joke post.

All true. Sadly necessary in order to to deal with the badly behaved minority

I wish
There are some great kids there who want to succeed but most of the resources (which are too few anyway) have to be spent on the ones that cause the most disruption.
The school is great at helping kids with "issues" but a lot of the kids then get left behind.
Its why my DC go/went Private as it was our only State option without moving

@Barkingshoes

I don’t know. I only know it was a good state comprehensive which is now an academy. My point really was that the focus then was on education - challenging kids on how far they could go with developing a love of their subjects and broadening their minds. Not about challenging them on what material their shoes were made of and issuing a detention if they got that wrong.

Horrifying…

and in the 80s! I couldn't believe they were allowed to smoke near school!

Perhaps not to you.

Did you see where a boy pissed on a girl in the mixed toilets? Naughty boy. 😑

I went to two secondary schools in the 90s, neither had blazers or any rules about taking your jumper off. One was stricter than the other, in that coats had to be a certain colour, scarf had to be in school colours, but nobody was declaring on everyone's behalf that it was too warm for jumpers.

Having spent a lot of time earlier this year contacting all the local secondary schools to try and work out which would be best to put down as our choices for DS in case he didn't get a place in the specialist autism base, I was not impressed with most of them. They were generally reluctant to make any allowances for him regarding uniform, best they could offer was a pass to leave lessons five minutes early to avoid busy times in the corridor. Thankfully he got the place he needed, but the lack of willingness to compromise or make reasonable adjustments for a child with an IDP, an autism diagnosis and who essentially didn't attend school for a year due to ESBA I felt was very telling of their attitude - their uniform rules were more important than my sons right to an education.

I'm nearly 50 and all of those things were in place when I was at secondary in the 1980's.

A one way system and silence in corridors is sensible. It would be carnage if you had half the school going one way and half the other. Like a massive game of British Bulldog! Silence is the only way because otherwise the people still in the classrooms can't hear their teacher. Plus corridors tend to echo and sound is very much amplified.

Uniform rules are often too strict though. At my son's last school they had to wear a jumper and a blazer whatever the weather, only being allowed to remove them when advised daily (FFS) that it was hot enough to remove them. DS got a 60 minute detention for putting his blazer on too slowly in year 11. And, yes, this was confirmed as the reason in the text of the detention note which was auto emailed out to me.