What things do you remember from your schooldays that would have the MN police screeching for Ofsted/Social Services/the Police?

[frogs]

Prompted by a discussion with a group of old schoolmates which confirmed a memory so bizarre that I always thought I must have hallucinated it. But no, it turns out that in the early 80s, in a bog-standard Catholic comprehensive in provincial England we did in fact spend our history lessons learning to sing overtly pro-IRA rebel songs, such as The men behind the wire and Tiocfaidh ár lá. Bearing in mind that this was during the hunger strikes in the early Thatcher years, when Sinn Fein was considered so dangerous that Gerry Adams' voice was dubbed on the news (remember that?) it's only just dawned on me how seditious the whole thing was. Unbe-bloody-lievable. Can you imagine the hoo-hah if that happened today?

And on a very different note, another friend confirmed that when we went to boarding school aged 15, we were allowed one clean shirt per week which was worn from Monday to Saturday inclusive (we had a different one for Sundays). In a school full of teenage girls. And hair washing was by rota only, limited to once a week. Rank.

So what badness, madness or just plain weirdness did you take in your stride at school which would be unthinkable today?

Head of history dept getting arrested for assaulting a police officer after being challenged for urinating in the street (accompanied by the head of science).

My friend (17) having a fling with our history teacher (27) then other young teachers following suit.

Classy place!

"Children with dinner tickets (free dinners) having to stand in a separate queue despite their being no obvious logistical reason for this - actually, being made to stand up in class if you were 'free dinners' when someone from P7 came round to take the numbers for school dinners..."

god yes that happened at our school too
and at that memory

At my boarding school in the 80s one punishment was to have to get up early and have cold showers - supervised by a prefect so the schoolmaster didn't have to get up too early!

Me and sister also walking to school alone aged 5 and 7. Across a couple of main roads and then a big field.

And actually, I cycled to school alone before that - a good 10/15 minutes, crossing busy roads etc... and I cannot have been more than 6 at the time. - There were cycle paths though, which helped.

No doubt this would now be very much frowned upon, not just by Ofsted etc... but also MNetters!

Cathpot- that sounds like my prep school(!), although could just be coincidence, would be lots of places like that.....
what part of the country?

Teacher smoking a pipe whilst teaching

The slipper

Kneeling in front of the Virgin Mary statue all morning with no kneeler for talking in class

a teacher picking up a boy by his shoulders and shaking him til he cried for changing a word on the blackboard. (queen to queer)

having to clean up someone's vomit off a desk. [eugh emoticum]

had forgotten those hospital corners.

and i used to buy cigarettes for my mother aged 5!!

one of our teachers was arrested on child pornography charges

while he was under investigation he was allowed to come back to work for a few months.

i could be wrong, but i doubt that would be allowed today

My brother (aged about 5 at the time) got his mouth washed out with soap ooh I was so mad

Also at same school teacher used to push kids down short flight of steps, or lock them in small cramped dark store cupboard over lunch.

Scary RE teacher armed with bendy ruler (now a well respected bishop)

teacher used to have different colour spots alongside hid desk; when you'd had one your name went against it and you dropped to the one below.

on the chart next to it, each spot corresponded to a weapon.... so top spot was a bean cane; bottom spot was a metal bar thing

the naughty boys put their nose on the spot and were whacked.

girls got lines but he once (spot teacher) ounished me by throwing a live chicken at me! (it was es- basicaly farming gcse).

another teacher, a lady, used to get us to parade in our pants to check we'd showered after pe.

just after i left, those 2 teachers married and gave up teaching.

oh and at 11 my sister (now 30) had to sit through an assembly on why aids was gods plague to punish gays

it was a non-re school )not that it matters, mum and i were )

PE in vest and knickers at first school.

Going to the pub for lunch as soon as you hit the sixth form... same pub as the teachers went to and nobody batted an eyelid.

Actually watching the alcoholic music teacher having a drink of wine or sherry as we entered the classroom.

Affairs with teachers, some of them got married.

At middle school, teachers getting drunk in the evening on our Yorkshire Dales residential trip and one of them balancing perilously on top of a door to knock on the window of the girl's dormitory to scare the crap out of us.

Design Tech teacher vanishing almost every lesson leaving a bunch of 13/14 year olds with saws and power to the drills etc.

bergentulip- when I was there it was 11 to 18 although I think they have younger kids now, its in the midlands

One of my teachers made you crawl through her classroom if you were caught running.

Another pulled down the pants of boys who were caught lifting the girls' skirts.They had to stand up with pants round ankles til the end of storytime.

Ah, Cathpot, nope, then not. Mine was in Dorset and for 7 - 13 yr olds.

Clearly a lot of these establishments around(!)

I remember a kid in class 1 at primary school (therefore aged about 5) being dressed in a bonnet and shawl and made to lie in a pram after he wet himself.

Am sure that helped him no end (not). The injustice and horror of that must have struck even his classmates, as I remember it vividly 30-odd years later.

when i was a primary school we went for a trip to the canal. a canal barge which was passing asked if we would like to jump on and take a trip to the next lock, and we were allowed!!!! we all just jumped on and sat round the sides.

Going on a school trip to France and most of the pupils getting drunk on the ferry - the teachers were in another bar drinking so didn't notice

I didn't drink as I was a goody-goody but my 13 year old sister got completely legless and we had to take her out on the deck to lie down.

One of the leads actors in the school play (aged 15, I think) smoked onstage as part of the play (told to do so by the teachers).

We had a biology teacher who always requested help from a "nice strong boy" when she needed assistance with carrying something or passing it round (even if it was just a stack of notebooks or some such).

Being hit over the head with a recorder by a mad music teacher, being told we were not allowed to ask for the toilet during a lesson - I ended up wetting myself and was stripped as punishment infront of the class, and being made to do P.E in knickers. This was all 1991 onwards so not terribly long ago really.

Going on a school trip to France and staying in a dodgy hotel which was filthy, with discarded underwear from the room's previous occupants under the bed. I had to share a bed with my friend because there weren't enough beds for everyone(and the bed had dirty sheets).

Oh and at secondary school the P.E teacher coming into the changing room and peering into the showers to make sure we were showering properly -i.e you were not allowed clothes in their but everyone tried to shower under a towel (still not allowed though). These were cubicals with no doors.

Science in secondary school - teacher blew cigarette smoke through various objects to show theory of gas dispersion! Same guy had affair with our (married) English teacher and she sobbed all the way through our week long trip to Austria. (I know..my room was next door!..... He didn't go on the trip , she was just troubled!)

fried donuts for sale in the school playground at breaktime.

school trip to Majorca aged 14 where everyone got rat-arsed about 10 mins after landing at the airport and stayed that way for a week.

PE teacher wrapped up nice and warm in fur coat while we played hockey in the hail (grammar school), sneaking down to the grottoes and the jungle(boggy area) at lunch and break which were both not allowed (private school).
I distinctly remember one lad kicking the head at infant school- head left the year after. And our bio teacher at grammar was a peach. So was the history and cdt teachers.