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?

Oh god yes I was at a one-shirt-a-week school as well - even worse in the summer when we wore cotton dresses and weren't allowed to change those more than once a week either

Hair washing was twice a week - obviously a more progressive school than the OP's

Shower/bath on rota - three a week. The rest of the time one washed in communal washrooms.

Nuns with rulers - tick
Flying blackboard rubbers - tick

Oh yes and being forced to clean your plate at every meal even though you hated the food and weren't at all hungry, you were allowed to sit for hours if that was how long it took - wretching the whole time [traumatised]

Getting the pump for being late - primary school

Also, (not at school though) DP's nan used to send him to the pub with a bottle to buy beer. It was a standard thing, there was a queue of people/kids filling up bottles.

Message withdrawn

Rulers for handsmacking. Teachers teasing fat kids. Aertex PE shirts that only went home for a wash at half term.

I am impressed a doctor knows how to make a bed. Oops my mistake as usual got another bugger to do it

We had a coke machine next to the PE changing rooms (this in the 90s!) and the oldest children in the school were 14.

The sixth form common room was a smoking area. (this in 1997!!!)

At primary school, chips or waffles, with burgers or sausages, and beans or peas was school lunch every single day. And if you had burger, you only got half a burger.

On the run up to the school play, the teacher made the lead characters stay until 7pm - we were about 10 - practicing. We were picked for the roles, we didn't audition.

Walking home from Primary school at 9or 10 with my wee brother (1.5 years younger) and letting myslef in with a key .

Mum got home about an hour later IIRC.

When we were in sixth form, we had a particularly gorgeous PE teacher. He took me and my BF out at lunch time in his car, and made us duck as he drove past the staff room.

And I remember he was friends with the Business Studies teacher, who got really jealous and wouldn't speak to us!!!!

Oh yes, Tigerfeet, I forgot the trauma of sitting in the refectory for hours looking at a plate of congealing liver and onions that I just COULDN'T eat.
Or the gooseberry tart with cold custard that was brought back two days running because no one could manage to stomach it. Most of it got smuggled out in hankies eventually.
And the soup started out kind of thick on a Sunday and by Saturday it was grey water.

Message withdrawn

walking to school (with sister, 2 yrs older) from age 5

making own packed lunches from same age

no-one thinking to test my eyes until I was 6 (am now about -10, surprised I wasn't killed)

Being at school in 87 at the top of the tower block. Deputy head ran in and ordered everyone out without taking anything with us. As he shut the door on the room behind us the windows blew in.

I think this was soon after the hurricane during very windy weather. School was on the top of the hill looking out to sea.

oooh the school play, I had forgotten. In the run up we'd be at school til 10pm practising and then on the last night we'd have a drunken party to celebrate, OK some of the 6th formers were 18 but the cast age was from 13 up

Message withdrawn

My Biology teacher bought me my first legal drink in a pub on a field trip on my 18th birthday

We pulled up in the car park int he school minibus

Oh yes - and I also walked to school from age 5 - and a year later, took my borther (1.5 years younger thanme ) with me.

But that was just normal.

Walking to the shops on my own aged 8 or 9 to buy my mum a packet of cigarettes.
Going out for the day with the neighbours - 5 children in the back of their ford transit van, so no seats let alone seatbelts.

At my junior school there was a school governor who lived next door to the school. He was an elderly batchelor, and he liked to take photos of the girl pupils in their swimming costumes or gym leotards. I remember him materialising at the poolside one swimming lesson and taking my photo. later on he asked me to his house so he could take more of me in my leotard. I went but my mum chaperoned, she was a bit but since everyone did it, nobody dared to think it wasn't OK, and he was a governor after all. His study was literally wallpapered in these photos.

yes i got the belt a few times in primary school

usually for talking too much

tights and school pants pulled down and leather belt on bare bottom

cycling without helmet
walking a mile to school age 5
milk monitors

going to visit the teacher at home when she had new kittens - without a permission slip (gasp!)

Oh and I remember in the juniors we had a teacher who used to deal with boys who talked too much by making them open their mouths really wide and putting the (chalky, filthy) board rubber in their mouths. They weren't allowed to remove it to swallow, so by the end of the lesson there'd be dribble running down their chins.

Message withdrawn

Boiled potatoes on saturday which turned into

Roast potatoes on Sunday which turned into

A kind of mushed up broken potato cooked in the oven thing on Monday (have seen similar in M&S recently - bashed new potatoes or somesuch) which turned into

Mash with black bits in on Tuesday

[vom]

Fridays were always the most traumatic meals for me - good Catholic school - fish on Fridays - and I loathe white fish, especially when it's mashed up and presented as some sort of "fish" (and I use the word loosely here) cake that was cold and greasy and vile. Took me an hour and a half to get through one once. Barf.

I have since found out that some of the girls in the year above used to hide the food in drawers in the tables and the dinnerladies used to dispose of it for them

Being smacked by a nursery staff member for running out of an open door, into the street and about to cross a main road. I was 3!

'helping'the slightly creepy old caretaker in his special room - completely innocent and above board but these days

lots of corporal punsihment, natch

and - good memory this - the dad of one of the girls in our sch netball team was the local undertaker. If he wasn't working on a match afternoon, he used to chauffeur us about in the funeral car! Great fun (much more comfortable than when our gym teacher used to squash all 8 of us into her ford fiesta).