Who else on here is old enough to remember corporal punishment being administered in their school?

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I left primary school in 1977.

I remember the Headmaster wandering the corridors with "the slipper" in his hand.

I sat next to a boy who was regularly sent to him to get "the slipper".

It made not one bit of difference to his behaviour.

At my primary school in Ireland we were hit on the hands with a ruler for quite minor misdemeanours (like getting an answer wrong).

Much worse was that the teacher also used to hit children with an open or closed hand - I don't know if many of you have been hit hard over the ear with an open hand - it is really horrible. She did some permanent damage to one girl's ear. She would also bunch up her fist and hit children on the arm or leg, hard enough to bruise.

My cousin suffered in teh same school as well (for longer than I did, as we moved to England when I was 10) and we both reckon that it has done lasting damage to our confidence.

bobbybob - lol and good on you for objecting to the sexism!

I'm 30 - convent schooled.

Double ruler - across knuckles
Caned - every first Tuesday of the month we'd have 'naughty assembly' and anyone who'd been naughty was caned in front of the whole school

happy days

The saying "violence breeds violence" must be true. Reading this thread makes me want to run out and punch someone !

If any teacher laid a finger on my DSs that would be my reaction too!

I'm old enough to remember when violent thugs and bullies were actually expelled from school. Permanently. They went to the school for all the expelled kids that was more like a jail. It was called the 'Alternative Learning Center'.

I remember getting the ruler in Primary School and the belt at Secondary. Also was shaken by the shoulders by the Headmaster in Primary 7 (aged about 11) for mucking about in class and was locked in a cupboard for the rest of a lesson (probably about half an hour) for being cheeky to a Home Economics teacher.

just thinking - when I moved up to senior school - they didn't have it there (I don't think anyway). There was detention - a complete waste of time, literally imo! This where I first came across board rubber flinging too - which again we used to laugh about and try and dodge them. Thinking about it now though I suppose it was quite dangerous, I mean I'd have gone mad if my kids had started flinging things around at home!

An example of another punishment was making you wear your school hat all day in school if you were caught 'outside' school without it!

It was the cane for girls, slipper for boys, at both primary and grammer schools. (Left primary in '66) There were always 'regulars' who seemed to be queuing outside the Head's door almost permanently. The fact they were regulars showed that it didn't work on them but I think it did work on others. Fortunately I was never on the receiving end but I found school brutal in that aspect. There were also teachers who ruled by fear in other ways, some of them were truly awful.

Ds1 got smacked when he was in P1 for some misdemeanour or other. He must have driven his teacher over the edge as she was a patient, dedicated soul who lavished attention on the children, normally!

My mum was hit on the back of the head with a thick ruler when she was about 15. She had frequent severe migraines after that though they stopped the day she left school. Imagine a teacher trying to get away with that nowadays.

I am only 29 but I remeber in Primary school the headmaster having a cane. In middle school one of the teachers had a metal ruler that she used to hit across knuckles and another had a plimsole. In middle school I was only 10-13 so we are talking 1986-1989.

When did it become a no no?

v soon after i think - i remember boys getting caned at my primary school (i left in 86) for really rather minor offences (e.g. calling someone a "two-timer"!).

when my mum was a young teacher in the 60s, she used to throw chalk at her pupils, which makes me laugh cos she's really not very hard at all...

im 32 now & i remember vividly being whacked hard across the back of my hand at the age of 5 or 6, my crime was accidentally breaking my pencil.
id beat the living daylights out of any teacher who dare hurt my children.

I will never forget this as long as I live........

When I was in 1st year of Secondary School in Scotland the history teacher took umbrage at the way one of the boys said pronounced then name of a battle(cannot remember which one) and decided he needed to be "taught a lesson" he told him he was going to belt him - usually this was done in the corridor but the teacher did it in fron tof the whole class - the boy had to stand with one hand on top of the other and take the belt. The teacher hit him and hit and hit and hit and it wnet for for what seemed like forever - the boy was on his knees, some of the children nearer the front got very upset ( understandably) and a boy who sat next to the door, sneaked out and went for another teacher.He was asked to stop and kept going and another teacher was sent for and the two teachers had to forceably remove him from the room - the boy was taken to the local A&E and had weeks off school,I don't really think he ever recovered though - he became very withdrawn and hated any confrontation - The teacher was never seen in our school again.

Although this was 29 years ago it still makes me feel sick at the thought of it and I am in tears as I finish typing this.

sunnyskies, oh my god. I feel so upset reading this. If anyone ever did this to one of my sons .... that poor little guy. I hope he was okay.

That's awful sunnyskies

Sunnyskies - that is awful

Yes I remember well - lots and lots of occaisions - but not me! Grew up in Scotland where the strap was commonly used.

My friend got it once for ripping a piece of paper - accidently it blistered all up her wrist!

There was some really brutal teachers around who used the strap as a substitute for good teaching and real respect

I rember a boy in primary 3 (so 7-8yo) gettingh 6 of the best from the headteacher in corridor outside the class the sound was terrible - in the end the teacher who was a lovely kind lady, couldn't take any more of it, she rushed to the door threw it open and dragged the poor boy into the class leaving the head with a face like thunder! The boy sobbed for hours and hours.

God if someone laid into my child the way these tw*ts did then I would tear them limb from limb!

i don't remember corporal punishment, but do remember a boy in my class being caught spitting in the playground, and the teacher making him spit into a bucket in front of the class until he was actually sick

I remember one teacher taking one of my schoolmates by the shoulders and shaking her violently all the while baring her teeth! This teacher was actually mentally ill and regularly was absent while she went for treatment

Scottish school discipline sounds like it was horrifyingly brutal from this thread, doesn't it? Some v upsetting stories here

I left primary school in 75, in Junior infants (reception class in England, I think), the teacher had a cane, like the kind you used to see in comics, walking stick shaped, but really thin and flexible, and she would slap our hands with it for talking. The teacher I had from age 7 -9 never hit us, and the last teacher would use an Ash stick on our hands for misbehaviour.

Certainly, getting hit never modified my behaviour, except to make me more stubborn than I already was.

Oooooh Zaphod, that wasn't Sister Brendan by any chance was it, sounds just like her! When I was in 6th class, (Last class in primary school) the principal had a thing she called a "slapper" ( I kid you not!) which was to be used on our legs if we misbehaved. And that was AFTER corporal punishment had been banned!

I remember being hit with a strap on the hand for things like get one hit for each I got wrong - was a bit of a swot though and felt sorry for those who got loads wrong.

Once made to kneel for being chatty. Thing is, I ignored warning because I had never been made to kneel before and thought it was something to experience if just once.
Being smacked on the naked bottom once by a pervy priest.
And I don't really remember the hit but my mom going to school because a teacher - slapped me across the face because I could not remember my lines for a play we were practicing. I was only about 6 and came home in tears.

We were not hit in secondary, left in '85 at all in my country. I am appalled at some of the stories DH has of his British secondary. He was one of the 'hard lads' and was caned a few times for fighting.

The most appalling story was when, at 15, he conversationally swore at a mate and recieved a man-sized punch in the jaw. He turned around to fill in the person but held back because it came from a male teacher. He said the teacher's face filled with terror at the prospect that he almost got filled in back.

He also tells of things like boys being hung up on coat hooks and left there and of boys who did not shower often enough being hosed down in the shower block - with cold water.

My first experience of school brutality was in 1981 when I was a fresh faced 5yr old just starting school. I was perhaps a little more used to being seperated from my mum at that age than most kids back then as my mum was a single mum working full time.

However, I still remember this one little boy who was absoulutly devistated about being seperated from his mum. He was very withdrawn and shy. Being slightly more hardened by life at this age, I am ashamed to admit that I taunted him in the playground for his sheepish behaviour.

As a consequence I was immediately hauled infront of the class and was thrashed several times on the backside by the teachers bare hand. I still remember the pain and (blush) when I was made to apologise to the boy infront of the whole class. Needless to say I never bullied again after that!

Although I don't agree with corpral punishment and would hate my children to be subjected to it. I knew straight away where the boundaries lay and did not dare to cross it again! Not many kids in school these days seem to care much for boundaries and rules.