Please can I have a reality check from people who were 6th formers in the 70s/early 80s?

[GrimmaTheNome]

I'm trying to work out if my perceptions about something in the past are accurate.

When I was a 6th former, I'm sure it was not considered particularly unusual for 6th form girls to be going out with a teacher. There were certainly a few cases in my school, and no-one seemed to make a big deal of it. Perhaps because these were less promiscuous times when 'going out' didn't necessarily mean 'staying in'. The girls were old enough not to be schoolgirls, so why not? Perhaps if the young men in question were actually their A level teachers there might be issues, but as it happened they were either at other schools or PE.

Does this tally with your experience or was this unusual at that time (late 70s) ?

I know of two girls dating teachers when aged 17 or 18. That was in the 1980's.

I thought it was a bit 'hmmm' then tbh. Certainly it wasn't out in the open.

I think it was unusual then, and considered a bit dodgy, but nowhere near as much as it is these days.

God, no

Two of my classmates did end up marrying the German master & the German assistant (must have been all that sweating over Goethe in Hochdeutsch) - but they had to stifle their relationships until they left the school. It was a sacking offence, then as now.

Something you're not telling us here, Grimma?

I found out about one example shortly after the time (sorry this was a bit later, 1986). Seemed a bit dodg then even though the teacher in question was the German assistant so barely older than we were.

Was quite secret. Possibly 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' was the approval cutoff??

What, another German assistant?! Ausgezeichnet.

At college I had a sociology teacher. We'll call him Nick.

He used to be regularly seen swaying on the platform at the station waiting, pissed, for the last train; he was a regular in the pub and a right laugh.

Then he married a student.

Over the summer holidays, he aged 10 years. Grew a beard and started wearing cords and tweedy jackets. Would sigh, hang his head and sadly shake his head in response to 'See you in the pub later, Nick?'

I don't know who the young lady was but she turned the poor sod into an old man.

Blimey ItsGrace. Could we be talking about (one of) the same people, or is working at an English school a recognised dating route for Germans??

Courage and Honour??

I know two teachers who married their students straight out of school. Late seventies.

Different years, Choosy. Maybe the English schools' advertisement for an assistant is written in bad German - and reads "Improve your English & get laid"

PE teachers i remember would wait for girls to leave school at 16. That would have been late 70,s early 80,s. Probably would be seen as 'grooming' these days.

I remember thinking it a bit odd at the time but i think as more young people stay on at school today it is frowned upon more.

Two of the couples I knew of got married fairly soon after the girls finished school (and no, babies did not arrive till a decent interval afterwards!).

Maybe it didn't occur to me as odd because I knew teachers as friends out of school (church youth group, my mis-spent youth ) and my first boyfriend was nearly as old as some of them.

i remember having a crush on my biology teacher but to go out with him. I think he would have been scaked on the spot

At school i thnk it would still have been a no-no. At university, ti was OK.

Yes, in my school in the seventies one of the sixth formers was going out with one of the teachers, don't know if he taught her or not. We thought it was yucky but all open and above board, no sacking offence. Also at sixth form college, same, but I think she might have been a couple of years older than us.

It was a sackable offense at my school, but I know that the choirmaster's wife had been one of his students and they were married soon after she left school. I think there was unease among the parents about that.

I also knew a boy who was dating a teacher when he was repeating his last year (fairly common in Ireland at the time), so he must have been about 18. They had to keep it very quiet or she would have been sacked.

A maths teacher had a relationship with an A-level student at my school - unofficially, though everyone knew about it. Once she left the school, they went official and went on to marry and have kids!

That was in the mid-80s.

It was unusual but not considered hugely immoral, not by us pupils anyway, but maybe my parents felt it as shocking as I would now as a parent.
I think that a girl in her late teens fancying her teachers views of what is OK would be different to that girl's parents views of what is OK.
As an adult I now find teachers having affairs with pupils much more disturbing both from the paedophile and the abuse of power angle than I did as a teenager when it was fantasy stuff (although I was very pissed off when an attractive young female teacher monopolised the boy I fancied at a 6th form disco).

Erm - courage and honour. which part of england are we talking?

I remember (or was it a rumour? all a bit hazy now) a sixth form pupil having a relationship with a music teacher at our school in the early/mid 80s.

He was one of those "trying too hard to be cool" type teachers.

We also had one case in our school in the mid 80s. She was 16 and in the lower 6th and he was a computer teacher. It was not publicly acknowledged, but everyone did know about it. When she turned 18 they started going round in his car together, coming into school in the mornings etc, so no more diplomacy there. I heard the head was pretty unhappy. AFAIK they stayed together after her A-levels.

In the mid-to-late 80s at my all girls comprehensive there were definitely goings on between teachers in the art department (all male) and some of the girls.

There were free driving lessons (only for the nubile blondes, mind) and lots of hanging around in their little cubby-room smoking and drinking coffee.

Then my mum (chair of the PTA) slept with one of the art teachers. I was mortified. I told one friend and of course it was all over the school the next day.

One older girl married a teacher and went off to live with him in... GERMANY!

It certainly didn't happen in my school, and I'm fairly sure would have not been permitted. Of course there were teachers we all got crushes on, but I never heard any rumours of anything happening.

And I don't think the early 80s were particularly less promiscuous than nowadays, not round my school anyway...

One of the girls in my year was going out with the German student from the associated boys school. She wasn't in my class so I only heard about it when he joined us on the school trip bus and they sat holding hands.
When you think of it the students would come for a year (or a term?) in the middle of their degree, so would only have been 3 years older than the 6th formers.

never heard of it when i was at achool late 70s maths teacher married the pe teacher and secretarial studies teacher was having an affair with a married man. Heard years later another pe teacher who was gorgeous did have an affair with a girl but dont know if that was true we would have been shocked if it was

Not at my (all girls) school but one of my brothers' friends had quite a serious relationship with a gym teacher when he was in 6th year. This would be 1982.

We just thought it was funny.