How naughty were you at school?

The worst thing I did was when I was at my lovely little prep day school. I was about 8. We had a new teacher who didn’t realise that I went home for lunch everyday and I had to catch a certain bus or I couldn’t make it home, have lunch and get back in time for afternoon school. She kept the whole class in to finish some work. I put my hand up and told her I had to leave, and explained why, but she wouldn’t let me. I was desperate, so I got out of the window, which, fortunately, was very low, and caught the bus. When I got home I was in floods of tears,as I thought I would get into terrible trouble (I was a very law-abiding child), so my parents kept me home for the afternoon and my father (also a teacher) rang the school to explain what had happened. I didn’t get into trouble the next day,but was just told not to do it again! When the teacher noticed I had gone and asked the rest of the class where I was, some one told her: “ She got out of the window with her umbrella, Miss!”

Quite a story [sexagenarian]. You were really brave to take on that horse driver and I admire you. I wouldn’t have been so brave in your position but hate animal cruelty.

“Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.”
I had to learn Charge of the Light Brigade, as I got caught passing the ‘love letters’ to a boy at communion. We were an all Girls School, and only saw the boys at Church, so we had to take it in turn to do the bidding of the Prefects, last girl at Communion, passed letters to the first boy. Stupid little sod dropped them.

Ormstongran I was the youngest in my year.
Another 12 hours and I’d have been the year below.

Oh the things we got up to in our school days, but none of them (yet) as bad as some kids do these days!
For the most part I enjoyed my school days despite often being teased (bullied?) about my home environment.
But I didn't get off to a good start. In my first week in Infants at the tender age of 5 I was given the ruler across my palm for talking and made to stand in a corner with my back to the class. When the teacher caught me looking round at the other children she slapped the back of my legs with the ruler! I didn't dare tell my mother or I'd have been in even more trouble. Throughout primary school I was often in trouble for talking or answering back.

In secondary school I was better behaved, probably because of our fearsome Headmistress. I worked hard in the lessons I enjoyed and for the teachers I liked. When I found a lesson boring I'd start doodling cartoons in my workbook. The geography teacher caught me and hauled me to the front of the class. Picking up the ruler he told me to hold my hand out. He put his hand under mine and raised the ruler, as it came down I snatched my hand away and he hit his own hand! The whole class roared with laughter. His face looked as though he might explode - then he began to laugh too. I got away with that one and he let me sit down again.

Sometimes I liberated a white rat from the science labs and took it to lessons with me in my blazer pocket releasing it in a class when I knew it would make the teacher scream! And I once broke a window of the dinner hall while playing football with the boys.

But the most trouble I ever got into was actually out of school but I was in uniform. While walking home after school one day I passed a horse drawn scrap metal wagon stopped at the traffic lights. When the lights changed the horse refused to move and the driver jumped down and started beating it with a stick. Well, I wasn't going to stand for any cruelty to an animal, so I gave him a right mouthful. He carried on hitting the poor horse so I literally jumped on him knocking him over, and grabbed the stick from him. I threatened to report him to the RSPCA, he threatened to call the police. A man passing by told him to leave me alone and get on his way, he was holding up the traffic. The following morning I was summoned to the Headmistresses Office where the Deputy Head (a lovely kind lady) said that a member of the public had made a serious complaint about me. How did he know my name - must have looked at the class photos. I explained my side of the incident and was told that such behaviour would usually result in instant dismissal. BUT she sympathised with my good intentions, and as the Headmistress was away on a course, she would reduce the punishment to five strokes of the cane, 500 lines and a written apology to the man. I refused to apologise so she said she'd have to speak to my mother. I gave in and wrote the letter, but I did not say 'sorry' in it and actually said I would do the same again if I ever saw him hitting his horse. I was caned but not very hard, Mrs Palmer hated caning anyone, and as it was a Friday I had all weekend to write the 500 lines.

Later that year I was made a Prefect and the following year Head Girl. I eventually left school with very good reports from all my teachers.

in my very first hour at grammar school.
What an accolade!

Even I didn't manage that
Well done!

Did anyone else have a Silence Bell?

When I compare the DGC's schools with school in my day it is like a different world.

Did anyone else write lines like we did?

Me, Jalima! I also tried the supposed trick of fastening 3 or 4 pens together (it didn’t work ).

I got 100 lines in my very first hour at grammar school. I am a stupid and clumsy child. My illegally swinging satchel laddered one of the teacher’s stockings.

Gosh these tales! Ofsted would hav a hay day nowadays!
Poor Horatia Fri 22-Feb-19 14:18:30 about the Christmas cake. Your mum had done her best & you were made ‘an example’ of. Stupid teacher!

I was always being cheeky and cruel to the young teachers. the worst time was Fridays double maths and a hopeless teacher near to tears. One Friday we had rehearsed a sort of high kicking chorus line with me at the front.
As soon as MissX was installed behind her desk we chorus girsl who were waiting outside made our entrance. Singing at the top of our voices and high kicking we danced in a line into the classroom expecting applause but there was a deadly silence!
I saw the dreaded headmistress sitting at the back.
'Go outside and come back in properly' she demanded - which we did.
I'll see you all after school in my office.!
Later at a parents evening a teacher said she had trouble with me and my mother said - yes so do I.
I must have been 14 at the time....

Did anyone else write lines like we did?

A whole sheet of:
I
I
I
then:
must
must
must

then:
not
not
not

etc
etc
etc

200+ times

It got them done in half the time.

I was very good at primary school until the day I was rapped over the knuckles with a ruler for something which was very unjust.
Then I went to high school and was rather naughty - along with others in my group. They do say that if you're not stimulated enough then you can become disruptive!

I got into trouble a few times for standing up for other pupils whom I felt had been the subject of injustice.

I was always being hauled over the coals about one of my DC's misdemeanours.
She's a teacher now - knows all the tricks.

In the fifth form at my girls’ school we were being shown a really boring film in the geography room. The windows were blacked out and suddenly footage appeared of some old men working in the fields. No idea why, but I wolf whistled. Well the projector was stopped, the blinds were snapped open and I was hauled off to the headmistress’s study. Don’t recall any punishment though, the disgrace was enough I guess.

My friends and I got up to all sorts of mischief (not really naughtiness in our eyes) at grammar school (all girls). I still laugh about some of the things we did. Sometimes we were found out, sometimes not. Great times.

I feel quite angry at some of the injustices other posters have mentioned. On his first day at primary school a dinner lady mixed my brother’s main course and pudding as he was being too slow and ordered him to eat it. I desperately wanted to rescue him but was only 7 myself.

I remember having to stand on the school stage at the end of assembly and having my skirt measured in front of the whole school by the headmistress. (Actually it was only folded over at the waistband, 14”seems to ring a bell). If it was done to humiliate me I’m afraid it had the opposite effect.

Well, I have to say that in that instance the student teacher deserved it because I think it was wrong of her to humiliate a pupil by making her stand on a chair in front of the class. I don't suppose she tried that again!

I was quietly subversive rather than naughty. The worst thing we did as a class was torturing a student teacher. She was trying to teach us geography and somebody laughed. Unwisely she made the offender stand on her chair, which set someone else off. You can see where this is going, in ten minutes she had most of the class on their chairs, all of us in hysterics, and she was nearly in tears. Our geography teacher was so furious when she came to the rescue!

I too was a goody goody. I can tell you about a fellow student though who left her blazer on the bus. It was taken to the school where a teacher went through the pockets. Our headmistress summoned the whole school, about 600 of us, to the school hall and said that a blazer had been handed in, with the girl's name on it. She said that "an item" had been found in the pocket and that the girl's name was known, and that she should go to the Headmistress' office to collect it. To this day 60 years later I wonder what the "item" was, whose blazer it was . and what happened to that girl. And why did the whole school get told about it?

How dreadful. I'm so glad I was never bullied at school. It must be very frightening.

I enjoyed infant and primary school, both were little, village schools and we used to walk across the fields to get there. Then came Secondary school, which was OK-ish til I got to year 4 and the leavers class where I was bullied by a girl called Linda Somebody or Other who would take my pens, pencils and rulers, unthread my sewing machine in the sewing class and find any excuse to 'meet me in the cloakroom' at the end of the school day, mostly to try, with help from her gang of friends, to smack me around a bit or shove my head down the toilet. I hated my last year and was glad to leave.

Yes, it was shocking really, but the norm at the time at my school certainly (Catholic school, and very strict.)The headmaster who did the caning went much easier on the girls, but the boys were savagely caned.
Boys also were bashed on the ears, were pulled to the front of the class by the ears, and had the blackboard cleaner hurled at their heads.

So wrong to get the cane for being late for school - especially as it wasn't your fault and you were only 8. Shocking I think.

I don't remember, in any of the schools I attended, hearing of any girls being caned for misbehaviour.

I do recall, in one junior school in Romford, that little boys were often given the slipper - in front of the whole class. I found it quite sickening. And it was often the same little boys who received this punished, so it didn't even work.

I don't agree with corporal punishment and am really glad that it is no longer allowed.

Looking back I was fairly good, but punishments for small infringements was common then.
I do remember being caned on the hands for being late for school twice in a row when aged about 8.I went to school on my own and it was a bus ride and a long walk away.
Later, as a teenager, being given lines for things such as poorly done homework.

We were once given a dead worm to dissect in a biology lesson. I tied mine in a bow. Unfortunately the teacher saw it, and I ended up being sent to the headmistress!