Weirdest Schoolday Memories?

I remember being made to dissect a pregnant rat as I was a vegan and in the 70’s that was very unusual. The teacher singled me out to do it and the whole class even the teacher were laughing at me as I was crying uncontrollably. I cannot imagine anything so cruel happening these days.

I was made to stand on a chair on a table through the whole of break time while the rest of the school jeered at me through the window. This was top year primary (Year 6).
Why? Because I didn't know how to solve mathematical word problems.
Luckily, it didn't do my mental health too much harm - I became a teacher!!!
Glad I didn't fall too...

Sex education- we went from spyrogyra (?) procreating, to a good old Irish nun concluding ‘... so if you sit on a boy’s lap , put a book down first’ ( thus avoiding pregnancy!) Not much info of what happened in between!

We had someone visit who gave a talk on Australia with slides. The teacher poked me at the end for questions as I was always putting my hand up. I had drifted off and said something stupid about sheep. I sometimes wonder if it was to put the seed of Australia in our minds, being inner city and part of the baby boomers.
I was given the part of the narrator in the nativity play at primary school (looking like an old soul) My mother was mortified when I told her I had replied to the question did my mother have a skirt I could use, that no, she didn’t.
At secondary school, the music mistress looked like a film star, ample bust and she wore her v neck cardigan the wrong way round. When we walked in a crocodile behind her, workmen all whistled like mad.
Heaven knows why I had to design and make a RUG just before I left school. I walked out with that unfinished rug over my shoulder.

The dining room at school had rows of long tables where 8 pupils sat on either side with a teacher at one end and one of the senior pupils at the other. The meals were very good apart from what was known as Jam Slab. Not many people liked it but we were not allowed to leave anything, so when a groan went round the room you knew what was coming.It was a big round of thin pastry covered in jam but it was always so hard we found it difficult to get into it with a spoon, so we used lots of custard to try to soften it. One day the girl next to me got frustrated, lifted her spoon high in the air and whacked it down on the slab. Straight through the Slab,custard, jam and dish. There was a sudden silence in the room. All the people near the girl, including me, and the teacher were covered in all the mess. Then everyone in the hall started clapping, even the teachers. It was hilarious. Needless to say poor Dorothy never lived it down.

Not being allowed to wear patent shoes 1s they might reflect your underwear!!!

Yes we had to dissect a frog and a bull's eye in biology. We then had to device a maze for a rat - I won a book on flower arranging for that one! I also did the Cadbury's essay competition in junior school and won some chocolate although I'm not sure now how much arrived home

We did the usual apron and cap for our first cookery class and an embroidered nightdress case in needlework - I found it recently when packing up to move house and couldn't bring myself to throw it out . I was quite good at sewing and found it pretty frustrating that I had to wait till the next week to get on with something so often took it home and had it finished by the next lesson!

Probably the most memorable day was when the rebel in the English class was sent out of class by the irascible teacher and ended up having a row with him outside the door then a physical fight - 3 years later I was married to him (the rebel - not the teacher !!

We had to wear 2 pairs of knickers (regulation blue ones over our usual white ones) at my all girls grammar school in 1963-8 which was ludicrous.
Also we had to have a leather ‘Penny purse’ across our chests for a hanky.... it wasn’t big enough for a sanitary towel though...
so there was much embassment every month.
I hated my secondary school and it’s archaic rules not designed for girls but implemented by old lady teachers. Grrrrr.

jocork

Blinko

Oh yes, needlework. Did anyone else take seven years to complete the school apron, I wonder? Just me then...

My DM told of a teacher called Phyllis Irene Greenwood who had a leather briefcase with her initials on! No prizes for guessing her nickname!

Grandmabatty, I too won a chocolate essay, it was a big thing at the time!

Never could understand geometry, kept asking why! teacher refused to explain anything so never did learn the subject! never needed it, survived without it.

On a school trip to build stamina and independence we had to paddle a Canadian canoe across a lake. Our team paddled so vigorously we ended up in the water, fortunately near the far shore, but it was a long wet paddle back.

I remember going on a school trip, I was still at primary school and the trip was to Stratford upon Avon, it took ages on the coach as we lived in Sheffield. We visited Anne Hathaway's cottage and the church before eating our packed lunches. Afterwards, we went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. I always wondered whose benefit that was for because the play was lost on us aged 10.
I seem to have had bad luck where the stage is involved. At grammar school aged 16 I remember taking part in a musical version of a Tale of Two Cities, I was an aristocrat and wore a jacket type top with a lace jabot. On the evening of the public performance (parents), after being executed by guillotine my body was pulled from the stage. Unfortunately, my pants began to roll down with the friction. Needless to say, the corpse grabbed his knickers which caused much hilarity for everyone except me.

We had to do an essay on chocolate with bars of choc from Cadburys. But the teachers made such a fuss about the handwriting that I thought it was a handwriting competition

My friend's dad was a butcher and used to supply the school with hearts eyes, kidneys etc for the biology labs. She used to bring them on a carrier bag on the school bus.

At the end of our final year in Junior School, we had to put on an entertainment for the staff and our fellow pupils. I did a ballet solo, accomapanied by a friend on the piano (it was the waltz from Coppelia). I made up the steps myself, more or less as I went along. It was encored, which was a little awkward as I wasn’t too sure what I’d done. I wonder how many noticed that the second dance was a bit different from the first?

First time messaging on here so hope I am doing things correctly. Is anyone else a constant worrier. I am fed up with worrying about everything! When in lockdown, I didn’t worry so much - probably because I wasn’t seeing anyone and we couldn’t do anything! I have always been prone to anxiety but it is getting me down. There is always something. I worried last week because I didn’t send a sympathy card to my sister-in-law on the death of her brother and today I have been out with friends for a coffee and I treated them but then someone else turned up to join us and went in to get her own coffee and something to eat and I now feel I should have paid for hers as well. She probably would have refused as she was eating as well but that will bother me now - all over a £2.50 cup of coffee. I just don’t feel I can get things right grr. I know you can’t help me but just felt I needed to unburden.

I remember being in the first year of my new secondary school and watching the film, 'Culloden'. Pretty gruesome but amazing education. The teacher who ordered the films showed us Olivier's 'Hamlet' and 'The Third Man' amongst others. You would probablt have to pay thousands of pounds to have the quality of education we had then for nothing.

I sat on the desk at primary and soon found out why it wasn't allowed as the ink from the ink well soaked into my skirt and underpants. I had a blue bottom for weeks and my mom was very cross.

Aged 7 in primary school , a very hard winter and we were turned out at playtime. The wall surrounding the school had sloping stones on the top. The snow had settled there and I wrote my name with my finger in the snow. Next lesson the head teacher came into my class , called me out and told me in no uncertain terms that I had made the wall untidy!! He sent me out to wipe my name away. I knew he was being unjust and petty. However I did as I was told - he was not a nice character ! A bully and a tyrant. As you can see I never forgave him . Happy days - I think not !!

not say SAT in my desk

I used to move about the classroom talking to people pretending to need a pencil sharpener. One teacher told me to "get in my desk" so I opened the lid and say in the desk. She didn't appreciate me taking her literally and sent me to the head masters office. When I told him what I had done I could see him trying not to laugh.

Grandmabatty. Your chocolate prize. Was that when Cadburys did a massive campaign with schools.sending posters, teaching aids and cardboard cocoa beans to schools. Circa 1966. I remember we were all given a small bar of chocolate.

An 'educational' trip was organised for our class at school - to a local brewery to see how "Johnny Walkers" was brewed. - The teachers got free samples, they wouldn't give us any!!

Our school celebrated the School Birthday (at the beginning of March, so usually freezing cold) with an assembly on the school field around the flagpole. The school flag was raised, the teachers having hastily removed the bra/knickers already flying high and put there the night before by the local boys school. The school hymn sung, the school poem read, and a "jolly hockey sticks" oration from the headmistress followed.

The rest of the morning was taken up with a skit in the school hall, put on by the (usually staid and unsmiling) staff. Old Uncle Tom Cobbley springs to mind.

Lunch, and then all outside again to support Oxford and Cambridge netball and hockey team games.

And all the while we wore buttonholes of daffodil and pussy willow tied with dark or light blue ribbon depending on whether you supported Oxford or Cambridge.

Anyone recognise the school?