Weirdest Schoolday Memories?

I thought everyone wore a pair of white cotton underpants under the regulation ones.

We all did at the two schools, both all girls, that I went to.

The regulation ones were horribly scratchy - you simply could not have worn them next to the skin.

As thirteen year olds we did gym outside during the summer term wearing only airtex shirts and our regulation school pants, ankle socks and gym shoes.

Anyone passing in the street could see us, and a lot of lads and men did stop to look.

Our mothers complained and shorts were finally added to our gym uniform.

The outside chemical loos at my village primary school in the 50s, and the ghastly headmistress and very strict uniform rules at my all-girls secondary school (e.g. no boots to be worn unless there were x inches of snow - boots outside that is, we could only ever wear regulation sandals indoors).

Foxglove77

In the first year of our comp school we had to embroider our initials onto our PE jumpsuit. I felt sorry for Bridget Oliver

Oops clicked on wrong quote!

I started at the convent when I was 6. I was shown into the classroom on my first day during a lesson on tens and units which I had never seen before.
At break time I joined the wrong line to file back into class as I didn't know which was mine. I got the ruler on my hand for that mistake.
During that first day the nun who taught us picked on a lovely, lively little boy and hit him with a ruler on his legs mercilessly.
That was 1952. I hated school.

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!

Oh, yes, the sex education! More or less non existent at my girls’ grammar.
Though there was one session where our biology teacher, probably in her 50s then, said we could write down questions anonymously, and she’d answer them in class.

Except that when it came to a question about birth control, the very stern answer was, ‘This is something no nice girl needs to know about until she’s married!’
??
This would have been pre O level, so perhaps 1965.

jocork

Kate1949

Did anyone else have to dissect frogs in their science lessons? ?

I never disected a frog, despite studying Applid Biology for my degree, but my DM did during higher school certificate in Biology. Apparently they used ether to kill the frogs but didn't use enough so had only knocked them out. They pinned them to boards and cut them open then went for a break and returned to find the frogs trying to escape from the boards!

Oh my God that is totally disgusting ????

In secondary school we had a very nice and a bit Bohemian English teacher and one day we went into the class and she had an open suitcase with about five piglets in it!!….?????

Kate1949

Did anyone else have to dissect frogs in their science lessons? ?

I never disected a frog, despite studying Applid Biology for my degree, but my DM did during higher school certificate in Biology. Apparently they used ether to kill the frogs but didn't use enough so had only knocked them out. They pinned them to boards and cut them open then went for a break and returned to find the frogs trying to escape from the boards!

Grandmabatty

We watched a film about chocolate production and then had to write an essay about it. I won and duly received 30 big bars of Cadbury chocolate. I was very popular until it was eaten! I can't imagine such a prize these days.

Wow, we did that very same thing which must have been an inter school thing. I remember the girl, who was my best friend, that won got a flat tin with all the chocolate in. Every other pupil got a bar of chocolate for entering. The funny thing is her parents had been full on and written her essay for her, lol. Needless to say she had to take the whole tin home untouched by sticky fingers, lol.

There are loads of things that were done at school that they wouldn't get away with now.

Oh, lots of lovely memories. We had a trainee maths teacher who we all swooned over in the 5th and lower 6th. He ran a music club in the club period which I think was the first period after lunch on a Friday. He fancied himself as a budding John Peel and would play records by the Incredible String Band and the like.

We all hated our DS teacher. In forms 1 and 2 we did sewing with her and in 2 and 3 we had cooking. We were making meringues and one girl couldn't get her eggwhites to whisk up. The dish went right round the room and everyone tried to whisk them to no avail. It was only when the dish came back round to her that she realised that she had been trying to whisk up the juice from the tin of pineapple and the egg whites were still sitting on the counter!

At lunch, four of us always sat at the same table together. Once the salt had clogged up in the salt cellar and one of us banged it on the table to try and loosen it. The room went completely silent, as this was what the teachers would do if they had an announcement to make. (Teachers sat at a separate table on a raised platform at the side of the room). So embarrassing!

As a 6th Former I remember hiding in the cellar with two friends instead of going to games sessions. The cellar was large as it was under the stage of the main hall where over 500 pupils and staff would meet for Assembly each morning. On two occasions we had to hide behind panels of stage furniture when teachers suddenly were heard descending to look for something. Sometimes we practised our newly learned quickstep there. The games teacher did finally discover that we were missing but nobody ever new where we had been.

We did the dissecting of an eye as well, but we were all asked if anyone could get hold of any to use. I lived near an abattoir so I volunteered. When it came down to it I couldn't actually pluck up the courage, so I got my poor mum to go and get them. I ended up with a large coffee jar filled with them, which provided lots of screams on the school bus, as it was passed around

Witzened, I as a dolly daydream, I’d forget anything. One particular day when I’d got to school I realised I had forgotten to put knickers on. Absolutely horrified. I talked another girl into giving me her second pair of nickers. She always had a cotton pair on and a nylon frilly pair. I was given the frilly pair. I hasten to add I was 5.

We had Dress Design GCE (I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist any more) at my girls high school. Our teacher was Mrs Greenhalgh and she wore the most AMAZING clothes. I remember her entering the classroom in a lime green PVC raincoat and disrobing by tearing the Velcro fastening down the front. We had never seen Velcro before and it was so dramatic and exciting. She also had a fabulous checked cape and hat ensemble. So inspiring.

In Summer we had to wear straw boaters and I have a memory of my girlfriend using hers like a frisbee across London traffic towards the end of the school year. It smashed to pieces of course but we were sixth formers so she got away with it. Wahay.

I went to an all girls boarding school in my first term of first form (year 7) we were taught deportment walking around balancing a book on our heads, taught to curtsey and how to lay a dinner table! This was late 1970’s not 1870! I did learn useful things too ?

Having forgotten my PE kit for the umpteenth time (not deliberately, of course ) the PE teacher sent me to stand outside the Head Mistress's office. She had a fearsome reputation so this was an awful punishment as you waited, desperate for her not to see you. Unfortunately, as I arrived, so did she. When I told her why I was there, she set me an essay to write about the importance of memory. When I handed it in, she gave a chuckle and sent me back to class. I had written about how important memory was but how some people had genuine difficulty through thyroid problems and dementia so we needed to be understanding. I went on to say that my mother had suffered with thyroid problems and I understood it was hereditary!
I didn't 'forget' my PE kit again but I did have a constant monthly and various other excuses!

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

In the first year of our comp school we had to embroider our initials onto our PE jumpsuit. I felt sorry for Bridget Oliver

Being sick on the floor in the school hall during morning assembley when i was about 5 years old and having my first period start during a swimming lesson!!!!!!

It only seems weird now, but at my first day at school we were read "Little Black Sambo" by the student teacher, and a boy got 'spanked' for screaming for his mother! We were given slates to write on because "We don't waste exercise books on babies who don't know their alphabet." By the way, this was 1956, not 1926!

My husband went to an all boys school, the games master used to make the boys strip naked and run twice around a sports field before they put their shorts back on and played football.
At the end of the game they had to run around the field naked twice again. I ask my husband what did he think about it he replied “ it was just part of the day like the communal showers”.
Can you imagine the outcry today if they were asked to do that.

Oh yes the pickled tape worm jar in the biology lab!

The needlework teacher used to shout so much that I dreaded the double lessons every week. I never finished my felt soft toy.

That was a shame because I was very creative and probably would have done fashion at college.........

Our whole year travelled to the Peak District to pick up litter for the day after the headmaster had noticed the rubbish while on a walking holiday in the area.
We travelled on 3 coaches for about 3 hours I think , but less than halfway there, the coach that I was on, had the windscreen shattered.
As we were travelling in convoy, all 3 coaches pulled up on the hard shoulder and once the glass was swept up, it was decided that we would carry on - nowadays we would have had to wait for a replacement coach.
It worked in our favour - as when we left school, it was cold, but warmed up quickly so our coach was nice and cool, the coach in front (this was of course pre air con ) travelled with the door open but those in the last coach just had to bake as the driver refused to open more than one roof vent!
Don't remember much about actual litter picking but we finished up in the village of Edale. The only thing open was a tiny village shop that I think we all visited. The old lady charged 50p for us to refill our water bottles as she had no cool drinks in the shop!