Many state schools could be harsh places as well, although unlike a boarding school, pupils could go home at the end of the day and prefects, if the schools used them, had very limited powers. There were prefects in my first secondary school whose main duties were to watch the dinner queues and report any misbehaviour to the heads of house. Unlike many public schools, they had no power to discipline pupils and it was reallt like a reward for hard work and toeing the line to get a prefect's badge in the fifth form.
Speaking of discipline, this school ( I transferred to another in the third form) still had some teachers who would cane or slipper for the least thing, and one hateful character had what was called a bat, a round wooden bat that he had made for hitting pupils who misbehaved. I can remember getting the slipper, which was like a big gym shoe, for saying a music teacher was playing like Les Dawson.
