What were school punishments like in the 70s/80s

My first secondary school used the cane and the plimsoll nearly every day, and both genders could expect it as a punishment for things like climbing over walls or talking in assembly. I can remember getting four really hard whacks with a plimsoll in the second year for mocking the deputy headmistress's music lesson( she was quite a useless teacher, but not someont to mess with). It seemed to be part of school life there and most people accepted it.
I changed secondary schools in the third form and, like many other schools in the early eighties, corporal punishment was very rarely used and only by the headmaster. Usually the punishments were detentions, reductions in grades and warning letters sent to your parents for poor performance. This actually seemed to work a lot better than htting pupils.
One thing I did get wise to when I was put in detention a couple of times was teachers always ripped up the punishment essays we had to write after you left the classroom. I spent one detention doodling rubbish instead of writing an essay on paying attention in class and nothing happened, as I saw the teacher as I was leaving the classroom bin all the essays.

Board rubbers thrown at you, hit on the hand with rulers.

Yes, at primary school. Also the class teacher once threw an ink pot at a pupil, the ink went down her uniform.

RosieandherMaw

The does make me feel old.
I was teaching in secondary schools from 1970 so we are talking about my daughters’ education here!
My own education was in the 50’s and 60’s- practically prehistoric with offences like painting on the cave walls or teasing the school tyrannosaurus.

😂

Detentions.

We used to have to write lines in the 1950s and 60s but there was one detention of the whole class because no-one would snitch on the real culprit.
Oh - and standing in the corner, hands on head. That at age 15!!
Those were the days!

I was at a girls' grammar school from 1958 to 1963. The main punishment was detention but I don't think I had more than two or three. Being seen without a hat outside school was a major sin. If you were caught you had to wear your hat in school all the next day.

One of my friends was sent to the headmistress because she had been seen talking to a tradesman in the street!! The next day her mother came storming up to see the head, the girl was a figure skater, the man she had been talking to was her partner, and she had her parents' permission to speak to him.

The worst thing we ever did was when we had a student teacher taking our geography lesson. A girl was talking and the student told her to stand on her chair. Well, of course, once she was up there it started us all giggling and she began to tell us all to stand on our chairs. When our teacher walked in she found half the class standing on our chairs, the rest of us in hysterics, and the poor student in tears. Our teacher told us exactly what she thought of us and we came away feeling awful. No punishment was needed.

My father was in primary and secondary school from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. I am not certain what grade he was in when this happened, but one time a student (not Dad) was sent out to the principal (Canadian equivalent term for head). The student went outside the classroom, rubbed his hands together a bit so they looked red, as if he'd been given the strap, then came back in sniffling. The teacher thought, "Ah, sorted him out well." It caused a bit of a ruckus, though, when the teacher went down to the principal's office during recess to congratulate him on doing such a good job, only to learn the student had never shown up! (I am not certain what happened after that, but I suspect the outcome was not good, to say the least!)

In the 1950's my Primary school had a cane for the boys and a slipper for the girls, both displayed on the Headmaster's office wall.
The Girls' Grammar School was more refined and did not resort to violence! Detentions and Lines were the punishment dished out in the late 50's/early 60's.

TwiceAsNice

I went to senior school 1964-69. Misunderstood a task in history in Yr 7 shouted at in front of the class and made to stand in the corner of the room with my back to everyone for the rest of the lesson, still remember how humiliated I felt he was a bully and a terrible teacher , I love history and learnt nothing.

Board rubbers thrown at you, hit on the hand with rulers . I went to a secondary modern as failed the 11+ I remember most of the teachers telling us we were thick, never be anything because we’d gone there. With the exception of my English teacher who was amazing none of them could teach , it wasn’t until I was an adult I realised they taught there because they were too bad to teach at a decent school. I had to beg to sit some OLevels in stead of all CSE. Our PE teacher was a pervert she watched us walk through the open showers every time we had games.

They did me a favour in the end I was determined to prove I wasn’t stupid and with a degree , masters , and several post grad diplomas I am more qualified than any of them and I did all the study whilst working full time .

My granddaughters have just completed their GCSE exams and don’t realise how lucky they were with their own school . So glad they had a better experience than me. My daughter says I’m a bit bitter about it, I probably am but it was proved years later girls were deliberately failed in the 11+ because it was thought more important for boys to get through .

Sorry I have gone far past the original question

Golly you could have been at my school.

My grammar school years were 1965 to 72. Many teachers threw blackboard rubbers at boy pupils. The boys PE teacher used to wait until the boys were wet, after showers and whack them across the backside with a large baseball boot if they misbehaved.

Girls were given detention or kept in at lunchtime but never physically harmed.

A boy in our class in 5th year was expelled as he turned up at school with his head shaved. This was the time of skinheads. He wasn’t one but he came from quite a poor family and his mother said she couldn’t afford to keep paying for haircuts so she shaved his hair off.

I saw him a few years ago at a school reunion and that expulsion still affects him. He was unable to take his O levels but took them a while later when he went to college and ddid well. He says he always had a chip on his shoulder about that and he missed seeing all his mates in his final school years.

I was at school in the 1940s and 50s. The only corporal punishment was at my infant school, where I was hit on the hand with a ruler for not knowing the seven times table. I can’t express how much I despised that teacher, for resorting to violence,

At my all girls senior school in the 50s, there was no physical punishment at all. Just stern lectures, from the headmistress if you were really bad. I remember one serious case where a girl was suspended for a while. I think she had been stealing.

Much to my horror, my sons’ junior school in the 70s had a very nasty headmaster who beat and humiliated the children. After many complaints, including mine, he was dismissed. At their senior school there were detentions, but no beating. I can’t remember anything else.

I meant corporal punishment of course!

In the first year of my convent grammar school in 1965, there were some daring older girls who followed the fashion of the times by shortening the length of their school uniform dresses as high as possible (knickers almost in sight!).

The wrinkled, old bat of a Mother Superior dressed in her full habit, only her face visible, made them come to the stage at a full assembly. There she produced a pair of scissors and ripped the untidy hem of each girl's dress so that a ragged extra inch of cloth hung down. Then she gave a speech about how shameful they were, how debased, how they would end up as bad lots, were bad examples to us all and how they let down their families and school by their behaviour.

I don't remember if they cried or what happened but I remember being terrified. We used to get detentions if we were seen outside of school without our hats on and you stood outside of a classroom in the corridor with your face turned to the wall if you had talked or committed some other misdemeanour.

Who needed capital punishment?

I was one of the lucky ones I enjoyed school in the 60s, an ordinary high school, well run, well disciplined, if you got caned you deserved it, teachers were a mixed bunch most were OK.
No absenteeism in my class, it just wasn’t done, possibly not the best yrs of my life, 2 yrs at technical college were pretty good

In junior school during the 1960’s, ‘offenders’ were made to stand in the entrance hall right outside the Heads office for the duration of playtimes. We had to maintain complete silence and look straight ahead - failure to comply was met with a further session on another day. Pupils mainly complied because no one knew when the Head was going to come out of his office and catch them.

The Head rarely used the cane - in fact he was a lovely gentleman, totally committed to the school and the pupils.

At grammar school the general punishment was detention……..unannounced to parents beforehand, unlike today, so pupils frequently missed their bus home. There was also the dreaded ‘100 lines’ too.

Serious offences were punishable by exclusion…….but I never did anything serious enough to warrant that and I don’t ever remember a pupil being expelled.

JamesandJon33

I think people from all generations have done those things*Magenta*

The very point I was trying to make J&J, thank you for clarifying my post.

To put it another way, no generation can claim to have all turned out alright etc.

WhiteSwan63

I left in 79 I remember there was still the threat of the cane from the headmaster. I had respect for people in authority so I only had one detention and I remember sitting in the hall doing maths which I am still rubbish at. I was talking in Biology.
It’s a shame there isn’t that respect anymore among some young people.

There’s plenty of respect amongst young people today. It’s the baddies we hear about, but today’s youngsters are really no different to those of 20,39,49+ years ago.

My own mother, born in 1934, daughter of a Deputy Head at a local boys grammar school, was a “rebel”; wearing bright red lipstick and matching nails and leaving home at 17 and joining up in the army a year or so later.

She was the most moral and fair person I know and I was horrendous at secondary school and a real pain in the proverbial.

However, I know my own children all know right from wrong, know how to behave respectfully and are always well mannered in public, not so much at home haha!

Many many children, especially girls, were repressed and unhappy way way back in the day, some are still today.

Ooops an all boys grammar

I was at Secondary School in the early 70’s, all girls Secondary Modern, we did have corporal punishment, ruler, cane and slapping with hands, we had some truly appalling teachers, (as well as some great ones) and lots of “pupil humiliation”

I hated school and along with friends there never reached my academic promise or potential.

I cannot, for the life of me, truly understand how anyone thinks corporal punishment actually works.

My DH attended a man all boys grammar school, run by Jesuit Priests. It sounded absolutely horrendous and, imo, damaging. My DH was good at sport but hated the staff and left at 16 without reaching his potential.

Sad isn’t it!

I started at primary school in 1942 and remember it with affection, although I was once beaten with a ruler on my hand for eating a toffee in class. It hurt!
Later, at the local Grammar school, I was once sent to the headmistress for being rude to the French teacher. I had to write a hundred lines saying "I must never be rude to teachers".
Generally, school was pretty strict back then. But I was reasonably well behaved, and I loved school.

I think people from all generations have done those thingsMagenta

dalrymple23 We all turned out alright to be responsible and fairly sane citizens.

I attended school from the early 50s to the mid 60s and I am none of the above.

What is more plenty of my contemporaries have turned out alot worse than I am.

People from my generation have become murderers, thieves, rapists, drug dealers and estate agents.

I was a 50s/60s schoolchild and recognise all the punishments (you forgot about the accurately flicked blackboard chalk!). But it seems as though we all turned out alright to be responsible and fairly sane citizens.

Does that tell you something?

I went to a girls school in the 60s. We used to have skirt inspection. You had to kneel down and the length of your skirt from the floor was measured. Of course, all the skirts were rolled up as soon as possible afterwards.

We only did school from Monday to Friday lunch time. The afternoons were reserved for school choir, games matches and other after school activities. Detentions were an hour on Friday afternoon and you were always given extra work to do.

RosieandherMaw

The does make me feel old.
I was teaching in secondary schools from 1970 so we are talking about my daughters’ education here!
My own education was in the 50’s and 60’s- practically prehistoric with offences like painting on the cave walls or teasing the school tyrannosaurus.

I got detentions for both those offences and many others.
Detention meant you had to stay behind for an hour
after school and write lines; all the same statement. In dead silence.

200 X "I must not think inappropriate thoughts in the Cathedral" etc.

That's not a joke. BF and I both got detention for thinking in the cathedral.

The Head Mistress had noticed our eyes were open (obviously, so were hers? ) and detected our silent thoughts by telepathy.

She also claimed she could control people by telepathy.

DollyRocker

Definitely humiliation, whackings with canes & fishing rods, rounders & cricket bats, blackboard rulers and plimsolls, rulers across the palm. Lines, detentions, demoting, dragging by the ear. There were some delinquents at our school. We even had one teacher who had a dunces cap for the slow illiterate kids.

I am not one who agrees with the lenient attitudes to misbehaving that are seen these days. I would like there to be much more (appropriate) punishment for bad behaviour. But a Dunce’s cap! That is cruel and totally wrong.
I’m not usually easily shocked, but that made me gasp!

I was in school in the 50s/60s. I remember a teacher hitting me hard on my hand with a ruler for looking out the window. I was only just 5 years old.
In senior school we had a teacher hated by all. It was an all girls grammar school and we think she hated young women. Every lesson she would pick out one person to bully. I think most of us were chosen ones.