[Closed] Punishments meted out in 70s schools, how creative were your teachers?

Weird how that clip came up, was talking about that after taking a class of kids out for a football game. One of them ended up, up a tree smoking a fag.

15stone PE teacher got all the boys to lay on the gym floor and he would go round and step on our stomachs with one foot then take the other foot off the floor and see how long we could take it for.

lovely chap.

I didn't really worry myself about the low grade violence, the one I hated was having to colour an A4 1mm graph paper in like a chessboard, both sides, then when you handed it in he'd just tell you to chuck it away without even looking at it. Half the time.

Kid held out of first floor window by his legs for being a gobshite to the RE teacher.

English teacher would hurl the wooden board rubber at anyone that was talking. It properly bruised if it caught you.

PE teacher got a kid back at lunchtime to introduce him to boxing as a punishment for him starting a fight in the changing room. Knocked seven shades out of him.

After being suspected of deliberately forgetting PE kit myself and one other kid had to run around the field in our pants and school shoes, not a good luck as the girls were playing hockey on the same field.

Maths teacher completely lost it and started pulling his martial arts moves on a kid for constantly messing about, he did actually get removed for a few weeks. Incidentally it was the same kid that got dangled out of the window.

I'm sure theres loads more.

I had the lot, the cane as corporal punishment several times and frequent verbal or physical assaults it was fairly common until I was old enough punch the bullying ****s back.

There's nothing to glorify about that aspect of 70's school culture.

Early 80's here growing up in North Wales. We had a mental RE teacher who wore the whole mortarboard and cloak getup. Anyway there was one black kid in school who was always misbehaving, the teacher routinely held him horizontally and used his afro to clean the board with. Sometimes if he was really annoying him after using his head as a board rubber he'd lock the lad in a cupboard....

"i must never never never under any circumstances whatsoever make excessive noise in the gymnasium changing rooms" x 1000 still etched on my memory after 35 years , a bit of physical instead would have been welcomed as an alternative,

In jounior school mrs Carlton was a dead shot with her wooden soled sandals. what made it worse was having had a sandal bounce off your head you had to take it back to her knowing you may get a second crack round the leg with it.

Juanking, Ysgol y Moelwyn? Sounds a lot like the RE teacher lovingly called Garibaldi.
The Geography teacher would regularly throw the black board eraser at your head if you were not the perfect pupil. Bastard caught me a few times with it. Bloody hurt.

Sweepy> im 'aving that one for work - genius!

Ysgol Aberconwy Iol, or aka Abercolditz. This nutjob is a practising vicar now!

Streaming was still very much de-rigeur of course and I remember a young-ish male teacher at the Junior school who would teach class 4C. The fourth and final year of junior before secondary and we had three classes in each year: A - for the bright kids, B - for the bright kids who would rather do other stuff and for the not so bright kids who applied themselves (as much as any 7 - 11 year old can, and finally C - the not very bright at all kids, who also would rather be doing other stuff.

Boy pupils of 4C would often show their badges of honour in the playground at break times, bruised and bleeding knuckles, caused by one of these metal safety rulers this teacher would often deploy.

The mind boggles 😯

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Leafy suburb between Winchester and Southampton, so not exactly inner city!

I went to 3 different high school/academies as we moved about so i got to see a varied selection of punishments metered out, all in the early/mid 80's.

Seeing a mates head held so close to a belt sander that his hair was sanded as the teacher caught him fooling around and trying to push someone into it so he decided to teach him a lesson.

One of the boys was forced to run round the football pitch/shinty pitch naked as a punishment for sneaking into the girls changing room, that didn't really work as he was an exhibitionist anyway and loved to shake his dick at anything and anything.

I got punched in the stomach by a teacher with the nickname of Doc savage (named savage for a reason at kirkcudbright academy), i had my bag resting on a handrail leading up to the geography room, i was pushed backwards, lost my balance and let go of the bag and it fell on him below, i shouted "i'm sorry sir" but he ran up the stairs, punched me in the stomach and i threw up and ended up going home for the day. My dad heard about it from my mum as i had a fair amount of bruising and pain so couldn't really hide it and when he landed at the harbour the following week he drove round to the school, found out where he was teaching and dragged him out the class room up and down the hallway and punched him a number of times whilst shouting if he liked it, and threatened to throw him in the irish sea if he ever found out he had laid a hand on me or any other kid in future - from then on my time at that school was great, my dad was a hero.

My Maths teachers weapon of choice.

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The irony wasn't lost on us.

Mr. Greenup, Dept. Head & P.E. - Size 9 plimsol called The Memory Machine. Made an appearance if you forgot your gym kit.

Miss Phipps, R.E. - Had a penchant for smacking your palm with a ruler...side on...!

Mr. Nutt, P.E. - nuff said.

Mr. Wood - Liked to grab and twist your sideburns. Luckily, I had a crewcut. Others weren't so fortunate.

Mr. Stuttard, History - Liked to come from behind and slap the back of your head so hard it'd hit the desk. Many a child was seriously hurt at his hands. Eventually snapped and beat the shit out of my mate, though it didn't end his teaching career.

Mr. Line, Geography & P.E. - Had complete hatred for ginger folk - kicked the hell out of me in a scrum. Why he was playing full on with 13 year olds is still beyond me. Clearly a hero...

All from Stoneham School (boys), Reading. Bit of a farce if you were an academic but definitely a learning experience nonetheless.

Those were the days, eh...

Late 80s here. Cumbria.

Metalwork: Fingers trapped in vice & smacked with a wire brush across the knuckles. Crime? Taking Brasso into the Computer Room.

Woodwork: Earring torn out. Crime? Being a 'poof'.

Computer Studies: "One sided essay about the inside of a ping pong ball". Cue teacher unrolling several feet of paper. Crime? Making the computer say rude words (ISTR it was an early Macintosh).

Woodwork: Earring torn out. Crime? Being a 'poof'.

Seriously, I know I shouldn't, but that has me in tears. 😆

We used to get that in metalwork from our teacher if we dared to wear a stud in our ear or had our hair long, he'd ask "Are you a ****ing girl?/poof/gay?" depending on how he felt at that particular time, par for the course i guess but we didn't mind as he was a good teacher that we all got on really well with, i guess nowadays he'd be sacked for such an outburst

and when he landed at the harbour the following week he drove round to the school, found out where he was teaching and dragged him out the class room up and down the hallway and punched him a number of times whilst shouting if he liked it, and threatened to throw him in the irish sea if he ever found out he had laid a hand on me or any other kid in future - from then on my time at that school was great, my dad was a hero.

Fantastic story. Every kids dream after they've suffered at the hands of a bullying teacher.

For me: small primary school N. Yorks. Mid 70's. Headmistress made one pupil stand outside her office facing a radiator, his trousers & pants around his ankles for saying school meals weren't nice.

Teacher in 3rd year would hit your knuckles with a wooden brick if you got maths questions wrong. For some reason I didn't like the teachers.

I think it's good teachers aren't allowed to beat & abuse my children, that's the parent's job.

Prep school masters weren't very imaginative by the 1980s:

1000 lines of "I must not say shit to Sir". And then walloped for writing "shit"....

Slippered with a leather-soled slipper.

Slippered with a solid-soled cricket shoe that still had the (thankfully worn down) metal spikes in.

Board rubbers or hard-backed books thrown at one.

By the 90s, it was public school prefects. Or vicious 18 year olds in any other walk of life. Far worse than any teacher:

6 am cross country runs.

14 stone rugby players dropping off the chest of drawers onto your bed. In the dark. While you're in the bed.

Back against a wall. Knees bent at 90 degrees. Heels off the floor. Drawing pins under your heels.

You hit your mate. Too hard, and he gets to hit you back. Too soft and the massive Ghanaian prefect hits you.

Talk during prep. Hit on the head with the edge of a wooden spoon. (Same loon would switch the dorm lights off and fling darts round the room...).

mid 70's grammar school

french teacher pie eater smothered your face with her ample chest

Meanwhile in Teesside a teacher is facing assault charges for tapping a pupil on the leg with an umbrella...

.. Father is upset and angry and wants answers ( looking at him in the news he's twigged he can get a s..tload of compensation...

If a teacher had tapped me when I was at school I wouldn't have dared tell my father because I'd have got leathered

Welcome to 21st century Britain where they wonder why we have a school discipline problem.

Board rubbers or hard-backed books thrown at one.

That was a regular from Inch High, Private Eye, the geography teech. His career came to an abrupt end when he threw a bunch of keys as an alternative. I suppose one would become a bit of a bastard if one was continually beaten by the pupils, though... 🙂

Edit - Also, the previously mentioned Mr. Nutt and Mr. Wood fought each other outside a French class on one occasion, I mean, really going for it. After much debate, we all decided that it was over the rather gorgeous science teacher, but her name escapes me right now...

But yeah, the post above - how times change.

Ourmaninthenorth ... Same as you but 70's prep school, early 80's boarding school, their mistake 1982 they banned corporal punishment ... We went absolutely wild.

6am 1 mile punishment runs ... pfffff we just added them on as a cool down to our own initiated 5am 5 mile training runs

used to get my ear twisted for something stupid like not lining up straight enough or looking straight ahead or something stupid. Think it occurred on games days when I had a massive heavy bag to carry. I'd like to see the bullying coward face me now. Causes me distress when I can my hair cut.

wouldn't seek revenge, but I'd let him know I'd done nothing wrong.

I have to admit to punishing a student, i mean i heard about a student, yes, in a motor vehicle tech class the other month. He was pissing about with a half jacked up car. So he was told to lift the wheel arch up so we could get the jack under further. Cue the jack being let down lowering the tyre onto his foot (steelies) and being left there for the first five minutes of break.

BK (Brother Kelly) a Christian Brother of the most evil kind, used to get us kids out in the bit of land between the front desks and his black board ( they were called that than) and shout quick fire sum demands at us, starting at 100 in his minus game he's pick on someone and say "4", his victim (whoever he pointed or looked at) would need to say "96" then he'd say for example, " 9" and look at his next potential victim who would obviously have to splurge out " 87" a nano second later and so on until we all got to zero. You had to really pay attention. If you didn't and weren't able to get the answer in an almost instant, he'd start going red, and say"ooooo, what's all this silly business, come on" slapping his leg and taking in breath through his teeth, at that point you had no chance anyway and it would be you stood in front of the black board, back of legs would be slapped so your knees hit the wall. We were 9 FFS!

His favourite was his leather strap, across the palm, I got it 96 times in one year when in his class. I wasn't even a bad kid, just a bit thick.

When I heard he died of cancer I felt hugely relieved that Karma did indeed exist.

21st century Britain where they wonder why we have a school discipline problem.

Do we? Is discipline worse now than in the 70s, on average?

Good thread. I'm off somewhere tomorrow where I know my old head will be. Ruled the school under a culture of fear. I never got whacked but remember seeing boys who got a 'six of the best' with a plimsol. Not a pleasant sight. A horrible horrible man who ended up doing time in the nonce section in dartmoor for abuse. Want to say to him 'I won't hit a defenceless old man - shame you didn't take the same approach to defenceless children you total ing ker'.

Mr Fellows used to try and pick you up by the roots of your hair. My mum was his MacMillan nurse when he died, shame she didnt leave him with no pain relief imo.

Kid held out of first floor window by his legs for being a gobshite to the RE teacher.

This happened at my senior school. It was a geography teacher who was also known for throwing, with extreme force, his wooden blackboard wiper. He left the school at the end of the year and became...a police officer.

I had a teacher in junior school who would put children across his knee in front of the class and spank them for their insubordination. The record was counted in excess of 50 hits, and I can still clearly see the acute distress on the faces of those he punished. He ended up being sacked after punching a nine-year-old in the gut for refusing to hold his hands out to be strapped. Bloody awful human being.

OMITN, Jock-m, that sounds eerily like my school. RHS by any chance?

Those punishments were still practiced in the 90's.

Glad that I am a young one!

The worst I got was having the rugby ball or tackle bag smashed in my face for not paying attention.

If you didn't get changed quick enough after swimming one of the teachers would blast you with an ice cold fire hose at high pressure.

This was late 90s early 2000s.

stand in corner, with metal dustbin on head - which teach would occasionally bang with a blackboard duster....

PE teacher who would make you hold your hand 3 inches above the desk when being belted - double whammy

the worst was we were all made to go carol signing after being caught drinking during school disco - the cunning blackmailing swine

This makes my school life seem tame (early 80s)

I was a good boy, never got any proper punishment other than lines or our art teacher would make you stand at the front of the class holding a big book in each hand with your arms outstretched.

I got hit in the face by mistake by a flying blackboard rubber once, was intended for the **** sitting behind me.

We had a very dodgy teacher in junior school, he had a beadle arm and would regularly pull kids pants down and bend them over his knee for a spanking. It was with his dodgy arm and there was no power in it, so it was clearly for his benefit

Late 80s early 90s, a lad told a teacher to f-off and had a bar of soap put in his mouth were he had to keep it for the rest of the lesson.

I got caught with a group of mates skiving in the woods and starting a bon fire, our punishment was to be excluded for 2 days were we spent them going to the woods and starting a Bon fire. The guy was wearing a school uniform we stole from lost property.

One of my more successful [url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/so-who-got-the-cane-at-school ]threads[/url] had some good stuff.

'71-'77 inner London comprehensive, I got hit with everything. By the fifth form the kids were big enough to fight back and a few of them did. It really was an awful school, you may have seen it on Panorama circa Nov '77.

more of a humiliation than a punishment, but it was the early 80's...

some kid vandalised the bogs, and smashed the bog seat off. Year head of the 4th yr (dunno what that is now) made it in to a trophy, and each week the naughtiest kid was forced to front in assembly to be awarded the bog seat and forced to wear it round his neck all week.

the year head awarded it to himself once.

We had the usual ruler across the knuckles and the teacher who was a crack shot with a board rubber.

I got slippered with a plimsoll once too but don't recall that it hurt that much. I seem to remember I completely deserved that one.

The punishment that took all of our time though had to be the dreaded 'Statements'. These were sheets of 50 facts that had to be copied out meticulously and took bloody ages. some were short and sweet such as 'Even monkeys fall off trees - Ancient Chinese Proverb' to some of the longer 'Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run - Mark Twain'. Some where science based, some history. and even some in foreign languages “Wenn ich 'Kultur' höre, nehme ich meine Pistole. Herman Goering” (just googled it and apparently not him really)

Minor offence was 10 - 20 statements and naughty was 50. If you had been a complete pillock you got 100. They took ages to write out and it was crushing to see them torn up when you handed them in.

I think the boys got the worst of the treatment although I did get a blackboard rubber thrown at me! I also got into big trouble for criticizing a teacher who routinely hit a boy over the knuckles with a ruler as he was doing his work. She then made me stand behind him for a morning and had to agree that his work 'wasn't very good' at the end of it!

I don't think I ever received corporal punishment at school. I was a girly swot and had a much harder time with the other kids than I did with teachers; I was systematically bullied for three years at high school until I worked out that fighting back was a moderately effective deterrent.

I vaguely remember that the threat of punishment was much more common than the actual punishment. Playground rumours were rife about which teacher had a cane or a slipper or suchlike. I remember one teacher being a crack shot with chalk (which I suppose is better than the board duster!), having a stick explode on their desk seemed to focus kids' attentions fairly readily. One teacher was adept at winding up to throw the board duster then dropping it before the actual throw, just as effective at getting kids to scatter without risk of being sacked I guess. Oh, and our woodwork teacher used to demonstrate the virtues of sensible footware by dropping hammers onto unruly pupils' toes.

Mid 70's, New Zealand state school (probably similar to grammar school here).

I was caned after the groundsman saw me walking across the 1st XI cricket pitch (admittedly, it was roped off at the time)
Winter detention after school - crawling up and down rugby pitches on hands and knees looking for stones.

Likewise in the late 80s/90s we had a very genial school environment without any teacher-based violence. The most shocking thing anyone did was the Geography teacher's habit of smacking a metre rule on the desk of some kid not paying attention. It always got a big laugh as they'd jump out of their skin and most victims could the joke.

One teacher at my school was so creative with his "12 inch pink floppy thing" (a piece of pink rubber he used to strap people with), that he has now had to resign his post as a lay minister in the RC church, and is appearing in Crown Court next month on 47 charges against 29 different pupils.

Hope he feels the full penalty of the law.

Yes remember those rumours! We had other trials and tribulation though. The caretaker at our primary school would most certainly have been on the sex offenders register these days - gotta love the 70's!! 🙂

Oh, just remembered one. Our generally cool and froody maths teacher once pulled an inspired stunt with a persistently gobby pain in the 'arris of a kid.

Strength test. Bit like an arm wrestle. Put your elbow on the desk, I'll hold your fist, bet you can't pull away from me.

Kid's there, straining for the bicep curl with all his strength. Teacher suddenly lets go. Bang, kid punches himself hard in the face. Class goes wild, kid can't do anything as the teacher hasn't hit him.

Legend. Here's to Mr Cross, you were always one of my favourites.

I had a Geography teacher called "Mad Harry" who had a mini crossbow that fired chalk. Caught talking and you got shot! lol
One of my mates got held by a PE teacher while his mate the music teacher leathered him! Heard the Music teacher had a nervous breakdown a few years after we left. Man had serious issues!

My mate and I got our mouths sellotaped in p3, that'd be 1983. Mum wasn't happy with the teacher, but gave me a clout anyway.

It never reached the national press though....

Mum wasn't happy with the teacher, but gave me a clout anyway.

Bit of a paradigm shift that, isn't it.

Nowadays, if a teacher were to punish a kid the parents would be up at the school playing holy hell; if it'd have happened to me I'd have got another clout back at home because I'd obviously misbehaved and deserved it.

Can't help but think that there needs to be a middle ground here somewhere.

The usual ruler, slipper, plimsole or flying chalks and board rubbers. But the most inventive one was having to kneel in the corner of the head master office............ on dice.

Brilliant...^

a mini crossbow that fired chalk.

Somehow, I feel deprived and let down by the plain old board rubbers/keys/canes/slipper etc.

Obviously the southern carrot crunchers have no imagination.

Edit : I do sometimes wonder if sadism was a prerequisite for a teacher in the 70s/80s.

Sounds like there's a few more candidates for Operation Yewtree...

Just appreciated how lucky I was to go to a bog-standard Devon comprehensive, where the worst you got was a detention over lunch hour.

Though I will never forgive Miss Olds for dismissing the class one at a time by reading names from the pile of geography homework that was handed in that lesson. Because I was always, ALWAYS, left sitting alone at the back of the room looking innocent. "Is it not there. miss? I definitely handed it in..."

Physics Teacher...Mr Pritchard used to hand out Science laws instead of lines...talking in class meant you got to write stuff like "By the principle of moments the sum of the anticlockwise moments equals the sum of the clockwise moments" etc.

Extremely effective

the year head awarded it to himself once.

Instant respect

the year head awarded it to himself once.

What did he do?

Our primary school headteacher was sacked some time after I left for being found in a cupboard with one of the cooks. Made me laugh.

considering what we/I got up to there was very little actual violence meeted out. wooden /felt Board rubbers were used to good effect.chalk was also used well, Woodwork was always a laugh as Sid Dickinson always had a 3' length of 1/4 dowel in his hand and used it well i.e. to punish dangerous knobish stuff. he was a good bloke though. PE guy also ace, took y 11 hardman to one side for a 'brief chat' Lad was very subdued after the 'chat'. History guy used to bring his own kids into class sometimes they and others always ended up being 'knuckled' as he walked round.(middle finger knuckle extended out of fist and bang.). Best we can do now is to escalate the situation so the kid gets a 'good letting off'by SLT or head of year 🙁

good letting off'by SLT or head of year

This ^^ would have had more impact than 'please dont set fire to xxx hair again'Specially from Mrs smith! 😮

English teacher (Mr Davis) would get boys to bend over, chalk a cross on their trousers and then give them a kick up the arse, sending them flying across the room. Another favourite of his was to get you lean against the wall just supported by both your thumbs, (what he called 'Chinese torture).

Looking back at it he was a real sadist, it was all done with malice rather than to to keep discipline.

I was too late for any of the more severe stuff above thank heavens but one of our music teachers used to do the board rubber trick, albeit they were plastic ad much lighter. One guy in our class had it lobbed at him for talking and he nonchalantly caught it one handed and lobbed it into the school tuba where it got well and truly stuck. He was an utter arsehole but on that day, a legend.

A PE teacher at our school used to do the most enormous flying kick up the rear end taking a big run up, as above. A really creepy "toucher", he used to walk into the boys showers every week. I saw in the papers he's just doing 5 years for abuse - committed in the 1980s. No surprise, other than he got caught.

Anyhow, most of the above, plus when I was in the cadets there was one poor lad who was just a bit slower than the rest and could never stand to attention at the same time as us (Corporal Jones-style). His punishment every week was to run round the playing fields and every ten seconds he had to leap in the air shouting "I am a w*****r" as loudly as he could. Poor sod, I often wonder what that did to him.

On exercises in dark woods at night, the sixth year NCOs got hold of a cadet and bundled him into the boot of their Triumph Dolomite, shut the lid and then drove round as fast as they could over as many bumps as they could. He was told a severe punishment awaited if he threw up in there. He didn't.

Mr. Davis. Woodwork.
Had an 18" length of flexible plastic he called The Black Death. My that smarted.

Mr. Macro. Woodwork.
A proponent of banging errant pupils' heads together. Hard.

Mr. Awdas. Biology.
Had a set of keys like a prison warder and would whack naughty pupils over the head with them. Hard.

I was once made to cut the grass with a pair of scissors for larking about in RE.

1980-1985 secondary school.

Back in the late 70's we had a sports teacher who tried to maintain his youthful good looks with a long comb-over. Always during the course of his exertions this hefty flap of hair would lift & hang down one shoulder only to be stuck back on his sweaty pate. Of course, we kids noticed this & one unfortunate, during a game of basketball, made a light hearted observation which probably included the words "slap" & "head", which resulted in him receiving a basketball thrown full force into his face, with the resultant claret everywhere etc. We kids were told to keep quiet or face the consequences.

OJOM
OMITN, Jock-m, that sounds eerily like my school. RHS by any chance?

Those punishments were still practiced in the 90's.

Nope Stonyhurst College SJ* for me dunno about OMITN

21st century Britain where they wonder why we have a school discipline problem.

Do we? Is discipline worse now than in the 70s, on average?

Molgrips, MrsMutt & I are going through hell with a 14yo at the moment, the little s..t and his mates realise that the teachers can't physically touch them, restrain or even shout at them nowadays. If they do the teacher faces an assault charge.
We live in a fairly deprived area, the proportion of [b]career[/b] dole-ies and petty criminals kids in the classes is pretty high and bearing in mind some of these are 2nd or even 3rd generation of this type of bloodsucking, freeloading scum now, the norm is that they p... about in class, tell the staff to go f... themselves, walk out of school they want to knowing that if any teacher says boo to them their parents will raise holy hell at the school. They don't care even if they get caught as there are no consequences.
The good news is that our little s**t has all the leadership abilities of a sheep, if he hangs out with "good" kids he's literally a model student, if he hangs out with the idiots, he follows suit. Arrangements have already been made to shift him into a far better school in a more affluent catchment area, and pray this works. At the moment he's basically under effective house arrest and confined to solitary with no privileges bar paper books for amusement (the horror). He's even watched his mother bounce a 2Lb lumphammer off his iPhone many times and she has threatened to launch his xbox until he wises up and starts toeing the line or the the new school year starts in September, it's no skin off our noses.

I'm not saying I was a saint at school by any stretch of the imagination BUT ye gods, we knew there were real consequences to getting caught so either a) didn't do it in the first place or b)made sure we weren't caught. AND we certainly didn't go home and bleat about it to our parents! - I remember praying that my parents wouldn't be contacted by the school.

It's the concept of "consequences" in this day an age, I'm not saying go back to the blind violence of our youth, which you have to admit was effective in 95% of cases (you are always going to get the hard line recidivist) but a middle line of teachers being able to shout at miscreants, restrain them and issue corporal punishments where deserved would do a heck of a lot towards restoring balance.

*[i]Society of Jesus aka Jesuits basically if you imagine a "Liebstandate SS Adolf Hitler Division" of Catholicism then you are about there with their tolerance, mild mannered nature and balanced views**[/i]

**[i]of course I exaggerate, its only 99% of them that give the rest a bad name [/i] 😉

Truth be told, if you towed the line somewhat (the jebbies are all for structured debate, so they were happy for you to disagree)(which is novel in a school), didn't get caught, my time at school was brilliant, and I'd happily go back.