What Were Your Teachers Like At School ?

[Tim Bennet.]

Grammar school in the late 60s and early 70s. A couple of excellent teachers, another handful who were good, and then half of the rest were bone idle and simply going through the motions and the remainder should never been have been employed with children or a few in jail for their psychotic abuse. When people complain about Ofsted inspections, league tables and the national curriculum, it's because schools like our were allowed to be terrible for so long.

 

[Deleted User]

Same as most 70's/80's comp's I guess, one PE teacher was OK the other one a bit too keen with the 'slipper' a big size 12 plimsol called 'Fred'.

We grew up on a rougharse council estate in Wolverhampton called the 'Scotlands ' and looking back got no more than we deserved really.

We still had the cane in Junior school back then and I suppose looking back it was a bit tight to be hitting 10 yr old kids with a stick but hey ho.

As an adult I can see how the more timid kids would probably have been affected quite negatively but we just got on with it.

 

[swee'pea99]

Hey ho indeed. Have to say I'm appalled by the amount of corporal punishment on this thread. I never encountered any, and I was in primary school through the '60s and inner London comp through the '70s. It just wasn't done. As you say, you don't hit kids with bits of wood. But from accounts hereabouts it was still rife all over the country.

Explains a lot.

 

[Landsurfer]

My Maths teacher always carried a concealed, or not concealed, pistol.
He was also a member of the UDR and while not in uniform always had a personal protection weapon. Browning.
He wore it in a shoulder holster like someone off the Sweeney ...
Mr Roley our geography teacher was also in the UDR, he had a Webley revolver in his briefcase at all times .... alledgley ...
If you asked him he would let you peer into his briefcase .......
I never asked .... He never offered ...
They both knew about my Uncle Jimmy .....
🤐

 

[oldwheels]

Hey ho indeed. Have to say I'm appalled by the amount of corporal punishment on this thread. I never encountered any, and I was in primary school through the '60s and inner London comp through the '70s. It just wasn't done. As you say, you don't hit kids with bits of wood. But from accounts hereabouts it was still rife all over the country.

Explains a lot.

Never used the cane in Scotland. The Lochgelly was the preferred weapon. My wife had one but never really used it but it was a threat as a last resort. I still have it somewhere I think.
Latterly she had a class of 35 primary 6 boys in Dalmuir but never used it there. On the fringes of a tough area but she coped.
A single teacher school she was at later with a mixed age group was much worse but well off thread.

 

[Time Waster]

Head of pe was evil. He'd literally throw kids out of his way. He was well over 6 foot and lean but had a bad temper. Years later I met a guy who was a part time youth coach in cricket and was involved with Lancashire. He knew the guy and said he was in the management of Lancashire cricket club. It was him who first described him as evil which was a really good description!

There was a nice French teacher, both nationality and subject. Couldn't quite control the class so he handed out lines for fun. The big game was to get as many lines as you can without getting lunchtime detention. It was never quite the same and you had to guess when to n hold back and stop misbehaving. He was a good teacher despite that.

Another teacher the 4th years and above used to try and break him down to tears! He wasn't suited to teaching and actually pathetic the way he tried to get control.

Another teacher was a good modern languages teacher but once got called to the office for something urgent. Whenever he left the room he'd lock his bottle of water in a secure cupboard. One day it flustered him and he left the bottle on his desk. One kid drank it, then another and another. They found out it was alcoholic! Vodka someone said. He had to take some personal time off a few days later after it got to parents and then back to the head. It was right round school before the end of the day! He did come back later on in the term but ultimately he ended up leaving, possibly by mutual consent!

We also had a good teacher who taught maths, chemistry and RE. He was my form teacher through 6th form. His only problem was that he was a complete evangelical, born again God bothered. Everything became an opportunity to preach Christianity. He persuaded me to stop believing in God! Yes! I'm a little contrary but mostly I'm bright enough to see through his poor proof of God's existence. Evidence like blind clockmaker and even more daft arguments he passed off as evidence of God's existence.

 

[Reynard]

Never used the cane in Scotland. The Lochgelly was the preferred weapon.

You're going to have to explain what that is, I'm afraid...

I never experienced corporal punishment, although it was still allowed until well into my school years.

In primary school, we had to stand facing the wall for however long the teacher decided if something we did met with displeasure. It was worse at playtime, when everyone else was having fun. Embarrassment was a powerful tool, I think. FYI, this was a RC primary & junior school.

I was hoofed off to Prep School at the age of seven and then moved up into the Senior School. I've just looked it up, and corporal punishment wasn't abolished in Public Schools till 1998! Not that any of us ever experienced it there either. Although one of the more unpleasant detentions was scrubbing the cookers clean in the home economics classroom. Lets just say that some of the girls were incredibly klutzy in the kitchen. DAMHIKT...

I'd graduated with an MEng by 1998... Bonkers.

 

[Time Waster]

Never used the cane in Scotland. The Lochgelly was the preferred weapon. My wife had one but never really used it but it was a threat as a last resort. I still have it somewhere I think.
Latterly she had a class of 35 primary 6 boys in Dalmuir but never used it there. On the fringes of a tough area but she coped.
A single teacher school she was at later with a mixed age group was much worse but well off thread.

The best manufacturer of canes and other punishment devices for schools was apparently in a small village in Scotland. They sold around the world. They moved into correction as a development from riding crops that were their main/ original business.

 

[Rusty Nails]

We had corporal punishment right through junior and grammar school. Most teachers ranged from OK to great but there were one or two who were overkeen on physical punishment. Around 1956 we had one teacher who was quite nasty but complaints to the headmaster were met with excuses that " he had a tough time in the war" ! PTSD hadn't really been discovered then apparently. He went on to become a school inspector.

 

[Time Waster]

I once got my applied maths teacher so angry with me he had to send me out before he completely lost it and planted one on me! I simply didn't do my homework and told him because I didn't want to. He lost it, completely spitting out his words! Trouble was that I was 6 foot plus and he looked like gimli in lord of the rings but with a full ginger beard and hair. Stocky build with a beard, a perfect version of a Tolkien dwarf!

I think his problem that I was a clever kid who didn't put the effort in. He knew I was capable of top marks but settled for average. Grammar school so average was still well above average for kids. He was so frustrated! He was right! I should have worked harder!

 

[Time Waster]

One of the better teachers was young lass not long out of training and fit as ... heavily into running which she did at lunch. Lycra was certainly thought of as a good thing with her. She wasn't right for a boys school and left after one year.

 

[oldwheels]

The best manufacturer of canes and other punishment devices for schools was apparently in a small village in Scotland. They sold around the world. They moved into correction as a development from riding crops that were their main/ original business.

Never heard of them making canes which were not used in Scottish schools but I do not disbelieve you.
The tawse came in different weights and widths and were widely used. Some teachers kept them over their shoulders under a jacket ready for use.

 

[oldwheels]

You're going to have to explain what that is, I'm afraid...

I never experienced corporal punishment, although it was still allowed until well into my school years.

In primary school, we had to stand facing the wall for however long the teacher decided if something we did met with displeasure. It was worse at playtime, when everyone else was having fun. Embarrassment was a powerful tool, I think. FYI, this was a RC primary & junior school.

I was hoofed off to Prep School at the age of seven and then moved up into the Senior School. I've just looked it up, and corporal punishment wasn't abolished in Public Schools till 1998! Not that any of us ever experienced it there either. Although one of the more unpleasant detentions was scrubbing the cookers clean in the home economics classroom. Lets just say that some of the girls were incredibly klutzy in the kitchen. DAMHIKT...

I'd graduated with an MEng by 1998... Bonkers.

The belt often called a tawse was made in Lochgelly in Fife. Thick leather of a variety of widths and weights with 2 or 3 tongues. They were also commonly known as Lochgellys.

 

[Landsurfer]

By the end of year 2 at school ... aged 6 ... we could recite all our times tables up to X12 ..
Because ..
Mrs. McCauley used a cane to lash our hands if we made a mistake ...
I went home from school one day with both both hands bloodied ..
We spent all our time in her class terrified of what she would do next...
My mother made some furious and screaming calls to the Police and other friends of the family and Mrs. McCauley left our school before I returned after my hands had healed.
Lots of others in my class suffered at her hands but the Headmaster would take no action ...
Back in the 60’s it was no use appealing to schools about nasty and abusive teachers.

 

[Reynard]

The belt often called a tawse was made in Lochgelly in Fife. Thick leather of a variety of widths and weights with 2 or 3 tongues. They were also commonly known as Lochgellys.

*ouch*

Sounds like the belt equivalent of a cat-o-nine-tails