Best years of our lives?

I can so relate to KatyK, I was taught by the Sisters of Mercy ( they had no mercy). They could give a beating any mercenary would be proud of but humiliation was their expertise.
The snobbery was on another level.
You always knew the children that would be chosen for plays, awards etc etc.
Thank the Lord things have changed.

Katyk

What a terrible time you had, it seems unbelievable that teaches could treat children in that way, and get away with it

I think I always loved junior school, our first school was a tiny purpose built building, with tiny desks, tiny toilets and basins, and lots and lots of toys. Every afternoon we were meant to have a nap, and our teacher would let down her very long hair and brush it, sometimes she took us all to her house to play in the garden

Junior school was good too, liked all the teachers, and always lots of play as well as lots of work

Senior school was where I started being a mouthy madam, challenging everything, and being a right bolshy cow at times, overall though, happy memories, some great and inspiring teachers, and a lot of laughs (and quite a few fallings out)

How lovely that sounds Sara

I suppose it was Katy, maybe I’m looking back through rose coloured glasses

I wish it could have been the same for you

KatyK what a childhood you had!
My (Catholic) primary school was great, I loved it, but not so the senior school, mainly awful and often weird teachers ( all female) with a few teaching nuns.
My homelife was fine, unlike yours,but with a working Mother and no Father, we were sometimes a bit on the hungry side.
Hope the rest of your life has been good, to make up for it.

I started Infants School aged five at Easter in 1949. The teacher was Sister Patrick with a class of 60.

At some stage on my first day I was called up to her desk and told I was going to be caned because I had been talking. I said, "I'm sorry I didn't know I wasn't allowed to talk".

The result was she drew the cane across my hand without any pain.

A few years later I realised she must have been very new to teaching and even to being a nun.

My next teacher was Miss Twomey who was said to have rushed out of the class room the previous year, grabbed her bike from the cloakroom and thrown it at a boy who was annoying her.

Fortunately She Didn't seem to notice me much.

Well Sara I am pleased to see that some people enjoyed their school life. I did too. Obviously there were tellings off, standing outside headmistress’s study (!). Detentions etc. Also one or two rather boring, unimaginative teachers but on the whole it was good ( and the punishments would fit the crime). The best teachers in my experience were those with ‘natural’ authority, humour and intelligence. They were respected and one would not wish to incur their wrath, but they were fair. I am still in touch with 11 out of the 14 girls in my form , although 4 live in other continents, and as many of us as possible try to meet up annually...after all we are getting on a bit now! Reading this thread it seems, sadly, that the Nuns were the worst offenders regarding sadistic behaviour.☹️

How kind you all are. I didn't mean to make this a sympathy fest for me. It's the luck of the draw isn't it? A lot of people of our generation had a difficult time.

I was hit on the knuckles once, when I was about six or seven, for not knowing my tables. That’s was at my infant school, which I usually loved. That was where I learnt to love singing and poetry.

At junior school I don’t remember any punishments, for me or any one else. I stayed at that school (all girls) for the rest of my school life. It was quite a happy place, except for a really foul geography teacher who had Nazi tendencies and used to get at the Jewish girls. To this day I feel guilty that I didn’t go to the headmistress and tell her what was going on. That same teacher used to shut us in the map cupboard if we needed to blow our noses, and as for sneezing....!

Anniebach - what disaster? You weren't at Aberfan, were you?

Anniebach. Are you referring to the Aberfan disaster? So, so sad!

KatieK - I sympathise; my husband attended a Catholic school and some of his memories, of those days, are quite horrific!

I was fortunate to attend a lovely village school, starting just after my fourth birthday. All the teachers were wonderful but some of the less well-off children were bullied by the female P.E teacher. ?. After passing the 11+, I went to the girls’ grammar school in a nearby town. It was a difficult time for me as I’ve never been great in female only company. However, I do consider myself fortunate as I would not have survived in the Secondary Modern school!

Katyk I loved primary school had great teachers ,I well remember my first day the teacher Miss Watson wore a black dress with yellow umbrellas on it ,she had what looked like dozens of sticky out petticoats under it .I met her again years later and she instantly recognised me and when I told her about remembering her dress she was amazed .Secondary school was a convent and most of the nuns were lovely ,Sister Philomena was my favourite she taught English ,I didn't get on with Sister Mary Paul who was a bit of an old snob and I cant stand snobs even now.She spent half the time being sickly sweet to the daughters( all girls school) of doctors or laywers and dismissive of the rest of us....we weren't good enough for her.I left when I was 15 ...no "o" levels at all ,just wanted out.I had my own business by the time I was 21 ,so it did me no harm at all despite what the Head teacher ,a nun.said when she called my parents and me in to discuss me destroying my life by leaving school so soon .No regrets here,we'll be retiring from the same business later this year after 44 years .

Happy memories for some. Lovely to hear.

Some really awful stories here.
Our headmistress used to wait for one particular boy every day and slap him on the legs for not walking straight on his way to the dining hall. Until his mother found out and came to the school.
The young lad was eventually diagnosed with polio.
Treatment in those days often amounted to child cruelty.

On the whole, I have fond memories of many of the teachers in the schools I went to. However, there were a few who were terrifying. A Mrs Cook who made us recite our times tables and who could be very frightening if you made a mistake, an RE teacher who was really fierce, and one of my first teachers who slapped me round the face because I got confused and skipped in the wrong direction in country dancing. I couldn't have been more than 6 years old!

I am glad to say I have nothing but happy memories of both my junior and senior school .I was not top of the class but did quite well and was ,at times ,the class joker and got away with it .I was sad when I left school at 17 and went right into a job while some of my schoolfriends were doing another year and had the whole summer holidays to look forward to .

My first year of secondary school, the maths teacher was awful. He was a short man with a goatee beard and moustache. He had the entire class standing on our chairs until we solved the problem on the board. I was rubbish at maths and was nearly always the last one standing. It was so embarrassing. He gave you no help or praise. I failed maths.

My first year in primary school, our teacher was Mrs. Oxley, lovely lady, quite old, she had a large white desk with steps up to the seat. 2nd year we were in Mrs. Haigh`s class, fairly strict, but OK. Year 3 was Mrs.Wilkinson, we`d heard awful tales about her, none of us wanted to be in her class. One day it was sewing, and I snipped a tiny bit out of my gym slip with my scissors, for which she gave me the battleboard, That was the punishment in the infants, the battleboard being like a table tennis bat but just wood, no rubber covering, your backside was hit with it. I thought it was unjust because it was my property, not the school`s or hers.
In junior school I was caned once, in the 2nd year, for having a tiny little doll perched on my desk. The same teacher, Mrs. Taylor, caught a boy passing a note, so called him out for caning. The blackboard was one of those large ones that could be swung round on it`s frame to show the opposite side. When she brought the cane down to hit him, she caught the blackboard which swung round and knocked him over. He was crying, so she comforted him...…………..then caned him!!

We had a PE teacher who used to carry two split rulers so that when he whacked you you actually got 4 beats per whack.

As for the board rubber throwing, my geography teacher once threw the rubber at a boy in my class, who quickly ducked, causing the rubber to go out of the open window, and knock the headmaster off his bike!

KatyK catholic schools were the worst. I got caned regularly in front of the whole school and don’t think I was particularly badly behaved. Doing a cartwheel and showing my knickers was a major crime! My name is still in the punishment book.

There was one little girl who was ALWAYS picked on by our teacher, who for some inexplicable reason loathed her (primary school 7/8 years olds). When we were lining up in the playground, this poor girl would be hauled out and almost beaten against the fence. We were all enraged by the unfairness of it, but were powerless. It must have affected that child's whole life - how could it not? - but no one did anything, not even her parents if she told them, because she was the teacher and therefore authority. My mother 'knew' her to greet in the street etc years later - a respectable member of the local community. Ugh!

At my primary school, we had one girl who was half India. I can still remember her name, poor child. One horrible teacher kept sending her home to 'have a wash as your skin looks dirty'.

Indian

No bad memories of teachers at all, really, although I think I was lucky never to be taught by a vicious Latin teacher with whom I got on very well out of the classroom. His funeral was packed out, mostly I suspect by former pupils wanting to make sure he was dead.

I was beaten twice, once with a slipper at prep. school (can't remember why, but I expect I deserved it) and caned once at secondary school, one of twenty or so caught drinking in the dormitory on the last night of term. Well, we had won the house rugby competition. The Assistant Housemaster made an issue of it, and I suppose the Housemaster felt he had to back him up. So it was four quick strokes and "Merry Christmas!" "Merry Christmas, Sir!"

Had some horrible teachers. At my primary school there was a really nasty male teacher who made fun of my speech defect and used to hold the kids up by their hair (very painful!) Just before I left he dropped dead of a heart attack and I got into trouble for doing a little dance of joy!!