Best years of our lives?

I know of a little girl who had her hair pulled out with tweezers by nuns at a convent school because she had ringworm. My FiL was pushed down the stairs by priests at a Catholic school because he got some work wrong. Enough to make you weep. I'm sure there are many kind and caring people in these schools but the spiteful and sadistic are attracted to these situations because they can vent their cruelty on the helpless.

It was our PE teacher who was the worst. In junior school I can remember having my period and in those days of course we only had sanitary towels attached to belts. She had us all lined up in a row and she singled me out by twanging my sanitary belt in front of the whole class. I felt so humiliated.
Another time she dragged a girl across the hall floor by her hair.
What we had to put up with then. Thank goodness it's a lot better for our grandchildren.

I went to a Roman Catholic school run by nuns although I was not RC myself. Yes they did hit us but worse still was that I and other non RCs were left out of some of the non-religious activities including being in the choir.
When only 3 passed the 11-plus the two RCs were called out in assembly and given prizes. My 11-plus success and scholarship were never mentioned.

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!

I was a boarder at a Sacred Heart convent, the nuns were not malicious and we were not punished physically. I loved it there because I could relax.

It was rather different at my primary school in Scotland. I was not naughty, I was too frightened to be but if I made a mistake with arithmetic etc a leather belt was used on my hands.

I spent two terms at the local secondary school but the French teacher lost his temper and used the strap on me with such force I think it was then my parents decided to move me. I said de le instead of du! Nobody was ever gentle with a belt, giving a tap.

My dad's cousin taught me in junior school and applied the strap with a sadistic grin on her face a few times.

When I was at school one could have heard a mouse run across the floor we were all terrified.

I went to a Catholic primary school with many nuns as teachers as the convent was attached to the school. I think I was fortunate as I had strong parents who only had to intervene once when I told them the teacher had hit us with a ruler. I suppose prior to that it would have been a cane. I haven't felt the same about nuns since the stories of the awful cruelty at the Magdalen launderies.

Why is it that the Catholic nuns were so malicious? I too went to a Catholic grammar school, and well remember being told to stand up for 40 minutes in front of the class whilst the nun berated me for not putting down my pen immediately when told. The gym mistress was sadistic, leaving another girl balancing precariously on a gate because she had admitted to being afraid of the gate vault. They weren't happy until they had reduced you to tears. I think humiliation like this stays with you for the rest of your life.

The nuns taught us road safety by saying that if you crossed a road diagonally instead of walking straight across, it was a sin.

There have been lots of negative comments about Convent schools although I can honestly say my experience was quite the opposite. Yes, they were strict and discipline was important to them but I found little if any difference between the sisters and the lay mistresses. I stayed friends with one of the nuns long after I had left school.

When I was at primary school, a class trip was planned to Anglesey. It was quite expensive and as my parents were going through a particularly hard time financially, they genuinely could not afford the price. I was the only one in the class who couldn't go. I have never forgotten how that felt. I did not in any way blame my parents, but I have never forgotten that the school did nothing to help or even to make me feel better about being left behind.

I remember a geography teacher at secondary school who locked girls in a cupboard if they misbehaved!

While I know that this is a fairly light-hearted thread, the tales being told here are causing me a mix of tears and anger - and some laughs.

I have never been any good at swimming, for some reason I go down with the level of the water so although I could swim in the shallow end I ended up nearly drowning if I went into the deep end, something I have always done! When aged about 13 our PE teacher decided that all the poor swimmers should be able to swim a length so we had to try. She was supposed to hold the long pole in front of us as we swam along in case of difficulties. For some reason she didn't do this for me and as usual I went down in the deep end. I was trying desperately to get to the side but was failing badly. Luckily another pupil dived in and saved me. When I got out I gave the teacher a right mouthful and walked out to the cheers of the rest of the class. I told my mother what had happened when I got home and she said just wait and see what happens, (she never liked going into school about anything!). That teacher never said a wrong word to me again and I never did another swimming lesson.

I had two teachers who terrified me; one was my teacher when I was 8 he used to shout at us all the time and regularly sent the boys to be given the slipper! The corporal punishments were supposed to be recorded in a book in the head masters office but this beauty had an unofficial arrangement with another master to send the boys off the books! He used to give the ruler to girls and I had bleeding palms on one occasion for chatting in class!
The second was a stand in maths teacher when I was 12 who used to sarcastically humiliate us if we struggled and as maths was not my strong subject I lived in fear of him singling me out which happened only too frequently! He left me with a life long maths phobia!

Some awful stories here.

Amagram that’s appalling about the cupboard. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those girls became claustrophobic.

Your Anglesey trip episode was awful too. Surely there should have been some kind of contingency fund to cover something like that, or couldn’t the teachers have put their hands in their pockets for once? A sad story.

I remember a creepy maths teacher who would squash onto the chair with the girls with arms round our waists and then move his hand up and down - yuk. Then there was the science teacher who taped around my mouth and hair and then made me stand on the front bench because I was talking in class. Then there was the sewing teacher who rapped our knuckles with big cutting out scissors if we talked in class or our stitching wasn't neat enough. We've come a long way since those days.

Thank you, Bellanonna. There certainly are some appalling stories on this thread.

I have to say, I take great pleasure in seeing today what a lovely atmosphere there is in my GC's primary schools and how much they enjoy school.

A few years ago, I accompanied a gruff Russian professor who was in his 60s on a visit to an English primary school. He was moved almost to tears by the bright, informal classrooms filled with happy industrious children. Clearly a far cry from his own remembered experience!

I hated school. I remember the humiliation of not going on school trips because Mum didn't have the money. There were 5 of us and in those days Mum got an allowance from my Father which had to cover everything needed, food, clothes, household goods etc. He would never fork out for anything extra but that didn't stop him going to the pub every night. I remember being told by one teacher in primary school, I must have been about 7, that I couldn't rely on my looks to get me by! I had no idea what that meant. There were one or two teachers but the rest were the same as mentioned in the stories of others told here. Sadistic, mean or just couldn't care less. Very sad really.

Just thinking about some of the teachers I had makes my stomach churn. On reflection I reckon many of them had probably been damaged by the war and their behaviour was due to the experience. I loathed school, I was a square peg in a round hole and when in much later life I became a teacher myself, I made sure my own students were treated with kindness and respect. Guess what, it worked, my students , often for the first time in their lives succeeded.

my convent school days were lovely, the nuns were all very kind to us. One teacher, elocution and not a nun, knew that my dad was Polish, 1950s fought all through the war with uk, met a Dutch woman and settled in uk otherwise would have been shot by the russians, she had it in for me, a smiley quiet helpful 12 year old. She made much mock of my voice, liverpool and then gave everyone in the class a polo except for me, time and time again it happened. She destroyed my speaking in public confidence ever since, even to now. What a witch she was

I'd love to give her a slap craftyone and some of the others mentioned above.

I only remember one horrible teacher, she was our French teacher. Things got so bad that I was thrown out of class, our headmistress was very kind, gave me coffee and chocolate ginger biscuits. She said for the rest of the year I was to spend French lessons in the library studying whatever I chose, I chose French, when we took our mock GCEs I took the French exam and beat everyone else in the class!!!

Our doctor always knew when we had our weekly lesson with one vile female teacher in infant school as we would develop strange symptoms on that day. She was a horrible woman. My best friend went up to her many years later at a school reunion & told her exactly what she thought of her. I was pleased but I was still wary of her although she was just a wizened old lady by then & quite pathetic. Our deputy head at senior school was a nasty piece of work too. Never had nasty male teachers.

So many horror stories, what a can of worms I opened, so sorry ladies if it has opened up old wounds It's hard to believe teachers could be so incredibly cruel and expect their pupils not to be affected by it as adults. Its also beggars belief when you think how totally helpless we were once we were in their control, thank goodness children don't have to be in fear of their teachers now.

sassenach don't apologise. It's quite therapeutic to realise other people have gone through similar things.

I'm reading this & it's bringing back horrendous memories of the RC Primary school I went to. I was regularly caned, slippered, belted, rulered on my hands. I was also slapped on my thighs so hard that you could see every red hand mark. All by Nuns. Mum just said that I must have deserved it. The Priest told me I was 'a child of the devil' because I'd lied. You could go round to the church at lunchtime, but instead I used that oportunity to have fun to slide down a washing pole.

The nun followed up by telling me that by lieing there was a black stain on my soul that would never go away...like ink on a white dress. The same nun shut me in a cupboard for not eating the cabbage on my plate at lunchtime.

These nuns were Sisters of Mercy too. No comment. Another teacher told me time & time again that I'd never 'come to anything' at 9 yrs old. 20 yrs later I bumped into her in the Street. I hsd great pleasure in telling her that I had become a Primary School teacher.

The treatment by these viscious, vindictive, cruel bullies changed my life forever.