What is the most random school memory you have?

Being bullied

I remember a maths test in year 5 primary. I sat next to my cousin, Sheila, and we both got the same answers. Mr Hibbs kept us in at playtime to do the test again seated at opposite sides of the room. I got the same answers, Sheila didn’t. I also got kept in one playtime because I couldn’t get the hang of the five times table! Maths was never my strong point.

Such horrific stories of child cruelty, but the Nuns were something else, my late husband who was brought up Catholic told me dreadful things.

Sneaking into the art cupboard when teacher left the room, smearing copydex glue all over the palms of our hands then competing to try to peel it off in one piece. Strangely satisfying 😁

In my final year of primary school our teacher (male) decided we should wear t-shirt and our navy blue pants for PE. One girl refused point blank to do so. We were all shocked - in those days we didn't disobey teachers. Years later it occurred to me that she could very well have started her periods.

This is not a school memory but I remember a GP telling me that they had a theory that Dupuytren's Contractures in later life were exacerbated, or even caused, by having been hit repeatedly on the palm of the hand at school. This would account for the fact that Dupuytrens is more commonly found in men, as boys tended to be hit more often than girls.

With a ruler, I should have added.

Being whacked on the palm of my hand for eating a toffee in class when I was about 7 or 8. It hurt a lot.

This reminds me of the time I was hit with a ruler for the wrong sum but actually the answer book was misprinted and I have logged off maths ever since.

Another one - at the start of my 2nd year I noticed the names of the new kindergarten lot, beside their pegs in the cloakroom.

What a weird name - PEEN-lope!
It was quite a while before I actually heard anyone pronounce it!

I don’t know about ‘random’, but it’s still vivid.

Teacher asked whether anyone knew where to put an apostrophe.
Little Miss Know-All’s hand shot straight up. ‘We were playing with the boys…’

Teacher, immediately: ‘No! That is exactly where we DON’T put it!’

I’m still thankful for having had such a good teacher for such basics!

One of the most memorable days was when a toe rag boy brought some frogs into the classroom where we had a teacher with absolutely no teaching/communication/knowledge or any control over his classes.
The boy let them loose under the feet of the girls who began screaming, and the boy went around stamping on them. It was truly traumatic!
The teacher did nothing.

Charleygirl5

I lived in Scotland and leather straps on the hand were in frequent use. Most of the time I had done nothing to offend etc. At secondary school. for saying de le instead of du, the French teacher gave me 6 on the palm of each hand using his full strength. I tried not to cry but didn't manage it. Everybody was terrified of him.

I live in Scotland and I too got 6 of the belt aimed loosely at my palm/wrist by a sadistic Maths Teacher for getting my homework wrong because I didn't understand how to do it. It really stung, not just the pain, but because she still didn't explain how to do it. I went on to drop maths and do a basic O Level in Arithmetic.

JamesandJon33

My bag of aniseed balls burst in the middle of my 11+ exam, and rolled all over the classroom floor.

I love this one!

Well I hope Carol Bucket is reading this!

Carol Bucket stealing my comb on the first day at grammar school. I had come from a little private school and knew nobody. I remember going home in floods of tears, and my mother and I cycling down to the village shop to buy another.

When the scaffies (Scottish bin men) came to our rural primary school at playtime the older girls would surround them shrieking "Gie's a beardie!". This involved running around pursued by a pongy binman who'd rub his stubbly cheek on their's.
It was great fun. Would probably be in the Daily Mail now.

I’m appalled to read of the violence that was handed out to so many of you. What a bad example. There was no physical punishment at all at my school.

I couldn’t tell the time until I was about ten. One teacher, suspecting this, would send me to get the time from the big clock on the landing. I would wait until somebody passed me, tell them I couldn’t understand the Roman numerals, and they would tell me what time it was.

I remember that too. It was disgusting and I have never forgotten it. I only ever drink milk in tea or on cereal and always straight from the fridge now. I also remember the horrible stewed apricots for school dinners. It was years before I could face an apricot!

Our whole class [girls convent grammar] having to write 100 lines the night before G.C.E's started - except it wasn't a line - it was a paragraph and one I have never forgotten 55 years later, it was this;
Churlish and inconsiderate behaviour caused by a minority, inflicts on the majority a punishment that could easily have been avoided had the minority exercised a little self control and honesty.
And another punishment given by a prefect during detention for no doubt some other minor transgression, was to write an 800 word essay on the inside of a ping pong ball.
Those were the days.

Being whacked on the palm with a ruler for writing in the margin at 5 years old. Still makes me angry to think about it. It left me terrified of ever making a mistake and worried about going to school.

Talking to the boys over the gunnel wall and being in detention for it.

I remember at 11 in an RE lesson which we called SE as the teacher only talked about sex, I was desperate to go to the toilet with an upset stomach and sat in agony till the end of the lesson as I was afraid to ask to go to the toilet.

Having to stand up whilst the whole school was told I was the best reader in the school and wanting the floor to swallow me up as I was so shy!

I can’t remember who said about getting the bus aged 5, but round here children starting Reception aged 4 will get the bus if they live in the outlying villages.

At junior school in the 50's getting paid for picking rose hips.

In assembly the entire grammar school thought it was hilarious when the sports master said 'I gamble' while reading a list of sports teams.

A similar reaction followed after someone accidentally knocked over a fire extinguisher and set it off.