In my senior school, if you were really naughty, you could be sent to to the adjacent primary school for corporal punishment. Did anyone else have that?
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Im sure I read somewhere the reverse happening. If you misbehaved in primary school you were sent to the attached secondary school for the cane. That would seem to make more sense than a senior being sent to the primary school I would have thought
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A quite fascinating contribution from you, thank you. I, and I have no doubt many other readers, would be most interested to hear of what happened in such cases.
Who was sent to the primary school for punishment, boys, girls or both please? What sort of corporal punishments were used at the primary school that were sufficiently severe for what you term ‘really naughty’ pupils but were not available in the senior school? Who in the primary school applied these punishments, and were there any special circumstances surrounding such application?
For instance I guess the humiliation and indignity of being caned in front of a primary school assembly could conceivably be held to be extra punitive for senior school pupils. It is however hard to envisage this actually being used, not least because of the possible adverse effects on the young children witnessing the punishment and who were in no way culpable.
It would also be most interesting to know something of the nature of the schools involved, state, private, church managed etc., and also the where and the when if you feel able to provide such information. There is absolutely no need to name the schools or identify the locality and period involved with precision, but a general picture is most helpful.
I can’t recall encountering anything of this nature previously, though where SCP was concerned the spectrum even just within the UK was very diverse indeed and few, if indeed any, can claim to have encountered everything that occurred.
I do recall a case here where a contributor claimed that while a pupil in a primary school for boys in the 1950s (I think) he was taken to the physically separate but adjacent primary school for girls to be punished after he had inadvertently thrown a snowball containing a stone or ice at one of the girls and slightly injured her.
He alleged that he was given 8 (I think) strokes of the cane on the bare bottom by the headmistress of the girls’ school, the punishment being administered in front of some of the classes from the girls’ school.. Alas I cannot presently link the account due to problems I have with the Forum’s search engine.
I hope very much that you will find it possible to let us know more about the activities you report. It is certainly a most intriguing case.
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Hi Nechmark4, I have not heard of this before. The closest thing to it, was at the first Primary School I attended were older children within the school sent to my reception class teacher to be punished, but they would go off into another room. Thankfully, I wasn’t sent to the Headmistress at Primary School, all the SCP I received was at the hands of class room teachers. Unfortunately did have to present myself to the Headmaster at Secondary School, and he didn’t need any help in administering SCP.
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When corporal punishment was being restricted, there was talk of their being “caning schools” and “non-caning schools”; and someone proposed that children at “non-caning schools” might be sent to the nearest “caning school” for punishment if their parents agreed.
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Now you mention it I have a vague memory of something similar. Sadly I cannot for the life of me recollect where I saw it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we both saw the same source. Can you perchance recall where you encountered it please?
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Hi, Beanokid and A_L. In 1986, when politicians were discussing the future of corporal punishment in schools, there was quite a lot of nonsense said in parliament. One option was to allow individual schools to decide whether they would continue with it or not, as parents ‘had a choice of school’, and so could avoid their kids getting caned. This sounds like the sort of thing that London politicians would say, because they think that just because they have a choice of secondary school in their area, that people living in less populated areas do as well (my area had three secondary schools; Grammar, Catholic or Secondary Modern – so effectively no choice!). This idea was ridiculed and shot down, as it would have meant that schools that continued with it would still have some children whose parents objected, and politicians had already said they didn’t want a two-tier regime in schools where some kids would be caned and others not for the same transgression. There is quite a lot of mention of this in the Hansard Report: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/jul/22/abolition-of-corporal-punishment
I can’t remember any reference to someone studying in a non-caning school visiting another school to receive a whacking, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some (city centre) MPs assume that all schools are near enough to another one to make this practicable, and it would fit with the silliness that was talked about that subject at the time.
I must admit I can’t really imagine turning up at the reception of another school requesting to be caned because mine didn’t allow it. Maybe a nice thought if you are into that sort of thing?
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And a most interesting link, thank you. Your very relevant comments about London politicians certainly register! The very same political class who today think public transport is the solution to private car ownership because where they live you can go from anywhere to anywhere on public transport with no more than a 15 minute wait 24/7 and nobody needs a car.
Having looked at your Hansard link I am pretty sure I am thinking of something said (or reported in the media as said) at the time that debate was ongoing.
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Headmaster: This is disgraceful Another_Lurker! Your mock A-level performance is nothing short of scandalous! An average of 15% when we were predicting Scholarship level performance to your intended university! You have let your teachers down and you have let the school down! Until the beginning of this term I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I would have caned you severely without hesitation. However now that I have decided to forego the cane following the decision by the prefects to do likewise that option is no longer available to me.
Another_Lurker, who has spent his school career avoiding SCP, for the most part successfully, looks relieved. However ……..
Headmaster continues: But fortunately Miss ******** at ********** (names a young and reputedly very strict new headmistress and the nearby girls’ school over which she now presides) has recently re-introduced the cane and thanks to the excellent relationship between our two schools I have been able to arrange for you to be dealt with there. Two of her prefects will attend here at start of school tomorrow to escort you round to ********** and Miss ******** will cane you in front of the morning assembly there. She feels it will make an excellent point to her pupils regarding her new regime there. That’s all I have to say about your appalling behaviour. Just be very thankful that I am not expelling you!
Hmm, it has capabilities, as a well known landscape gardener is reputed to have said of his prospective clients’ estates! If only! But alas it does not compute. Following my happily relatively successful academic recovery in the real A-levels and departure from the school, not only did a few years elapse before first the prefects and then the headmaster abandoned the cane, but also as far as I am aware none of the local girls’ schools had SCP. ?. But then, as previously mentioned, a contributor here did claim that something quite similar happened to him, albeit at junior school. AND he got it on the bare, allegedly!
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For the benefit of our newer readers, as well as providing superb on-topic material, expert Mathematical advice and a Christmas Quiz which until his retirement a year or two ago regularly defeated the Forum’s finest, Alan Turing has long specialised in alternative endings which abruptly deflate my little excursions into wishful thinking fantasy.
His original effort in this area involved satirising my literary master work in one of the once popular “Caned or fined: You decide” type threads which once upon a time offered some relief from the then heavily intellectual nature of the Forum when the pace relaxed a little around Christmas time. Naturally having once aspired to be an accountant I had chosen the cane rather than paying the fine, but in Alan Turing‘s version the charming but very strict and dedicated to duty young police women dealing with my speeding offence were transformed into a rather bored and distinctly disgruntled male police sergeant and constable. ?
Encouraged by Alan Turing my fellow Photoshop user misuser, the sadly now absent for many years JformerlyJethro, then published a scurrilous graphic utilising the actual face of the juvenile Another_Lurker superimposed on a bare bottomed figure being flagellated by a scantily dressed US policewoman whose baton had been replaced by a large cane. It was fashionable at the time to publish one’s old school photographs and I had foolishly utilised one of mine in a previous post.
Despite the tempting offer by one of our then several lady contributors to hire the police woman outfit and make JformerlyJethro‘s illustration a reality, after such treachery by two trusted and admired fellow contributors I was rendered deeply, deeply inconsolable and stopped posting – for at least 30 minutes!