School stories

[scottsdad]

There is a story I heard from my pal's dad, who was on the School Board. As it's at the very least second hand it the truth might be a step or two away from it, but this is what I was told. The inspectors were in, and the headteacher, Mr Strang, was showing them around. He was talking to them, emphasising the values he was trying to instil in the pupils. He insisted on taking them to the boy's toilets and showed them the graffiti on the wall. One of the inspectors asked why he was showing them this. He pointed at it again.

Mr Strang Is A b*****d written in bright red pen. 

"See," he said. "Mr Strang. Respect. One of our values."

[OSP]

On 26/08/2021 at 10:14, Miguel Sanchez said:

No fucking chance did my school have a debating team  

Think it lasted for about 5 minutes to be fair. Still reckon it was just a teachers ploy to get some fit looking birds on the trip.

IIRC they "qualified" for the finals by default when Renfrew High's team didn't turn up for the qualifier debate.

[scottsdad]

Our school had a swimming team that lasted about 5 minutes as well. I was in a local swimming club - easily the worst swimmer there - so I was drafted into the school club. There was a tournament against other schools in Stirling, I went along with my dad. One other boy from my school there, and no teacher. Other schools came in matching trunks and goggles with a team of teachers and coaches. 

Got utterly horsed, came last. But for me the biggest drama of the night was trying to calm my old man down - he was all for "finding" the PE teacher who didn't show up and having a few words. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

3 hours ago, OSP said:

Think it lasted for about 5 minutes to be fair. Still reckon it was just a teachers ploy to get some fit looking birds on the trip.

IIRC they "qualified" for the finals by default when Renfrew High's team didn't turn up for the qualifier debate.

Must've been after my time then. What a regional event that must have been.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Miguel Sanchez

[ICTChris]

This just popped into my head as something that happened in my primary school. There was an older kid who liked playing “war” he used to get loads of younger kids together and form two teams and play pretend war games, like one side had to be Germany and the other Britain and Wes reanact world war 2. The teachers didn’t like it, I assume too violent, so one day the headmaster took the kid out of class and took him into every classroom one by one and stood him at the front and told everyone that we weren’t allowed to play with him at break time. Bear in mind the kid was about ten when this was done, what a horrible thing to do.

Anothet time the school houses had a football tournament, it was around the 1990 World Cup. Of course, we all played 11 a side on a full sized pitch, despite everyone being a tiny child. Anyway, in one game my team scored, my mate actually scored it, and to celebrate he did a forward roll. When the headteacher saw him do this, he stopped the game and abandoned the tournament. Everyone sent back inside, game over, so outraged was he that someone celebrated a goal.

Strange people.

[Thorongil]

6 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

This just popped into my head as something that happened in my primary school. There was an older kid who liked playing “war” he used to get loads of younger kids together and form two teams and play pretend war games, like one side had to be Germany and the other Britain and Wes reanact world war 2. The teachers didn’t like it, I assume too violent, so one day the headmaster took the kid out of class and took him into every classroom one by one and stood him at the front and told everyone that we weren’t allowed to play with him at break time. Bear in mind the kid was about ten when this was done, what a horrible thing to do.

Anothet time the school houses had a football tournament, it was around the 1990 World Cup. Of course, we all played 11 a side on a full sized pitch, despite everyone being a tiny child. Anyway, in one game my team scored, my mate actually scored it, and to celebrate he did a forward roll. When the headteacher saw him do this, he stopped the game and abandoned the tournament. Everyone sent back inside, game over, so outraged was he that someone celebrated a goal.

Strange people.

It’s good how much things have changed. Teachers used to be able to get away with so much. Parents were scared to challenge them, possibly due to having grown up being battered by teachers themselves. 
 

If a teacher did anything like that to any of my children I’d make that teacher’s life a misery in all kinds of practical achievable ways. If it was a male teacher I would probably threaten them with violence. 

[DAFC.]

I was brought up Catholic and therefore attended Catholic schools. Unsure if it is just me, but under no circumstances whatsoever, were we allowed to play football out in the yard. Surely this isn't normal? Can any other people that had a Catholic education say the same? We had school teams of course, just not allowed to have a kick-about at break or lunch. We also couldn't play football in PE. It was always gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, tag rugby or some other shite. 

[Rugster]

18 minutes ago, DAFC. said:

I was brought up Catholic and therefore attended Catholic schools. Unsure if it is just me, but under no circumstances whatsoever, were we allowed to play football out in the yard. Surely this isn't normal? Can any other people that had a Catholic education say the same? We had school teams of course, just not allowed to have a kick-about at break or lunch. We also couldn't play football in PE. It was always gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, tag rugby or some other shite. 

We weren’t allowed in the yard which was enclosed by buildings all around but that was only because of the high chance of “accidentally” smashing windows. We could go and play on the football pitches at break no problem. If you couldn’t be arsed traipsing over there then we used to play in the yard using a squashed can of irn bru which not only wasn’t banned, but teachers, including the heidie would regularly stop to watch the game. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

The day Andy Russell jumped out the window of Mr Pyabs chemistry class then proceeded to run along the Y floor roof and spark up a Benny Hedgehog will live long in the memory.

Went on to manage the Elgin Cinema as well (possibly still does).  Mentalist. 

[thistledo]

My school had a swimming pool, vague memory of it not being too bad actually. Although there was an occasion where we all came out the changing rooms lined up ready to jump in and one of the lassies shrieked at this wee furry dead thing in the pool. Turned out to be a dead rat, the PE teacher grabbed one of the pool cleaning nets, scooped it out and was like "right in you's get" more or less met with a resounding "are you having a laugh!" After a short debate swimming class was cancelled and pool was closed for cleaning. 

Given the amount of chlorine always present it's a miracle we survived swimming in it, never mind a rat, so I'm sure it would have been fine to carry on. Although I don't know anything about the ratio of diseases carried by rats to the volume of chlorine treated water for it to be safe.  

[tamthebam]

For some strange reason my mate Dave decided to start collecting the pull out pins on fire extinguishers. So we pulled all the pins out the school fire extinguishers. I even got Dave a souvenir from my holiday, nicking a pin from the Marks and Spencer in Weston-Super-Mare.

The biology teacher noticed the pins were missing from the extinguisher next to his classroom and for some reason, perhaps to justify getting a replacement, decided to let it off in the playground. It was a CO2 so quite fun to watch when you were a bored schoolboy 

Something in the back of my mind says we got a lecture on fire safety at assembly and "please tell us who is nicking the pins" but no-one grassed up Dave of course.

[Arthur daley]

4 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

For some strange reason my mate Dave decided to start collecting the pull out pins on fire extinguishers. So we pulled all the pins out the school fire extinguishers. I even got Dave a souvenir from my holiday, nicking a pin from the Marks and Spencer in Weston-Super-Mare.

The biology teacher noticed the pins were missing from the extinguisher next to his classroom and for some reason, perhaps to justify getting a replacement, decided to let it off in the playground. It was a CO2 so quite fun to watch when you were a bored schoolboy 

Something in the back of my mind says we got a lecture on fire safety at assembly and "please tell us who is nicking the pins" but no-one grassed up Dave of course.

Be unlucky if there was a fire while waiting for the replacements to arrive . 

[tamthebam]

6 minutes ago, Arthur daley said:

Be unlucky if there was a fire while waiting for the replacements to arrive . 

I've just remembered that my other mate Chris told me that he and Dave had been given the job of shifting a table between classrooms.

Dave passed a fire alarm and said "what happens if I tap it". He tapped the alarm with his index finger and the glass didn't break but it did touch the alarm button and the fire alarm went off.

Dave and Chris both say "oh f**k". Full school evacuation and Dave and Chris lined up outside at the muster point with everyone else trying to look innocent.

I don't think Dave ever did time for wilful fire raising when he left school...

 

[milton75]

On 26/08/2021 at 11:57, Archie McSquackle said:

In my time, French class was all about La Famille Garnier - (a family in a Paris suburb, Creteil maybe). For some reason the only thing that sticks in my mind is when they had a bunch of removal men and one of them shouting "Hey Thierry " and the other other grumpy bugger responding "Bof".

I'm not aware of our school having any nonces but we did have an art teacher who would disappear into a cupboard and come back a wee while later smelling of whisky.

I think we also had those books. I have painful memories of tapes that went with them. "Ey 'Enry, passez-moi le sucre". "Bof". etc. Utter shite.

On 26/08/2021 at 12:17, hk blues said:

I've read a fair few posts here about folk disappearing into cupboards, sometimes more than 1 person.  You folk must have had classes with some size of cupboards compared to what we had.  

 

On 26/08/2021 at 14:12, BFTD said:

Aye, big walk-in affairs lined with shelves, even in the portacabins. I've been in smaller flats in London.

The shelves were generally full of elderly textbooks that nobody had got around to dumping yet, and there was usually an unused TV & VCR bought in the early Eighties on a wheeled stand tucked away at the back. Nothing of any use, not that it stopped the teachers acting suspicious about keeping them locked (presumably to hide their bottles, according to what others have posted).

Yep, as Dave says, giant big things. You would generally get one at the end of each class and they would take up half the width of the class a piece, slotted against each other.
I remember a few highlights of those cupboards:

1) My art teacher (wid) used her cupboard as a sanctuary for teachers that felt cast out by the staffroom imposing a smoking ban. This would be around '92  guess. Was always entertaining going into her class and having 5 or 6 teachers scuttling out her cupboard tying not to make eye contact with your, all reeking.

2) Our resident alki was our Physics teacher. Bit of a maniac and sadly I think there was a horrible story behind it. Can recall what, but have a feeling his daughter had died or something. That said, at the time sympathy for the c--t was in short supply as he was also a massive racist and frequently singled out the only black kid (it was the countryside) in our year for abuse. All this did, particularly given that the kid in question was a) sound and b) cheeky and not shy of giving some back, was turn the class massively against him and it became a war of attrition. I sat beside the boy who dared not to be white and as a result I received one of those giant blackboard dusters to the face on one occasion, which had been hurled at my neighbour.
The teacher in question also drunkenly brought his dog to school one day and it was locked in his supply cupboard while he was escorted home. I think his poor wife had to come fetch it.

3) In one of the Maths huts (judging by this thread everyone seemed to have that class in huts) a guy called Martin hid in the supply cupboard for most of a double-period then wandered out, performatively stretching and yawning, and pretending he had been asleep. This made the teacher cry. He made this particular teacher cry quite often, and the head of the department would often burst furiously into the room to find out what the uproar was this time. He was the only one in the bank of four rooms that could control his classes but he was always firefighting nonsense in the other rooms. The stuff I remember that caused this were sellotaping blown-up condoms to teacher's skirt as she passed, using fountain pens to see how much ink we could flick on her desk/whiteboard until she noticed a pool, pushing a portable heater face against the wall until it started smoking and everyone had to get out, everyone pretending to have gone deaf until a meltdown happened, going in early and stealing all the chairs and putting them behind a gardening shed, swapping all the teacher's desk drawers around between the different classes, swapping the whiteboard markers for permanent markers, etc. etc. All funny at the time but remembering now brings up feelings of guilt and c--tishness.

[Mark Connolly]

6 minutes ago, milton75 said:

All funny at the time but remembering now brings up feelings of guilt and c--tishness.

[IrishBhoy]

Half way through 4th year we had a boy from Wales appear at our school after his family had moved up here. He wasn’t the brightest but the school didn’t know what classes to put him in at that stage of the year, so they just stuck him in all the highest/credit classes. It was obvious he wasn’t going to pass any credit exams, but the teachers didn’t really pay him much attention as he was going to be leaving at the end of 4th year.
 

He was sitting above me in the auditorium while we were doing our German language exam, and after a few minutes he was led outside by an invigilator and didn’t reappear. Once we finished we found out he had written his full German essay on his arms, from the shoulders down to his wrists. The only problem was he was wearing a short sleeve shirt. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by IrishBhoy

[Funky Nosejob]

Our primary school playground had a 12 foot wire fence at the end, presumably to stop wayward footballs flying onto the adjoining road.

One snowy winter morning we spent our entire break time perfecting the best possible slide, using the fence as a safety net/crash barrier. Everyone was having a fantastic time.

The headmaster thought otherwise and instructed the janitor to put salt down between break time and lunchtime, but never thought to mention it to the children.

We all rushed out at lunchtime to continue our sliding activities. First kid down hit the salted patch, went face first into the fence and broke his arm.

Dickhead of a headmaster tried to put the blame on us.

[Gordon EF]

4 hours ago, milton75 said:

I think we also had those books. I have painful memories of tapes that went with them. "Ey 'Enry, passez-moi le sucre". "Bof". etc. Utter shite.

We had a rack full of those books at the back of the French class. Whenever the teacher couldn't be arsed teaching, she just told us to read them. One day, one of my pals decided to go absolutely full tilt graffitiing one book with the filthiest stuff he could think of. Bearing in mind we were about 12 it was all stuff like drawing a speech bubble from some woman's mouth and asking the shop keeper to "Lick my cheesy m1nge".

He went at this for about half an hour, just filling every page with it. Everyone else at the table was in stitches at it. Near the end of the class, the teacher called him to the front and to bring the book with him. She'd been watching him do it all class. He got sent to the head of department's office where he was basically given a lecture about what a pervert he was. Was absolutely hilarious seeing how white he turned when he was asked to bring the book out to the front.

Happy times.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Gordon EF

[Arthur daley]

45 minutes ago, Funky Nosejob said:

First kid down hit the salted patch, went face first into the fence 

at least your user name remembers that young child

[Funky Nosejob]

1 minute ago, Arthur daley said:

at least your user name remembers that young child

More related to my water-polo playing days.