At our school we wore blazers & were supposed to wear matching caps but hardly anyone wore them despite the school going to great lengths to enforce the wearing of them.
One Friday at assembly it was announced that caps were no longer part of the official school uniform & must not be worn.
On the following Monday morning almost everyone turned up wearing a cap. 

Two of our classrooms were tired demountable (probably called something different in those days), joined together. You only had to sneeze & the building would move sideways an inch.

We organised at the end of the lesson for the two classes, when we put our chairs on the tables that the legs just stayed on the edge. 

We all tippy-toed out to the assembly in front, about a minute later as usual the teacher came out slamming the door behind. Every chair fell off the desks, it seemed like the building were collapsing.

Mike Harding wrote:

---

I am truely appalled that many of you seem to see the beating of children as something with an aspect of levity to it.

I see it purely as an act of bullying and brutality.

---

 I'm pretty sure the dismembering of school children on Sydney Northern Beaches came to a halt because the government protocol of torturing childing to within an inch of their life was going to cost more the the entire education budget.

The last case that I can remember was a parent who was a lawyer in a top legal firm. It was not cost effective to continue to disembowel school children any more.

Mine was an English all boys grammar school founded in 1520. Not religious, just a centuries old culture of "I had it done to me in the early years, now I'm in the upper years I can do it to others". The culture was bully or be bullied.

It provided me with the most miserable years of my life.   Think Tom Brown's Schooldays.

The bullying was rife & encouraged by the teaching staff of whom many were sadistic &/or willing to turn a blind eye.

'Wilfred' the size 10 plimsoll was the French masters weapon of choice when not throwing chalk or chalk dusters at students. Wilfred was for anyone achieving less than 50% in a french test.

The history teacher who would belt kids across the head with the thick, heavy cardboard tubes used for rolling maps on.

The Geography teacher who would sn igger when throwing my exercise books at me with 'fail' marks, knowing full well that his favourite students had thrown my books in a puddle or torn out my work.

The PE teacher who would watch us showering & who would slipper us if we refused to shower

The teaching staff as a group who turned a blind eye to a student having been 'crucified' with his arms tied behind his back by prefects, & hung on the coat hook rails in in a cloakroom & left. Found unconscious. Nothing was said. No-one held accountable. Same when one of the small number of boarders - a 12 year old, was dragged from his bed in the night & taken outside naked & had his head squeezed between railings & left. He lost toes to frostbite.

Even the better teachers had their moments. I was in first year, a 'sprog'. We were being taught how to write a letter by the English teacher. Homework was to write a letter. All the kids were giggling & joking about writing a 'love letter'. Yours truly was the only one stupid enough to actually do it. After the homework had been marked the teacher called everyone up to his desk one by one to get their work back. He left me until last. When my turn came, he made me get down on my knees & did all he could to make me look foolish in front of the class. He then made me crawl on hands & knees the whole length of the school, stopping at every single class room along the way to interrupt the classes, to 'introduce' me & my crime to the entire school class by class, until I reached the headmaster's office, whereupon, still on my hands & knees, had to knock on the door & when answered had to say "Please sir I have come to be caned", & got caned across my knuckles.

I lived several miles from the school & had to use the school bus to get to school & back each day. That day was the beginning of me regularly hitch hiking because the school bus became the most unsafe place to be. The scars from the darts thrown to embed themselves in my legs  and arms healed, but the scars from the steel capped boots are still on my shins today.

The need to constantly look over my shoulder to try to avoid the next blow saw me fail all of my exams at school, & I left before my 16th birthday. I was never safe. 

I wouldn't wish that schooling experience upon anyone, but I also know others who were there at the same time who share some memories but still claim it did them no harm & set them up for life. Mostly they were the ones who excelled academically or in Sport.

Me, I made my life in spite of the experience, my strength came from surviving on my own terms. There were others who didn't.

Not surprised that schools get burnt down.

Whenarewethere wrote:

---

Someone I used to work with went to a catholic school, primary grades. He never wanted to go into specifics, but he did say that the nuns were the cruelest people ever known to mankind.

---

Sister Mary Stigmata (The Penguin)

86GTS wrote:

---

A few more pranks that we used to get up to were shoving ice-cream sticks down the drinking fountain holes & breaking them off flush. Turn the water on & they squirted 20ft in the air or better still in someones face.

Removing the ink tube from a BIC biro & shooting rice through the tube. They made a good blow gun & were really accurate.

---

One parent teacher night my Mum & Dad met with a female trainee teacher that was teaching me.
She greeted them saying, " you're his Mother & you must be his Father".
My Dad quickly replied "I bloody well hope so".

Her cheeks turned fire engine red with embarrassment.