Stupid school rules/things you got told off for at school

moon man said:
We were banned from making kung fu type metal throwing stars in metal work and chucking them at the woodern clad classroom, damn health and safety pft
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Schools always loved to ban things.

Banned from playing Gladiators gauntlet. Banned from playing bulldog on concrete. Banned from playing Power Rangers. Normally because some kid ended up breaking something.
 
Not at school but at college they used to make a big thing about the fact that none of us were qualified computer technicians. We would always get shouted at like children for things like taking the ball out of the mouse get the crud out of it (back in the late 90s before optical/laser mice), or for loading paper in the printer because "That is a technicians job and you are not a qualified technician!".
 
During my year 6 (final year) of primary school, we had a class gerbil. One day we came in and he died on his feeding bowl. As my desk looked at the cage, I fainted. Teacher told me off for fainting. How many other 11 year olds would have reacted in the same manner as me?
 
I got detention for climbing to the top of the climbing ropes in the gym and then walking across the beam at the top.

I thought it was a bit harsh.

He should have given detention to the weaklings who failed the climbing instead.
 
cheesefest, are you working through a long list of things to complain about or are you just naturally inspired with ideas for new grievances every day?

At school I normally got into trouble for distracting those less able than myself and not remembering that there is a time and place for humour (to quote my school reports). Had a few arguments with some teachers when they spouted nonsense or came out with trite phrases. At primary school there was one teacher who's catch all response seemed to be "Life isn't fair" who took great exception to my pointing out that it never will be if people can use excuses like that to justify their actions. I can't recall having that many formal detentions (maybe I've blanked them out?) although I did get a blatantly unfair one (in my view at the time) for playfully tapping a classmate with a rounders bat, which was somewhat exaggerated in his retelling of the event to authorities. Oh, and another for a prank involving making a loud bang in the school hall.
 
After a couple of windows in the art block were broken we were banned from taking our Gats in (still have mine too, it's currently sat in my desk drawer).
 
No smoking is a not a stupid rule, no one should smoke, its a filthy habit that should stomped out as soon as possible in kids.
 
Malevolence said:
After a couple of windows in the art block were broken we were banned from taking our Gats in (still have mine too, it's currently sat in my desk drawer).
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Gats? What was it, a girl school? :D

I had a Webley Hurricane .22 which could do some serious damage, but I was never mad enough to take it to school.
 
Mr Badger said:
Gats? What was it, a girl school? :D

I had a Webley Hurricane .22 which could do some serious damage, but I was never mad enough to take it to school.
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:(:D:(

We weren't allowed to take 'proper' air weapons in (had a BSA Scorpion myself), so the Gat it was. The local hardware store made a killing.
 
cheesefest said:
During my year 6 (final year) of primary school, we had a class gerbil. One day we came in and he died on his feeding bowl. As my desk looked at the cage, I fainted. Teacher told me off for fainting. How many other 11 year olds would have reacted in the same manner as me?
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Frankly I can recollect none at all, you do seem a little, err, sensitive ;)
At sixteen my father told me a tenant had died in the week, in bed, and the body, being in the summer, had vented. He just said "It's smelly and messy in there, but the body has been taken away and the bed needs getting downstairs and burning whilst the other tenants are out. I'd have asked your mother to help but you know what she's like for fits of the bloody vapours. The doctor looked like he might throw up before he even got inside the room, so no point in asking him. It's down to us son. Stiff upper lip, gotta be done" And it was... Spent the next month telling all my mates about it, you know how kids are... Gerbil indeed.

As for silly rules I don't really recall any, we were expected to behave like young gentlemen, and if we didn't detention was backed up by a good beating, which I think only one person in my time there went back for more of :) It was at a time when safe spaces and teachers walking on eggshells were far off in the future, thank God.
 
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  • We weren't allowed to wear coats indoors. On any standard day I could accept this, but not on non-uniform day, where I had paid money to Comic Relief or whatever to wear what I wanted. We had these freezing mobile classrooms and changing room block so I took advantage of any opportunity to wear a coat. Still believe it was unfair to ban coats when you have paid to wear clothing of your choice.
  • The RE teacher had this system whereby however many minutes you were late for his class he would add on at the end, eating into your going home time / break time. This was annoying when you had the previous lesson in a completely different building, across a main road where you had to wait for traffic lights in order to cross etc. His lessons were also in a chapel up a steep flight of stairs. So you'd arrive completely knackered from sprinting hundreds of yards to get there and then climbing up the stairs, only to be held back. The logistics were a shambles, they needed to allow more time for commuting or prevent such scenarios where you had to travel long distances between adjacently timed lessons.
  • At the end of assembly one class would be 'randomly' held back for an inspection, which consisted of having shiny shoes, a tie with your name in it (to prevent borrowing of ties) and your Hymn book. Failure to present all three would result in lunchtime chores, which basically meant giving up half your lunch break to run errands for the head of lower school, such as going to fetch someone from a few years above (good luck with that as an eleven year old meekly peeking into a year 4 classroom at lunchtime in search of some bully).
  • Doing homework in school was banned in years 7-11 but allowed in years 12-13. This made no sense to me at all because in the sixth form there was less need to use your lunch/break times to do work (given you were older so had more time in the evenings before bed, you had free periods you could work in, you were doing less subjects, your homework had longer deadlines etc etc)
  • One Maths teacher - who to be fair wasn't bad at explaining maths - was very petty about presentation, like you had to draw a line exactly down the middle of each page to separate it into two sections, each question number had to have a circle round it, answers must be underlined etc etc. He'd mark you down for not following these rules even if you had perfect answers. However there were some questions where this approach was suboptimal e.g. if you needed to draw a graph then splitting the page didn't make sense because the graph would be all squashed up. I got told off for following his instructions to the letter which he'd been bashing people with for weeks.
 
Not so much stupid rules but when I was in junior school, in the 1970s, I would get told off in the dining hall as I use a fork in my right hand and knife in my left. I got told off quite a few lunchtimes over my early school life.
 
ElliorR said:
Not so much stupid rules but when I was in junior school, in the 1970s, I would get told off in the dining hall as I use a fork in my right hand and knife in my left. I got told off quite a few lunchtimes over my early school life.
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Did you fix that? I still haven't.
 
The only one that comes to mind is they had these cards that get stamped for attendance instead of using their perfectly good electronic attendance system. Those who got paid EMA (£30/week) got paid based on these, but everyone had to complete them. I didn't get paid EMA and soon got annoyed about having to go out my way to hand them in so stopped. Those who did hand them in but had gaps or forged them got told off in assembly.
 
@HangTime omg. I had something similar with my maths teacher. We had to write in black and underline in red twice the date and page number of text book I’m working from. My friend got told off for using the Bic pen that has 4 inks (which I use for work as if one colour runs out, have three others to fall back on) even though he’s doing the right things.
 
At primary school I was bullied a lot by this one person, no idea why even now.

During the summer months we weren't allowed indoors during breaks and lunches so that meant also eating your lunch at the picnic tables in the playground.

On one particular day the guy that bullied me relentlessly grabbed my lunchbox, and threw everything on the floor and stamped on it and then tipped my drink out as well. One of the dinner ladies saw it happen and took me inside to get something from the kitchens so I wouldn't go without any lunch, she then reported it to the guys teacher.

Rather than speaking to the guy that did it and punishing him, the teacher decided that nobody would do what he did for no reason and that I must have provoked him.

One of the rules we had at the school was that all pupils "must tell the *insert school name* truth". In principal this rule is a great rule for a primary school as it is designed to discourage lying. In practice, it just ends up being that regardless of what the truth actually is if it doesn't match what a teacher feels is the truth then you must be lying.

I refused to say that I had provoke the guy, as I hadn't, I had just sat down less than a minute beforehand, dinner lady also said the same and also pointed out that I was constantly getting hassle from this guy but it just fell on deaf ears and the teacher said he would keep me back after school until I told the truth.

Turns out that the teacher didn't let my parents know that I was being kept back after school, possibly because he thought I would cave to his warped version of events. School day finished at 3pm and I would usually walk home in my own (Year 5 and only a 10 minute walk home).

By half 3 when I hadn't turned up at home my Dad came out looking for me, and when he got to the school saw me sat in the classroom with this teacher still trying to convince me to tell the truth. Dad barges into the classroom and blows his stack at the teacher asking him what the hell he was playing at keeping me back after school especially after not informing my parents that it was happening, teacher tells him it's because I'm refusing to tell the truth. So my Dad asked me to explain what had happened, as soon as I started talking the teacher kept trying to cut me off and then got really arsey with my Dad when he told him to shut the **** up as he was already in enough trouble as it was.

Anyway my Dad took me home and asked which dinner lady it was that helped so told him, this dinner lady lived 5 doors up from us and also worked with my Dad for her other job.

Dad goes up to her house and speaks to her about it and between them they go to the head and the board of governors over the way I was treated. The rest of that year a supply teacher took over and it was announced at the end of the year that the teacher in question would not be returning to teach at the school. There was also a shake up of the rules the following year with the truth rule removed completely as the governor's felt it was too open for abuse.

TL;DR I get bullied and have lunch destroyed, teacher assumes I must have provoked and invokes school rule about always telling the "truth" even with witnesses co firming my story. Teacher keeps me back after school as I wouldn't back down. Teacher ultimately gets sacked.
 
In the 80's, as a non-religious person being forced, upon punishments ranging from detention, suspension or expulsion for non-compliance, to sing hymns and pray out loud during school assembley so the teachers could hear us.

One kid in my year was expelled as he decided to protest disruptively so this wasn't an idle threat, whilst I got suspended three times for staying silent, driving my "do what the teachers say" parents loopy with my refusal to bend the knee. I told everyone upto the headmaster that I'm more than happy to attend but that I felt it disrespectful to sing/pray to something I didn't believe in and that I treated being forced as an attempt at religious indoctrination, which got me my first suspension :D

It wasn't even a CofE school, just a basic council run high school.
 
I once took a fishing catapult into school.

One of the 'bad lads' said he'd bring some ball bearings in and we could fire them into the grave yard.

Instead he only went and grassed me up to the form tutor and I got in trouble, I didnt even use it!
 
I once new a girl in secondary school who got told off for farting...I mean it did proper hum but I doubt it was against any real rule. Think she got detention lol
 
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