Comprehensive School Punishments

Browsing through the Corporal Punishment Archive I note that most of the accounts of school discipline relate to public shools and grammar schools. Like many people nowadays, I was educated in a comprehensive school and it was just as strict as those more elite educational institutions - if not stricter! It was a boys-only school, drawing pupils from a very wide catchment area and from all classes of society.

The headmaster had previously been a housemaster at a minor public school and he brought some of the traditional public school ethos with him. For example, uniform regulations were rigidly enforced, with compulsory cap wearing for everybody below the sixth form, and there was a house system with inter-house sports matches and competitions. The school cap was was a plain navy blue apart from a brightly coloured rear segment denoting a boy's school house. I was a member of Bentham House, so my cap bore a vivid yellow rear panel. My football shirt and socks were the same bright yellow.

Although the school was a relatively new comprehensive, the veneer of traditionalism made corporal punishment a natural part of the disciplinary framework. Boys were subject to corporal punishment by individual classroom teachers, given with a slipper, whilst more serious offenders would find themselves up before their housemaster for a caning. I had previously attended a junior school where there was no corporal punishment at all, so moving to the 'big school', with its regular slipperings and canings, came as a bit of a shock.

I suffered my first slippering early in my first term, when I was upbraided for a giggling fit in class. Laughter is contagious amongst schoolboys and when the boy sharing the desk with me started giggling I found it impossible not to join in.

'Right you two! See me at the end of the lesson!' the mathematics teacher barked. I knew all too well what this might mean and felt very frightened. I kept glancing at the clock as the minutes ticked by for the end of the lesson - it was the worst twenty minutes of my young life. My only hope was that we would be given lines or a detention - anything but a whacking, I prayed.

When the bell sounded for the end of the lesson my classmate Keith and I waited at our desk as everyone else departed for mid-morning break, chatting away merrily. 'Step out here, you two,' said Mr Braithwaite. 'What were you giggling about? Come on - share the joke!' I could hardly be expected to confess that we were laughing at a crude cartoon that my pal had made of 'Big Ears Braithwaite' or we would have been in even more trouble. 'Well - what was the joke?' 'Nothing sir,' we replied in unison.'Nothing eh? I wonder if you will find this funny?'

As he spoke those words, Mr Braithwaite pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out an enormous size eleven plimsol. I noticed that the shiny brown rubber sole was almost worn smooth at the 'business end'. The slipper was very like the one pictured on the 'Instruments' page in the CP Archive (reproduced below).

'Perhaps a dose of the slipper will teach you to behave yourself in my lessons.Who wants to go first?' Neither of us budged an inch, so Mr Braithwaite gestured towards my partner in crime, who happened to be standing closer to him.

'Bend over and touch your toes.' I watched as Keith did as he was ordered, reaching down to the toecaps of his black leather shoes with his trembling fingertips. Mr Braithwaite walked towards the nervous boy and folded up the hem of his school blazer so that his backside was left exposed and vulnerable. He then delivered two almighty whacks in quick succession which raised the dust from Keith's trouser seat and almost knocked him off balance.

'Get up!' As Keith stood up I noticed that there were tears forming in his eyes. He stood gingerly rubbing his bottom as I reluctantly took his place. As I have said, I had never been whacked before, either at home or school, so I was not really sure what to expect. However, I guessed that it would be very unpleasant.

The slipper landed hard across my backside and I felt a burning sensation, as if I had sat down on a bed of red hot coals. I desperately wanted to jump up and rub the pain away. The flexible slipper slammed down hard again, almost on the exact same spot, and the burning pain intensified to fever pitch. I was on the verge of tears as I got up and joined my friend: now two schoolboys stood nursing sore backsides. Needless to say, I received numerous other slipperings as my schooldays progressed, but it was that first dose that will always stick most sharply in my memory.

As I progressed through the school the slipperings became less frequent. Indeed, by the time a boy reached the senior forms he was very unlikely to be hauled out to the front of the class for a slippering: such rough and ready punishments were deemed to be more suitable for younger pupils. Where once a slippering would have been ordered you now received a 'punishment point', and when three of these black marks had been accumulated it was a case of report to your housemaster.

I can recall the numbing fear I suffered when I received my first such summons to the housemaster. For me the cane was an unknown quantity, but by all accounts it hurt even more than the slipper. As it turned out I was spared a swishing on that first occasion. Mr Gearey, my housemaster, was content to go through all my offences one by one, lecture me sternly about my beheviour, and let me off with a warning.

Having enjoyed this narrow escape I resolved to avoid trouble in future and I managed this until the long summer term of my fourth year. With just a fortnight to go before we broke up for the holidays I had somehow amassed two punishment points. You can imagine how carefully I trod with this sword of Damocles hanging over me: one more punishment point and I was for it! As it turned out, I received a third and fatal punishment point for something as relatively trivial as not wearing my school cap during a lunchtime visit to the sweet shop (how I cursed the prefect who reported me).

The impending caning was made worse by the way that I was kept waiting. The end of term was very near and I knew that Mr Gearey was very busy. In fact, I ventured to hope that perhaps my case had perhaps been overlooked. No such luck! Just a couple of days before the start of the holidays I found myself standing knock-kneed before my housemaster while he flexed a wicked looking cane, all the time opining just how much he disliked having to beat a boy. I was commanded to remove my blazer and bend over the back of a solid wooden chair. I closed my eyes and awaited the first stroke, hoping against hope that it would not hurt too much.

'Swish-Crack!' I have likened the pain of the slipper to sitting down on a bed of red hot coals. Well, that first stroke of the cane felt like a white hot wire had been laid across the tender flesh of my my poor backside. Mr Gearey had not told me how many I would be receiving, but surely it wouldn't be the famous 'six of the best' of school stories: that would be totally unendurable...

'Swish-Crack!' Another line of fire erupted across my seat, just below the first. 'Swish-Crack!' This one crossed the first two at an angle, tripling the searing pain. 'Swish-Crack!' It was now all too much to bear and I let out a yelp of genuine anguish.

'I expect you've had enough.' 'Y-yes sir.' 'Well, stay out of trouble next term or you'll be back here for six of the best.' As I stood up I stole a glance at Mr Gearey's cane. It seemed amazing that such a flimsy looking rod could produce such an agonising sting.

Looking back on my schooldays I have to conclude that the disciplinary system was generally fair and effective. I certainly deserved the slipperings and canings I received. Considering the size of the school and the fact that much of its intake came from the 'wrong side of the tracks', it was remarkably well ordered. In general, teachers were able to get on with the job of teaching without expending all their energy maintaining order. Boys knew where the line was drawn: overstep that line and you suffered the consequences. Just as important, the headmaster and his staff were backed up by the parents. There was no point complaining to your parents that you had been whacked at school - you would only get into even more trouble at home.

I note that Mr Ian Duncan Smith, one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, is a believer in the efficacy of the school cane. My own experience tells me that he is right: as any schoolboy of my own era would have been forced to admit if he was being honest, corporal punishment is both a great deterrent to misbehaviour and an excellent spur to hard work.

Roger T, Bristol