An article in the ‘Radio Times’ 14-20 August begins:

‘Last year, ‘That’ll Teach ‘Em’ recreated a 1950s grammar school, home to the educational elite who had passed the 11-plus exam, and watched as today’s teenagers adapted to its teaching methods and curriculum. Now the series returns, re-creating a 1960s secondary modern, where 70 per cent of pupils who’d failed the 11-plus spent their days.’

At the end of the page are short paragraphs on Uniform, Studies, Teaching, Exams and the following – Discipline:

‘Corporal punishment was used, involving the cane or a ruler across the hand (not in TTE, obviously). Pupils also could be separated from their classmates for disruptive behaviour.’

Couldn’t the BBC find amongst its many hacks one who could get the facts right?

I have seen the advert for the series, did the girls really wear gingham dresses like that? they look like primary school or australian school uniforms, I thought this was the era of the last days of the gymslip and begining of the pleated netball type school skirt era, have they got it wrong?

Yes, they have got it right.

I started comprehensive school in 1970 and the girls wore Navy pinafore dresses or a navy pleated skirt, school knickers and white knee or ankle socks, even in their final year. If tights were worn, in winter, they had to be of the thick ribbed type. A white or blue blouse and tie was worn, with a blazer.

Pupils had a proper satchel. Sensible shoes (mary Janes) were worn. The school enforced the uniform policy. Skirts had to be above the knee and no more than 4 inches above the knee.

In summer, they wore summer gingham dresses or candy striped dresses. The older girls got to design and make their own in needlework (my wife still has hers, I think).

The school had prefects, with a head boy and head girl.

Corporal punishment was in existence, with the cane for boys being used, and girls were caned by a female member of staff. Girls were more commonly smacked across the back of the legs, which displayed a visible hand mark beneath the hem of the skirt. I remember this clearly as a first year(age 11), lining up in the lunch queue, the prefect supervising us had two very red hand marks on the back of the thigh, above her knee socks and beneath the hem of the skirt.

Later on, fashion dictated that the style change for the older pupils, with straight and pencil skirts becoming the norm, over the knee, and plain tights being allowed. But, even in 1975, the girls(11 -14) still wore pinafore dresses (gymslips), pleated skirts and white socks.

Pupils looked smart, neat and tidy, and were proud to be identified with the school.

Hi simon, TLTT has got its facts wrong! so what was the usual punishment at comprehensive school if not the cane and ruler?

You need to read the whole sentence -

‘Corporal punishment was used, involving the cane or a ruler across the hand.

Ao your saying they were alwayes used across the bottom, even girls?

Not alwayes on the bottome and no never on the bottomme baree (except in St. Panten Scholl where reigneded retireed hedmeister Georg) but oftims on honde were thay swingan. So answere is bothe - on botome and on honde naughtie boyn and girles.

I was not impressed by the first series and have little hope for the second. There has to be an element of acting in this to create the right atmosphere of a Fifties (or Sixties) classroom, hovering, as I recall, between farce, hysteria and boredom. What really baffles me is the way the female underwear of the time, navy blue or dark green, high-waisted and long-legged, has been airbrushed away into an inter-galactic void. Images of this garment have disappeared from the Web almost entirely. It is as if it - they - never existed. Any modern-day drama production, if the female limbs are exposed, pretends that just like now, little white bikini triangles were the only knickers anyone ever wore.

I think it is a pity that they couldn't at least have mocked up school CP scenarios ...

Shots showing pupil ...
 - sentenced to CP
 - waiting outside headmaster's door
 - entering
       { we hear sounds of CP being administered }
 - coming out clutching their bum!

... and a  later shot of them in the toilet showing the marks (no only joking ... well, partly!)

It would at least have made the whole thing a  bit more realistic.

Paul

Paul's web page: http://www.cpcp.me.uk ... e-mail: mail@cpcp.me.uk

It's meant to be a "reality" series so canings would have to be real not mocked up (which would make it exciting for viewers and participants...) The law now means the "pupils" would have to sign a consent to that at the outset. In the first series there was one boy who it said in the 1950s would have got 6 strokes of the cane but instead was given a kind of cp in being made to hold weights in the gym at arm's length.

The idea of 'consent' has a couple of problems -

a) a contract entered into with a child is worthless in law

and

b) the law does not recognise consent where CP/BDSM is concerned.

If the above were not the case, some enterprising perv would already be running a school for 'consenting' 5 - 18 year olds and charging other pervs a fortune for the privilege of playing teacher.

I've just watched the first of the series and it was great.

One extreamly bad girl Sophia got soundly told off by the headmaster, later she is sent to the headmaster's office, it is suggested that she would have got the slipper as the headmaster is shown flexing his slipper whilst she waits outside.

Sophia had had obviously had enough disciple and left the school.

Later after another naughty girl attempts to run away we are told that she and her fellow pupils would have been caned for this incident.

We are also told of another headmaster who was known for caning boys and girls and didn't believe in non corporal punishments like lines or detentions.

All in All a great begining.

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/index.html

We can take a group of monkeys straight from the wild and place them in surroundings reminiscent of a 1960s school classroom and they'll spend most of their time fighting, squabbling, screeching and swinging from the lightshades. Attempts to control their behaviour by 'telling them off' will be futile.

If the monkeys are replaced by a group of 21st Century teenagers, the situation will not be significantly different.

When behaviour is linked to signicant reward and/or significant punishment, it can be modified.

When it isn't, it can't.

I'm not sure about this, Lotta. Clearly there must be contracts involved for the TV programme--I'm not a lawyer and don't know how this might work, but clearly there must be an agreement with the "performers," otherwise they wouldn't have agreed in principle to act out the charade of lessons, 1960s-style uniforms and discipline, etc. Perhaps their parents signed the contracts on their behalf, and received the money that is no doubt due to them for their TV time. All I'm saying is that I don't see any theoretical reason why a legal agreement involving a child, as opposed to one simply signed by a child, should be worthless.

On your second point, about the law not recognizing consent as a defence for BDSM, this is of course technically true in the wake of the Spanner trial. But to be illegal any punishment would have to qualify as "assault", i.e. causing more than mere trifling pain, in order to get into the criminal category, and I don't see that a simple smacked bottom would necessarily come into that class. It's obvious, of course, why the programme makers decided not to feature CP in their show--they probably wouldn't have got so many willing participants, for one thing, and they might well have thought the programme would have taken on, from their point of view, an unwelcome prurient dimension. But I don't think there's any reason in law why it couldn't have happened, and all the stuff from the commentator in the programme about school CP now being illegal glosses over the fact that this is basically playacting, not real-life education. You might as well make spanking illegal on the stage or the cinema, which hasn't happened yet (see, for example, "Kiss Me Kate").

My point re minors' contracts was made in response to Geoff's suggestion re pupils agreeing to receive real canings for their sins. There are indeed circumstances (albeit few) wherein minors may enter into binding contracts but I fear Geoff's suggested scenario is not one of them

Nero's point re 'a simple smacked bottom' is a reasonable one but, in this modern day and age, even the most reasonable of disciplinarians may all too easily find himself on the wrong side of the law.

A simple smacked bottom would not in itself render the smacker liable to prosecution but was there ever a school at which teenagers' bums were whacked in a way that left no detectable evidence that the bum had been struck? Any such evidence lays the foundation for a charge of 'actual bodliy harm'.

Can the wielder of a cane or slipper be 100% certain that no bruising will be caused? Perhaps - if the instrument is applied with almost comical delicacy - but even reddening of the skin might see the wielder in the dock.

And what about the poor child's mental anxiety?

It's all too risky.

Better let them run riot.

Admittedly, I did watch episode two through wine goggles, but this programme is top-notch comedy. Having secondary modern school pupils boarding is simply ludicrous, as is having a Matron at the school.

My favourite scene was when two of the girls were left to clean a mock-up flat. When the mistress returned one of the girls was sitting in an armchair whilst the other was working. “Why are you sitting down?” the mistress demands. “Because I'm the man!” the girl replies. A gem! Scripted or spontaneous?

It's an entertaining programme but it doesn't tell us much we don't already know.

Non-academic pupils learn almost nothing at school apart from a basic grasp of the 3 R's. Secondary 'education' for such pupils is a waste of their time and the taxpayers money. It serves only one genuine purpose: it provides temporary relief for adults - keeping the kids off the streets and out of the house thus giving public and parents a break for several hours per day.

The previous series in which educational 'high-flyers' were revealed as total duffers compared with their counterparts of 50 years ago was much more interesting. I'm sure millions of people were stunned to see how far standards have fallen in recent decades.

The fact is that once you've grasped the 3 R's school serves no almost educational purpose for most pupils.

If readers add up all the hours they spent in the classroom then try to to recall what they actually learned during those hours, they'll get a shock. I know I did!

Geometry? Algebra? Chemistry? Geography? I can't remember any of it!

Of course, until recently there was an incentive to learn something - those that used the system wisely could go on to enjoy three years of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll at university - more often than not at the taxpayers' expense!

Not any more, I'm sorry to say.

School is nowadays a pointless exercise for almost all concerned.

Anyone with an I.Q. of less than ninety should be compelled to leave school at the age of fourteen. Such a person would be quite happy doing a simple but useful job such as sweeping the roads or emptying dustbins.

Great place to be when you were at school 1970-1976.

I dont think Miss Prim's,Miss Lancer's, or Lady Pandora's could recreate what you/we had.

Do you agree?

Is Miss Lancers still active?