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Unreasonable school rules

The Singing Beard

What were the most unreasonable school rules you can remember from your school-going days?

I was in secondary school from 2003 to 2008, (inclusive).

In my school, the front door was for staff and visitors only, if a teacher caught you going in this door, you had to go back out the front door, around the school and in the back or side door.

Drinking was completely forbidden in classrooms. If you even took a sip from your water bottle in class, the bottle would be seized and not returned until the end of the day.

Wearing any coats other than the €80 school coat was forbidden. If you were even seen by staff on the way to school with it on, they'd find you and take it from you. If if was a cold day, tough.

If you were between classes and had to send a text message some teachers would slither like a serpent and take the phone from you. Even if you were not in a class.

If you were late to school (even if it was the school bus drivers fault / traffic) you still got detention.

Was my school abnormally fascist or did anyone else have similar experiences? It wasn't a Christian Brothers School btw.

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Tin Foil Hat

The_Valeyard wrote: »

And parents like this will be the downfall of education in this country

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here.

Bipolar Joe

I went to school in England, it was pretty boss. Almost all the teachers realised that if you gave respect, you got respect.

Went to CBS for a month when I moved back (I'd already left school in England). All the stupid rules that seemed like they were only in place to give you a detention just blew my mind. Cut my hair? Fuck off. Shave? Fuck off. I'm not gonna take a massive trek around the school when I could just go four steps to the class next door. If I'm about to shit my pants, I'm not gonna wait around to get a bunch of forms printed and stamped. I have back problems because my feet are wonky, I'm not gonna wear shoes that aggravate the issue.

I was yelled at for ages because I didn't stand for some prayer. I'm not baptised, I'm no religion. I told her to get bent, and my Dad was called. The head acted superior, and my Dad said that if I didn't get an apology, he'd go to the papers. I ended up getting an apology, then got kicked out a while later. Good riddance. The place was a Hell hole.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here.

As Orwell put it:

"Ignore all the evidence of your eyes and your ears and beleive only what we tell you" - it was the party's final most important command.

[Deleted User]

I remember hearing stories of schools that had a communal razor which would be handed out to students to shave with if any teacher felt they needed it. Dunnes Stores do the same and I anyone who would take a used razor and shave with it is either mentally ill or a complete push over. It's disgusting that anyone thinks it acceptable to force others to shave.

When I was working in Dunnes a manager came over and handed me the communal razor telling me that it was either shave or go home. I opted to go home as there's no way I was using the cheap and rusted razor they had which still had hairs from the last person who used it stuck between the blades. A week later I watched as the same manager went over to one of the other lads and handed him the razor, the poor bastard hadn't a bit of backbone and scurried up to the toilets to shave.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

DazMarz

Deleted User wrote: »

I remember hearing stories of schools that had a communal razor which would be handed out to students to shave with if any teacher felt they needed it. Dunnes Stores do the same and I anyone who would take a used razor and shave with it is either mentally ill or a complete push over. It's disgusting that anyone thinks it acceptable to force others to shave.

When I was working in Dunnes a manager came over and handed me the communal razor telling me that it was either shave or go home. I opted to go home as there's no way I was using the cheap and rusted razor they had which still had hairs from the last person who used it stuck between the blades. A week later I watched as the same manager went over to one of the other lads and handed him the razor, the poor bastard hadn't a bit of backbone and scurried up to the toilets to shave.

Sharing razors between people is a great way to spread blood-borne diseases (such as AIDS). Fúcking idiots for having a "communal" razor. Fúcking hell.

Fair play to you for not using it!

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

This thread is a real eye-opener, one-way corridors and communal razors? Get to fcuk. Does that not end up with all the teachers' energy going into enforcing rules and dishing out punishment rather than teaching? That's what I always noticed about the rule-stickler teachers (generally my school really wasn't bad but there's always one or two isn't there?), ten or fifteen minutes would be spent at the start of the class making sure notes to parents had been signed and ties were done properly and all that shíte, I really think it's what drew them to the job. They'd just cream themselves over little power-trips and then phone in the actual teaching part.

CrazyRabbit

dgt wrote: »

Stand on the yellow tile for being bauld

What punishment did they dish out for failing spelling tests?

CrazyRabbit

Dayum wrote: »

I have never, at any point in my life, heard of Ken Robinson.

Your post could have been written by him. You seem to have the same views about education/creativity. Views I agree with.

cloud493

I remember the deputy principal at the school I went to when I first came to Dublin trying to get people to shave. But he was an alright bloke, and long as you said to him you'd shave when you got home, he'd let it slide, same with wearing your own coat and the occasional smoking on school grounds.

perri winkles

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in how strict schools are. Mine was ridiculous. All girls catholic school, just a few of the rules included:
- hair ties had to be either blue or navy (school colours)

- you were not allowed be seen with boys while wearing your uniform. One girl was walking home with her twin brother and was stopped by a teacher asking what she thought she was doing.

-there was a main set of red stairs that only teachers and 6th years could use. All the other plebs had to walk around the long way to he back stairs.

-one teacher was particularly fussy about neatness and once told a girl to go home and wash her hair

-you couldn't leave the school grounds to go I the shop at lunch time

Ah I loved my school looking back on it now.

ivytwine

All girls Catholic school from the ages of 7-18. :eek:

Primary:

One teacher had a thing about TV. We couldn't talk about TV in class or even on break. If we were doing nature class we couldn't mention that we'd seen something on Planet Earth. Even if it was actually educational, that teacher hated TV.

We had to have slippers to walk around the school, because they'd gotten new carpets (like 5 years before) and they did not want them to be wrecked by shoes. You also had to wear black shoes to school. Once it was lashing down and my mother sent me to school in wellies, and I was sent home to get my normal shoes!

We had to bring toilet roll to school because apparently they couldn't afford to provide us with it.

Secondary:

No piercings, no make up, no jewellery. I went thru a 'punk' phase and put safety pins down my skirt

One girl had a eyebrow ring and our principal actually ripped it out.

There was this stupid journal that our parents had to sign every night, even in LC. You'd girls who were driving, voting, drinking, even one that had a kid, and they were expected to have mammy sign every night to say they were doing their homework :rolleyes:

We started off with short skirts, and rolled them up. Then they brought in long skirts. Our resident crazy nun decided we should wear long skirts. Some parents obviously bought skirts that the younger girls would 'grow into' so they were down to their ankles. The nun complained about this, and inadvertently made long skirts cool. Seriously, the more chance you had of tripping over your hems, the cooler you were.

razorblunt

RayM wrote: »

When I was at school, shoes had to be black. It didn't matter how respectable a pair of brown shoes looked - you might as well have turned up in a pair of white runners. I got away with wearing black runners for two years because, from a distance, they looked a bit like shoes.

This!
Bought a pair of brown shoes for my Confirmation (probably expensive enough for the parents at the time), not allowed wear them when I moved into 1st Year. Thank God for those cheap Fila shoes that were all the rage back then.

_Redzer_

Looking back they're are so many stupid things I got given out to about and thrown into detention for, things now I'd tell them to shove it up their arse and stand up for myself.
Some teachers were just cúnts on a power trip and would try and make some students feel like crap, but you could never say anything to them. Even if I did mouth back to them, I still turned out well regardless, and I wish I did it more often.

miss no stars

I forgot about one headcase of a teacher I had in primary school when I was in 5th class. He had a real thing about silence. Everyone had to be absolutely silent if we weren't asked to speak - that included getting pens/pencils out of our boxes, opening and closing books - everything had to be done as silently as possible. If we were applauding someone, we couldn't clap normally. We had to clap using only our index fingers. We also weren't allowed to put up our hands unless we were asked to put them up if we knew the answer to something. If you wanted to go to the toilet you had to make a "T" with your index fingers. He didn't last long. Tbh I think he creeped the other teachers out a bit - he was never in the staff room. He'd stay in the classroom at break and lunch and was in the classroom in the morning before school started (other teachers were presumably in the staff room loading up on coffee).

perri winkles wrote: »

-there was a main set of red stairs that only teachers and 6th years could use. All the other plebs had to walk around the long way to he back stairs.

Same - except it was blue in my school :P I'd forgotten about that actually. To be fair, there was good reason - it was a fire escape metal stairs that wasn't sufficiently enclosed to deal with half the school trying to push one way up the stairs and the other half trying to push the other way down the stairs. Someone would have been pushed over the edge of it.

ivytwine wrote: »

No piercings, no make up, no jewellery. I went thru a 'punk' phase and put safety pins down my skirt One girl had a eyebrow ring and our principal actually ripped it out.

What was the upshot of that? Like, she actually assaulted her and ripped a ring out through the skin?!

blackwhite

Un Croissant wrote: »

Anyone else have moshes in the corridors between class? I just remembered them now reading this thread but we all had to get to class which very unfortunately led to a large blockage in the corridor. If some first years or a teacher got caught up then that was all the better.

It's probably all one way these days.

The genius that designed my old school decided it would be a great idea to have a courtyard in the centre of the building, surrounded by a glass-lined corridor.

The school ended up putting loosely-fitted plexiglass sheets into all the windows. Instead of breaking during a mosh they'd just pop out, with whoever was pushed against it falling through as well. They'd either have to fight their way back in, or wait for the mosh to clear.

They knocked that building 2/3 years ago and put in a brand new building instead - the students their now don't know what they missed out on!

The school didn't have too many crazy rules.

There were a set of stairs at the front of the building that only teachers and visitors could use. And the front avenue into the school couldn't be used by students because it was also the driveway to the Bishop's Palace, and there'd been too many incidents of damage done to flower beds, etc.

The uniform wasn't very strictly enforced:
you could wear whatever type of shoes, boots or runners you wanted;
the uniform was blue or white shirt, tie, school jumper and grey slacks - but by the time you were in LC year you would be generally left alone so long as you had the jumper and at least one other part of the uniform.

Smoking was generally ignored in the "designated" areas (behind the woodwork building, or beside the bike sheds), but strictly enforced outside of that. Strictly enforced usually meant a bollocking and having to surrender the box of fags.

ivytwine

miss no stars wrote: »

What was the upshot of that? Like, she actually assaulted her and ripped a ring out through the skin?!

I wasn't actually there at the time, heard all about it afterwards. This was at the funeral of another girl's father, some of us were at the mass to sing. Can't remember why I didn't go.

That is exactly what happened. She said it was a disgrace for this girl to be wearing this and letting down the school at a funeral, disrespectful bla bla. She pulled it out and the girl actually bled. There was absolute war afterwards. Her parents went mad, but it was very near the Leaving Cert, so I think it just all blew over. Terrible when you think about it!

As for my skirt, the nun told me I wouldn't be left back into the school until I sewed it properly :pac:

Your silence teacher sounds like a character from Roald Dahl!

Also I forgot; there was an alleyway in town that we would use as a short cut to the shops. I think it was in like 5th year, there was a big fight between two of the girls in like 1st year or 2nd year. The lads from the boys school were there watching and one of them jumped up on a car and damaged it to get a better view. All hell broke loose after that. The guards came to the school and we were all banned from that alley way in our school uniforms. Used to walk down there on the weekends just cos I could!

jimgoose

ivytwine wrote: »

...She said it was a disgrace for this girl to be wearing this and letting down the school at a funeral, disrespectful bla bla. She pulled it out and the girl actually bled. There was absolute war afterwards. Her parents went mad, but it was very near the Leaving Cert, so I think it just all blew over. Terrible when you think about it!...

What I'm wondering is why the mad cúnt wasn't jailed for attacking and injuring a child like that. If a teacher did that to a young 'un of mine I'd put her in hospital. :mad:

Green Giant

One part of my former secondary school was shaped in a square and, due to the occasionally high volume of traffic passing through it in between classes, a clockwise one-way system was in place. While undoubtedly logical, sometimes it was implemented to the point of being impractical.

I once had a class where two steps in the anti-clockwise direction would take me to the desired room, only to be yelled at by a teacher for breaching the one-way system and being made to instead turn a two-second trip into a two-minute one. Common sense obviously isn't in her dictionary. Her by the book nature also resulted in me being late for that class.

ivytwine

jimgoose wrote: »

What I'm wondering is why the mad cúnt wasn't jailed for attacking and injuring a child like that. If a teacher did that to a young 'un of mine I'd put her in hospital. :mad:

I'm guessing the girl and her friends were just so shocked. I don't think she even believed it when she was telling us and she had a bandage over her eye. And it was at a funeral, so she probably felt making a thing of it wouldn't have been right until afterwards. This woman was terrifying as well.

I dunno what went on behind the scenes though, I would imagine that the school really crawled to the parents and played it down.

Agree though, but I know that there is still physical stuff that goes on, or there was in my time, and I'm only in my mid-twenties. I know people who were hit on a regular basis in rural primary schools. There's still a lot that's covered up in Ireland!

jimgoose

ivytwine wrote: »

...I know that there is still physical stuff that goes on, or there was in my time, and I'm only in my mid-twenties. I know people who were hit on a regular basis in rural primary schools. There's still a lot that's covered up in Ireland!

Well, I'm 42 and I earned a shot into the mouth from a teacher after I told him to polish his baldy head and use it as a prism when I was fifteen. But there is such a thing as looking for it! :pac::pac::pac:

SpaceTime

Our place was ridiculously laid back in comparison.

You couldn't get detention if you tried! They were too lazy to supervise it so they almost never gave it.

On the very very rare occasion it happened they gave up after 10 mins telling the detainees that they'd obviously learnt their lesson.

We used to go to the pub, with the teachers in 6th year!!

If you were late they'd only get annoyed if you made a fuss about it. There was no system of tardy slips or any of that. Provided you didn't cause a disruption or had a sufficiently funny excuse it was grand.

The leaving cert results were good and there was very little bullying tolerated by the students.

On one occasion we had to keep a teacher in the library until he agreed to correct all our homework and provide feedback.
So, in theory we gave the staff detention!

We also went on an all out strike once when a guy was suspended for something silly. They backed down and let him back to class.

I doubt I'd have survived ten minutes in some of the places described in this thread!

Menas

This thread takes me back!

Our school trousers could not be flares (for those with Hippy parents).
But they could also not be drainpipes (for those with Mod parents).
And they could not have any decorations (for those with Punk parents).
They had to be standard cut grey slacks.

ivytwine

SpaceTime wrote: »

Our place was ridiculously laid back in comparison.

You couldn't get detention if you tried! They were too lazy to supervise it so they almost never gave it.

On the very very rare occasion it happened they gave up after 10 mins telling the detainees that they'd obviously learnt their lesson.

We used to go to the pub, with the teachers in 6th year!!

If you were late they'd only get annoyed if you made a fuss about it. There was no system of tardy slips or any of that. Provided you didn't cause a disruption or had a sufficiently funny excuse it was grand.

The leaving cert results were good and there was very little bullying tolerated by the students.

On one occasion we had to keep a teacher in the library until he agreed to correct all our homework and provide feedback.
So, in theory we gave the staff detention!

We also went on an all out strike once when a guy was suspended for something silly. They backed down and let him back to class.

It seems like they treated you like adults and for the most part of it, you acted like adults. Whereas in my school bullying was rife. Our LC results were overall good, but some of the below average kids definitely fell behind. The emphasis was on academic and sporting achievement. If you weren't in either of those bands, there wasn't much interest in you.

I think treating 17/18 year olds like children is ridiculous. I saw a quote recently which was like "We expect 18 year olds to decide what they want to do with their lives and a month ago they had to ask permission to go to the bathroom". Sums it up!

My mother's school in her final year sounds like yours. They could call the teachers by their first names. While there was a dress code, there was no uniforms, and they were treated like adults.

I like the idea of sixth form colleges for that reason. It's good preparation for college. I found it really hard to adjust to university and having no rules and boys being allowed in the same room as me!

miss no stars

SpaceTime wrote: »

Our place was ridiculously laid back in comparison.

You couldn't get detention if you tried! They were too lazy to supervise it so they almost never gave it.

On the very very rare occasion it happened they gave up after 10 mins telling the detainees that they'd obviously learnt their lesson.

We used to go to the pub, with the teachers in 6th year!!

If you were late they'd only get annoyed if you made a fuss about it. There was no system of tardy slips or any of that. Provided you didn't cause a disruption or had a sufficiently funny excuse it was grand.

The leaving cert results were good and there was very little bullying tolerated by the students.

On one occasion we had to keep a teacher in the library until he agreed to correct all our homework and provide feedback.
So, in theory we gave the staff detention!

We also went on an all out strike once when a guy was suspended for something silly. They backed down and let him back to class.

I doubt I'd have survived ten minutes in some of the places described in this thread!

Sounds nice but would probably leave some kids totally unprepared for having to be on time in college or the lecturer won't let them in, or being late for work consistently and getting poor reviews/let go over it.

I can't stand people being late when I'm at work. I'll be there on time, if someone I'm meeting is late there really should be a good reason for it.

jimgoose

miss no stars wrote: »

Sounds nice but would probably leave some kids totally unprepared for having to be on time in college or the lecturer won't let them in, or being late for work consistently and getting poor reviews/let go over it.

I can't stand people being late when I'm at work. I'll be there on time, if someone I'm meeting is late there really should be a good reason for it.

I repeated the Leaving Cert when I was 18, doing just three subjects. I was working for my dad maintaining bulldozers and such, and driving an automatic 2.8l Mk. II Granada. I had no trouble getting up at 7am for work, but fitting in the school horsepuckey was a bit trying some days, especially when some dickwad would try to pull me up over leaving the school grounds to grab a bite of lunch. :pac::pac::pac:

Acciaccatura

My secondary school (Presentation school that still had one or two nuns teaching odd classes left) had many ridiculous rules, but the most ridiculous was the one about the school scarf. It was a navy woollen scarf with stripes, but it was far too thin and far too short to be of any use. However, if we wore any other scarf, no matter how cold it was, it would be confiscated. Thankfully they've changed this rule (along with a much-needed change of uniform) to allow students wear any kind of plain navy scarf, regardless of material or length. Sound folks.

In my primary school, we had virtually no rules, and we got on fine. Most people just wore the PE tracksuit (light blue polo shirt, navy tracksuit that people often replaced with Canterburys, and a navy jumper that was often worn without the crest because nobody gave a shít). But then, two years after I left, the school got a new principal, who started enforcing these rules like all the other schools. She got this ridiculous idea in her head to get carpet in the classrooms, carpet that will get peed on, puked on, paint spilled on and lunch mashed into. She obviously realised that carpet would be hard to keep, so what does she do? Bans all dairy products from lunchboxes; yoghurts, cheeses, probiotic drinks, she even got rid of the milk cartons delivered to the class each day. This is on top of a healthy-eating policy where the sugar ban extended to fruit juices (even pure apple/orange juice). I'm not sure what she expected the children to live on, except rabbit food. My mam always slips something into my sister's lunchbox and the other teachers don't care.

Remmy

I remember during our exams we were not allowed to use the toilet because some people used the toilet break as an opportunity to cheat. I had a stomach bug during my LC mocks and asked a supervisor to use the toilet. She said she wasn't allowed to let me go.

This teacher in question had me for three years for Irish so knew I wasn't one of the chancers. I remember putting my hand up to ask her a second time and she just ignored me and walked to the other side of the hall. I then said fcuk it and walked out and went to the bathroom anyway. She then ranted at me for 5 mins for breaking the rules. It came as a massive relief when I went to College and the supervisors didn't mind people using the bathroom during exams and the lecturers treated you more like people.:o

SpaceTime

miss no stars wrote: »

Sounds nice but would probably leave some kids totally unprepared for having to be on time in college or the lecturer won't let them in, or being late for work consistently and getting poor reviews/let go over it.

I can't stand people being late when I'm at work. I'll be there on time, if someone I'm meeting is late there really should be a good reason for it.

There was never any issue with being let in in university. The only issue they'd have had is if someone were consistently disrupting lectures.

Most people at school were never late. They would just have a chat if it were a continuous pattern.

jimgoose

Remmy wrote: »

I remember during our exams we were not allowed to use the toilet because some people used the toilet break as an opportunity to cheat. I had a stomach bug during my LC mocks and asked a supervisor to use the toilet. She said she wasn't allowed to let me go.

This teacher in question had me for three years for Irish so knew I wasn't one of the chancers. I remember putting my hand up to ask her a second time and she just ignored me and walked to the other side of the hall. I then said fcuk it and walked out and went to the bathroom anyway. She then ranted at me for 5 mins for breaking the rules. It came as a massive relief when I went to College and the supervisors didn't mind people using the bathroom during exams and the lecturers treated you more like people.:o

I wonder if any youngster has ever just "exploded" in a tsunami of scour around the desk? What is the official policy in that situation?? :pac: