There is, however, a considerable problem with using punishment books as historical evidence. They don’t necessarily tell the whole...
Another striking feature of these records is the difference between the treatment of boys and girls. There was no...
The Secrets of the School Punishment Book Part Five — The Girls Who Weren’t Always ‘Sugar and Spice’
Other records rather spoil the old-fashioned image of perfectly behaved schoolgirls. Broad Street School, later Broad Heath Secondary School...
Perhaps the most fascinating entries are those which reveal how society itself was changing. An offence regarded as serious...
One Birmingham punishment book covering 1932 to 1951 is particularly interesting because of how little punishment it contains. Across...
If the Birmingham figures appear modest, records from Catford Central School for Boys in London tell an altogether different...
The Catford records reveal another fascinating pattern. Younger pupils generally received fewer strokes. Among 11-year-olds, a single stroke was...
Punishment books provide an unusual opportunity to examine one of the oldest arguments surrounding corporal punishment: Did it actually...
For historians, this remains the great difficulty. How much went unrecorded? Former pupils repeatedly remember teachers using the slipper...
Scotland presents another difficulty altogether. English schools commonly maintained punishment books, although practices differed between education authorities. Scotland did...
British influence travelled overseas too. Australian schools used punishment registers which were sometimes imported from Britain and sometimes specially...
Modern readers may find one aspect particularly difficult to understand: the extent to which many parents accepted corporal punishment....