One of the clearest lessons to emerge from the survey is that the expression “school corporal punishment” covers several different traditions.
Even within Britain there were important regional differences.
The English pupil who spoke of receiving the cane or slipper might find that a Scottish contemporary spoke instead of “getting the belt.”
The Scottish Belt
A respondent educated in Renfrewshire recalled the belt as an established feature of school discipline.
In this context the word referred to a leather strap or tawse used upon the hands.
The contributor remembered receiving it at both primary and secondary school.
His first recorded experience occurred in 1967, when he was seven years old and involved in a playground fight.
He and the other boy were taken to the deputy headmaster.
The class teacher remained present while the boys were dealt with.
The respondent recalled that Scottish children were familiar with the procedure even if they had not personally experienced it.
Secondary School
The same pupil received the belt again in 1972, now aged twelve.
He was caught running in a corridor by his housemaster.
The housemaster possessed a formidable reputation, and the boy’s fear while following him to the office became a significant part of his later recollection.
He received two strokes, one to each hand, and was immediately sent back to class.
He did not repeat the offence and regarded the punishment as effective.
The English Pattern
English recollections contain a wider mixture of cane, slipper and occasionally strap.
The cane appears particularly frequently in formal punishment.
The slipper was often associated with more immediate classroom or physical-education discipline.
At Oldfields Boys School in Uttoxeter, however, the headmaster used a strap upon the hands in the 1972 incident described earlier.
There was therefore no absolute national division.
Local Tradition
The important point is that disciplinary practices were shaped by local and institutional tradition.
A method familiar in one area might be less common elsewhere.
Children grew up knowing the practices of their own schools and regions and could regard them as perfectly ordinary even though pupils elsewhere experienced something different.
Care in Generalisation
For this reason, the survey should never speak too casually of “the British system.”
There was no single method.
England itself contained considerable variation, while Scottish recollections reveal a distinctive tradition of punishment upon the hand with the belt.
The broad purpose—school discipline—might be shared.
The method was not.
