Schools naturally distinguished between minor classroom misbehaviour and offences considered more serious.
Smoking, deliberate truancy, stealing and serious fighting commonly fell into the latter category.
Such offences were more likely to involve senior members of staff and formal punishment.
Smoking
Smoking by schoolchildren was regarded seriously for several reasons.
It broke school rules, involved an activity forbidden to younger children, and could take place secretly on or near school premises.
One twelve-year-old contributor recalled being caught smoking in 1969.
He received a formal punishment and regarded it as effective.
He stated that he did not smoke again.
Other pupils involved in the incident were also punished, although the method differed.
This account again demonstrates that the same incident could produce different punishments for different pupils.
Truancy
Truancy challenged the authority of the school more directly.
The truant did not merely disobey an instruction within a lesson; he attempted to avoid the lesson altogether.
A twelve-year-old pupil in 1969–70 recalled deliberately missing a mathematics lesson because he and another pupil had failed to complete their homework.
They found somewhere to hide within the school grounds, intending to return for the following lesson.
Their plan failed when they were discovered by the school caretaker.
The pupils were taken back and the matter was referred to the head of mathematics.
The boy received three strokes of the cane.
His account is particularly interesting because the original offence—failure to complete homework—led to a second and more serious offence, truancy.
The attempt to escape one consequence had produced a greater one.
Theft
Theft was among the most serious offences described.
One contributor recalled an incident from 1958 involving truancy and stealing.
The matter came to the attention of the police and the school.
The headmaster treated the offence with considerable severity.
The contributor later regarded the punishment as completely effective and stated that he did not repeat the behaviour.
Again, however, this is one individual’s judgement rather than proof of a general rule.
Fighting
Fighting occupied an intermediate position.
Minor scuffling might be dealt with by a classroom teacher.
A serious fight could result in immediate referral to the headmaster.
One grammar-school boy recalled being involved in a fight in 1965. A teacher separated the boys and took them directly to the school office.
The headmaster punished both.
The contributor stated that he did not repeat the offence and considered the punishment effective.
Escalation
A broad pattern can therefore be seen.
Minor offences tended to remain within the classroom.
Repeated offences moved upwards through the disciplinary structure.
Serious offences could bypass the lower stages altogether and go directly to senior staff.
This was not a rigid national system, but it appears sufficiently often in the recollections to be significant.
The seriousness of the offence determined not merely whether a pupil was punished, but frequently who administered that punishment.
