1950s: Discipline at Copthall County Grammar School,
Mill Hill, north London
I suppose that every school has to have discipline and that it sets up
rules, regulations and punishments accordingly.
I hardly remember the rules and regulations at my grammar school,
Copthall County, in the mid 1950s, because it was second nature to obey
them.
Punishments were rare. There was little need for them as we were able
girls (having passed the scholarship, as the 11+ exam was then called) and
our lessons were made interesting by able and dedicated teachers.
Rules and regulations
Below is a list of the significant rules as I remember them. However
because it was second nature to obey them and because, as far as I know they
were never written down, I may be omitting some:
School uniform, particularly berets, to be worn on journeys to and
from school. I can't remember if berets had to be worn in the summer.
Can you?
Transfer from one class to another between lesson to take place
within a three minute time slot, the onset indicated by one bell and the
conclusion by three bells. No talking after the three bells.
All girls except those in the sixth form to stand when a teacher
enters the room.
At the end of the day, chairs to be placed on desks to allow the
cleaners to get to floors easily.
Not to use the front entrance and stairs which were reserved for
staff.
No running in corridors. (Sub-prefects were on duty at peak times to
enforce this rule.)
There may have been rules about gross misdemeanors, like perpetual bad
behaviour, truant or failure to do homework, but they were unknown to almost
all of us.
Rewards
I don't remember any prizes for progress or achievement. If they existed,
I may have forgotten because they never came to me.
Good behaviour was rewarded with what was called a 'deportment' badge. It
was said to be for more than standing and sitting up upright, but we
received absolutely no information at all on what else it was for or how to go
about developing it. That always struck me as a shame, because I always
hoped I would get a deportment badge - but I never did.
On reflection in later life, I feel that deportment badges went to girls
who behaved as if they were trained by public schools, that is who came from
what my mother would have called 'better class families' - but try as I did,
I couldn't work this out at the time.
Punishments
The significant punishment was a detention. It was not given lightly. I
got one once for touching - lightly touching, not hitting or scraping - a
teacher's car which had recently been re-sprayed, and I was terribly upset
and ashamed about it. It went on my report and I told my parents that it had
been a class detention. It involved sitting in a classroom for half an hour
after school with a teacher invigilating. I don't think any particular work
was set. No-one from the school contacted parents to explain that a girl
would be late home. 'Health and Safety' was not an issue then.
Anyone who had three detentions in one term was called up onto the stage
during assembly, to be named and shamed. That never happened to me, and I
don't think it happened to anyone in my class throughout my time at the
school. Those who were called up always seemed to me to be in a C stream and
to be more interested in make-up and boys than the girls in the other
streams. Not that we were not interested in make-up and boys, but, for us,
they had their place which was out of school.
I was given lines once or twice. Writing 100 lines was very time consuming and something
one chose not to repeat too often!
Sally Lawson (formerly Sally Porte)
Prefects could give lines, but I know very little about this as I was
never given any.
