A New Year means "In with the new!"
One thing that has always fascinated me is the way in which schoolkids learned about how discipline was applied in their school. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard of a new intake of pupils being sat down and getting the school rules and possible sanctions explained to them. So most times, the way they learned was by observing others (if they were lucky) being awarded punishments for certain misbehaviour. Over a period of time, you would probably learn first about things the school regarded as minor indiscretions (but indiscretions nonetheless) and the lesser sanctions that you risked if you did those things. It would be relatively unusual for someone to be made aware of a fellow pupil being given more serious punishment early on but eventually that would happen. Also people got to hear of examples of older pupils getting into more serious trouble - perhaps where a classmate had an older sibling in the class affected - but there was always the possibility that someone was exaggerating in order to frighten or impress a younger pupil.
But, inevitably, there will always be some who are the first in their class to discover first-hand how seriously certain behaviour is viewed and how the school addresses such matters. Common sense tells them, for example, that fighting is something the school strongly disapproves of. And waiting outside the office of the headmistress, facing the wall, hands on heads, in obvious disgrace, they are left to their own thoughts, wondering if the tales they heard of the headmistress caning girls for such offences are true and whether that is to be their fate. And if so, is the cane really as painful as people have suggested? And it can be quite a long wait to find out...











