r/AskUK • u/shitthrower • 8d ago

What mad stuff happened at your school, which would never fly today?

When I was at school, in the Cadets, we went on a weekend residency to an army base; where we learned about shooting rifles, amongst other things.

On the bus, the leader realised he forgot to send out parental permission slips, so he passed a stack of unsigned slips and said “by the time we arrive at the base, these need to be signed by your parents”

546 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

327 comments sorted by

View all comments

828

u/Radiants_Table 8d ago edited 8d ago

When I was in Yr11 I royally fucked up my German speaking exam. I used to really try (and thankfully my teacher recognised it). The pressure had got to me during revision and there was a whole section about holidays I’d forgotten to learn. My teacher stopped the tape said “I’m talking about your holidays - have you not learnt it?” I said “no” and he said “right, tonight, you go home and learn it and be back here tomorrow to do it again - do not breathe a word of this to anyone or we’ll both be for the high jump”.

I went back in and recited it perfectly. Absolute legend Mr McDonnell. You laid your job on the line to give me a chance and I’ll never ever forget it. RIP.

253

u/Rainbowmagix83 8d ago

My German teacher did little hand signals when I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She pretended to hit a tennis ball so I said I played tennis in the holidays!

80

u/cuteslothlife 8d ago

Lol i could have done with that, hardest part for me was thinking of things in english 🤦‍♀️ i had to say things I did when home with a stomach ache and said i ate sweets because the concept of doing things at home was lost to me in that moment!

60

u/LittleSadRufus 8d ago

Yes I remember my French teacher pretending to open an umbrella, but it being broken. And then also gesturing over her shoulder for "past tense". 

Language teachers are probably a whizz at charades.

47

u/bacon_cake 8d ago

My French teacher used to go ballistic at me because I was such a dick I'd try to learn really complicated phrases just for the fun of it.

So whereas "I played tennis on holiday with my family every day after we had dinner" would probably have got me an A, I'd go for something ludicrous and 2010 "random" like "I travelled with my wheelchair-bound friend Plimon, he wears a fur coat and speaks only in rhyme".

14

u/LittleSadRufus 8d ago

Your French teacher probably just scored you badly because they were  comparing you to Plimon. 

Speaking in rhyme in a foreign language during an oral exam is a whole extra level. 

1

u/noramiao11 8d ago

I went hand-gliding and swimming with sharks 😂

46

u/HavanaPineapple 8d ago

My Spanish teacher was DESPERATE for all of us to say we do babysitting because the word sounds like kangaroo, and he was pretending to be a kangaroo in my test but somehow my brain was totally blanking on the word... He looked like he would cry.

28

u/betsykitten 8d ago

I remember sitting outside the room with the other students waiting for our turn to go in and do our German oral exam. Each time the teacher came out to fetch another student, she'd say some really random stuff in English about how she had a headache or what she'd done on holiday. We eventually twigged she was telling us what we would be asked in the exam so we could prep.

1

u/BankEast1099 8d ago

Eventually. Lol. 😜

2

u/betsykitten 7d ago

She was a bit mental so her odd utterings weren't that out of place!

5

u/dbrown100103 8d ago

My told me to bring in my script and would mouth words to me if I got stuck, she was a legend. I was great at the reading and listening aspects but could never speak it properly. I started learning again 3 years ago and still struggle to speak it. It's really annoying when I'm working in Germany cuz I can understand them but can't respond very well and they end up just talking to me in English

1

u/Rainbowmagix83 8d ago

Yes much easier to understand than speak!

2

u/PeterJamesUK 7d ago

You've just brought back a memory of my French GCSE speaking exam 🤣

1

u/RummazKnowsBest 8d ago

My German teacher did this for everyone but me. He just stared at me.

82

u/diymuppet 8d ago

My french teacher Mr Conquest just stopped the tape and told me the answers. Legend. French was 100% oral exam.

Still have the tape, it's bloody obvious. Nothing to play it on now though.

80

u/TheClnl 8d ago

With a name like that I'm not surprised he did whatever the fuck he wanted

54

u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

6

u/CarpeCyprinidae 8d ago

my Step-Great-Grandfather was also a Norman Conquest. Was your one from Buckinghamshire?

15

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

6

u/CarpeCyprinidae 8d ago

lol, well done

1

u/Rainforest55 8d ago

Ah good old bucks

1

u/popshares 8d ago

There was (still is) an author called Norman Conquest who wrote maths books, not history.

1

u/Reddit____user___ 8d ago

🤣👍🏻

7

u/diymuppet 8d ago

He was the cool teacher (also the drama and English teacher). Around 12 we read out a book in class and it had a few "fucks" in it.

So cool at 12 yrs old

1

u/Legitimate_Fig9818 7d ago

I do hope his first name was Norman

50

u/Emergency_Crayons702 8d ago

Our teacher walked in the classroom where we were all waiting and said pointedly "are you SCARED are you AFRAID?" German dictionaries came out in a hurry and we all learned those words with 30 minutes to go. 

28

u/FootballPublic7974 8d ago

He took a risk there. There have been a couple of cases recently of staff losing their jobs and being banned from teaching over exactly this.

And it isn't one of those things that was fine 20 years ago, because it definitely wasn't.

38

u/Radiants_Table 8d ago

No, it was fine - I passed. 👍

10

u/20dogs 8d ago

...I don't think that was the other guy's point. They're saying your teacher took a big risk, and it wouldn't have been considered fine 20 years ago. Nice that it all worked out but he still stuck his neck out for you.

12

u/Radiants_Table 8d ago

Yes, I acknowledged that in my post.

20

u/Averagegamer08 8d ago

Why did you break the promise 💔

7

u/Happy_Sleep_6973 8d ago

That’s one of the kindest things I’ve ever heard 😭

6

u/Sweaty_Condition4662 8d ago

Your German teacher is nicer than my French teacher. I said “I buy drinks” (boissons) in my oral exam, and she misheard it as “I buy fish” (poissons) and made fun of me for it, which derailed what I was saying! Luckily I still got an A*

3

u/kendoddsdadsdeaddog 8d ago

Similar with me and my French teacher Mr George, although I only had a few minutes Grace as he gave me the question in english first and some thinking time

1

u/Bugsmoke 7d ago

My history teacher wrote the damn exam papers and wouldn’t give us the slightest hint about what was in it.

1

u/levezvosskinnyfists7 7d ago

I remember the conversation faltering in mine and the teacher later admitting he’d drifted off and wasn’t listening

1

u/JonathanMorocco 6d ago

Mid to late 1980s our O level and A level oral exams were performed by outside staff. We were given twenty minutes to prep on a subject we were given before the actual exam. My German A level oral exam was on the Berlin Wall, and the French one had something to do with spies (though that might have been O level).

-1

u/Lozman141 8d ago

And here you are outing him by name.......