Mr Palmer was sick of this girl misbehaving in class. She clearly couldn’t focus on what she was being taught and this could not go on. Catching her daydreaming again, he gave her after school detention in an attempt to cure her of this lack of focus. It was five to four and Mr Palmer was in his office, marking some papers. The standard of English was appalling. He could hear Scarlet outside, shuffling around while she waited for 4pm. She knew she was in trouble but had no idea what to expect – some of the girls had told her that Mr Palmer was very strict and gave out spankings for the most minor of offences.
(more…)
“Name and form, girl!”
“Lisa Chadwick, ma’am. I’m very sorry ma’am.”
“Who reported this girl?”
Anna Harper, the head girl, stood up. She explained that when patrolling the school during lunchtime, when all the girls were supposed to be out in the school grounds, she had come across Lisa in a classroom. This in itself would have been a venial offence, but Lisa had been looking in a drawer of the teacher’s desk. On being questioned Lisa had explained that she’d been trying to reclaim a yo-yo that the teacher had confiscated when she’d been playing with it in class.
Lisa did not deny anything when speaking in her defence but said that she had been dared to get the toy back by another girl in her class. She had never been sent to the prefects court before and had never been slippered or caned. She knew that she’d been stupid and had broken the rules and deserved to be punished, but she asked if it could be the slipper, not the cane.
(more…)
The school bell at the Queen Mary Grammar Girls’ School had signalled the end of the normal school day ten minutes before. All of the classrooms were deserted – apart from classroom 12. The prefects were gathering there for the weekly session of the Prefects’ Court.
If a prefect at Queen Mary’s had occasion to report a naughty girl for punishment she did not, as at some other schools, report her to a teacher or to the headmistress but to the Prefects’ Court. This took place every week after school on Monday afternoon. All fifteen of the school prefects attended, as did Mrs Jeffers, the senior deputy headmistress.
The procedure was that the prefect who had reported the offending girl outlined the girl’s misbehaviour to the other prefects. The accused girl was then given the opportunity to defend herself or to speak in mitigation of her actions. A vote was then taken as to whether the girl was guilty of an offence meriting a referral to the Prefects’ Court. The reporting prefect and Mrs Jeffers did not take part in this vote. A two thirds majority of those present and voting was sufficient, and it was very rare for this not to happen. On those exceptional occasions when it was decided that a prefect had unnecessarily reported a girl, though, the consequences for the prefect concerned were severe. There and then she was caned by Mrs Jeffers, with the girl she had wrongly reported among the witnesses!
(more…)
“A substitute!” The excited whisper ran through the classroom.
“Miss. Fitch is to be out for the whole month!” One plump blonde said knowingly as the other girls leaned toward her. “There was an illness in her family.”
“Do you have anymore to add, Miss?” A firm voice asked from behind the
cluster of girls. “Or are you all ready to take your seats?”
The girls whirled to find a lovely young woman regarding them sternly, her head tipped slightly to one side as if awaiting an answer. All twelve students scrambled to find their places as the young substitute made her way to the raised platform at the front of the class.
“I am Miss. St. George.” She said in a sweetly husky voice. “You will be my students until Miss Fitch returns. We do not know when that will be, so, in the meantime, you will not regard me as a substitute but as your teacher, which means you will obey me as such. Do I make myself
understood?”
“Yes, Miss.” The class responded instantly.
(more…)
