Punishment Book

There is only one available punishment register.

The first recorded punishment at Harrowgate Hill Infant School was inflicted on five years old Laura E. of Standard II on 16th October 1906. Laura received ‘a slap on the hand with open hand’ from Head Teacher Miss J.Black for ‘disobedience.’

Another entry lower down the same page names Sydney Arrowsmith who, on 22nd June 1908, aged seven, received ‘a light rap with cane’ for ‘destroying a reading book’. We give Sydney’s name in full, with his permission, for we had the pleasure of visiting him at Westfields Nursing Home, Cockerton Green, Darlington on 10th April 2002.
Sid, now (May 2002) approaching 101 years of age, gained considerable local fame as a fund-raiser for charities. He was doing long distance walks well into his eighties. Corporal punishment did Sid no harm, either physically or emotionally.

At the end of 1914 is an entry by the Head Teacher:
“Have been endeavouring to do without corporal punishment”.
Apart from four entries in 1930 there were in fact no more. However corporal punishment was certainly inflicted after that date, so it was either recorded elsewhere or it was not recorded at all.

Offences which merited corporal punishment included:
Disobedience
Indecent actions to girls
Pushing neighbour off seat
Spitting
Screaming
Making nasty sounds with mouth
Rude action
Molesting girls
Impudence
Deliberately putting paint on boy
Spitting into pencil holder
Dancing on seat behind teacher’s back
Blowing whistle in school
Telling lies
Fighting in lines
Hitting and taking sweets from small boy
Sulking
Hitting a girl
Making rude noises
Wetting a boy and kicking
Striking baby girl on face
Truanting
Unseemly behaviour in WC
Incessant talking
Scratching and molesting neighbours
Tripping children in another line
Giggling
Impertinence
Biting his neighbour
Drawing on another boy’s book
Inattention, then laughing
Stealing crayons
Putting seeds into girls’hair
Stealing counters
Truanting at Harrowgate Feast
Destroying counters purposely
Wilfully breaking pencil point
Stealing clay and working mischief with it
Turning taps on – hot and cold
Dirty behaviour in closets
Telling untruths
Spitting on desks
Calling after teacher on street
Chalking on boy’s back
Scratching desk purposely
Copying
Loitering on way to school and losing mark
Stealing plasticine
Stealing elastic of hat in porch
Behaving unseemly to a girl in yard
Throwing clay about classroom
Swearing
Lighting paper and running with it amongst the children in playground

Punishments inflicted were:
Slap or slaps on hand with open hand
Stroke/s with cane
Light rap with cane