Back in the 1970s, I attended a state school in a middle-class area of north London. At the time, there were whispers that London schools might abandon the use of corporal punishment, but that certainly had not happened in my mixed-sex school. Teachers were allowed to slipper boys and girls. Only the headmaster and his female deputy were allowed to cane. Canings weren’t frequent, and it seemed only boys were caned, although I’m not sure why girls weren’t. I think it was allowed, but I never heard of it being done. Occasionally, when we didn’t have a lesson in our
