This occurs at the CS, and also in some other Girls' school stories, and IIRC it's not always just from one inter-school match, but sometimes for a spell of ordinary games sessions. It has always struck me as a nasty and also counter-productive punishment. Because games are obviously supposed to be about exercise as much as anything else, which I think in some CS book(s), it more or less explicitly says is important for keeping a lid on bad behaviour.

I hope this wouldn't happen in boarding schools nowadays. Even at my school, if someone got the quite common punishment of being gated (not allowed out of their boarding house in their free time), they would certainly have done games and PE (the latter for us only meant gym in the lower forms, and was dropped later except for those doing it as an exam subject). And if someone was good, I'm not even sure the school would have wanted to lose them from a match, unless perhaps they were in very deep trouble for something.

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I would have behaved very badly at school if it'd got me out of PE! I was useless at sport, so it would have suited everyone else too. Sadly, it was not a punishment ever used at my school.

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Ah but there are other ways of banning people from games and still ensuring some horrible exercise.

You stop them playing tennis, cricket, lacrosse, hockey and going swimming and make them run round the enormous field two or three times during the games session. A huge field big enough to house several hockey pitches and many en-tout-cas tennis courts....

I speak from experience!

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Cestina's dolls houses - I can't bear Christmas....

Never mind using such running round the games fields as a punishment, that was our 'prescribed' form of exercise on many Winter days when the pitches were too waterlogged for hockey - three circuits of the area was a mile. Definitely a form of purgatory to someone like me, who was a 'plodder' at best.

Oh yes that too....if you were clever you could "sit" one circuit out by hiding behind one of the pavilions. Didn't always work though and then you got an extra circuit as punishment.

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Cestina's dolls houses - I can't bear Christmas....

In the CS and GO schools generally, games were not regarded as a lesson. The girls in 'Peggy' are astonished when Polly Winterton calls them lessons. Hence docking games as a punishment. I can't really imagine it happening in a modern school where the ethos is as that all subjects are equally important.

I could never understand why docking games was regarded as a punishment but I did manage seven years at a girls' grammar school without learning the rules of any organized game.

Similarly, I could never understand why extra maths was also regarded as a punishment.

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"Lack of planning on your part does not necessarily mean an emergency on mine"

"Association does not infer causality"

Except at Kingscote, of course. Where useless types get in the team and good players are left out.

There's a (non-Dimsie) DFB book where two girls are behaving badly* but the Games Captain keeps them in the team because they're the best players. Some of the other girls think they should be dropped, because 'win at all costs' isn't the proper spirit, and it would be better to lose than seem to tolerate their behaviour.

*It's not just a schoolgirl prank, but bullying behaviour towards another girl.

In schoolgirl fiction overall, the general ethos was that everyone was keen on games, therefore being banned would be seen as a punishment by the girl in question. I don't think EBD cared all that much about games herself, but put them in because it was expected in the genre.

My school adjoined a large park. Best games lessons were when us skivers could persuade the games teacher to let us go and do 'cross country' (i.e. have a pleasant stroll) in the park while she took the keen hockey types on the school field.

A related problem is schools where kids are kept in from recess as punishment. Sometimes, what a disruptive kid desperately needs is to run around outside yelling for 15 minutes, not being forced to sit still for hours at a stretch.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

So would I have!



Still happens now in real life. Every now and again there's a scandal because a guy from a sports team has done something and still gets put on the team or is punished very very lightly. And these are not small things - they have been accused of, sometimes even charged, with rape, sexual assault, reckless driving etc and the Oz public is so obsessed with winning, they look the other way.



We did this for a warmup. I used to jog trot the first round, then walk the second one. A few times I was so behind the rest of the class, they had already picked teams and were starting a game by the time I arrived. So I got to sit out.

But for the annual 10km cross country event which wound round the nearby streets, I used to tear off first and then hide behind a large bush close to my house. When everyone else had run past, I calmly walked home. I did this for four years running and because the teachers never did a roll call at the end of the event, I was never caught out.

It was just assumed everyone wanted to get points for their house and wouldn't skive out like I did. Only years later did a school friend tell me she knew I did that and never told

Cheers,
Joyce

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It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how - Dr Seuss

Our school was very near to one of the major motorways, and the cross country route took us over the bridge and then across fields on the other side. Or at least I am told that's where it went, as my group of friends used to go as far as the bridge and then sit on the edge, overlooking the M4 and waving to all the truck drivers!
Then when the keener people came running back we would just tag on at the end for the last bit across the playing field.

Looking back, we must have freaked out a fair few drivers, group of schoolgirls sitting on the edge of the bridge - wonder how many expected us to jump! Thank goodness this was before mobile phones or the police would've been down there pretty quick I reckon1

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'Well,call me Aunt Fanny on my tombstone!'

Rosalie in 'Theodora...'

This puzzled me when I was at school. At a boys' school, the staff seemed to expect that every boy was born with the rules of rugby, football and cricket imprinted on his brain. I had no interest in sport and the teachers were often incredulous that I did not know where the fielders had to stand in cricket, or what they had to do when they got there. Of course, they never did tell me and I made it my business not to know any of these things so that I would never be considered for sports teams. Imagine that - having to get into a smelly minibus with noisy boys and go off after school, or worse, on a Saturday, to roll on some muddy pitch when I could be sitting at home with the latest CS or watching Robinson Crusoe on TV!

Precisely!

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"Lack of planning on your part does not necessarily mean an emergency on mine"

"Association does not infer causality"

I am beginning to wonder whether I am the only person on the Board who actually enjoyed most of the team games we played, plus the tennis. I hated gym and running round Field, and I could live without the swimming, but I thoroughly enjoyed lacrosse, quite liked hockey and loved cricket and tennis.

Anyone else in the same boat? Not that we had any boats, unlike the CS at times.

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Cestina's dolls houses - I can't bear Christmas....

To bring this back on topic: a very good suggestion, Mel, although I'm not sure that Grace Nalder, Hilary Burn and Peggy Burnett would have liked to think of their "lessons" in that way!


You did LACROSSE! Perhaps that's why you feel differently from most of us. You may also be one of the few who enjoyed those long descriptions in Ruey that the rest of us would consider to be "padding"!

I liked hockey, badminton and indoor hockey. Hated most of the rest of it.

Evelyn Ross in Challenge didn't like hockey. I don't suppose she'd have minded one bit if her games had been docked. My sympathies have always been with her. And I find it refreshing that she didn't miraculously come to appreciate what a Jolly Good Thing it was to Play Up and Play the Game.

Some of the best school hockey descriptions I've read are in Juliet Overseas by Clare Mallory. While I can appreciate it as fiction, I still don't want to play hockey myself.

We played netball at my primary school, and I quite liked that. But although there were netball courts at my secondary school, we rarely played, if ever - I can't recall ever playing, but might have forgotten.

The teacher just seemed to prefer hockey, and my chief memories of that involve being stuck somewhere out on the edge of the field while the keen types got on with the game on a different part of the field. (Not that I actually wanted anyone to pass the ball to me.)

With netball, having a smaller team and a smaller court, there was a greater chance of actually being involved in the game, and with no running involved, less distinction between those who could and those who couldn't.

No, not just you Gil - I was in first eleven for hockey from the Fourth Form onwards and in first eleven for cricket in final year (Upper Sixth). Also enjoyed swimming and tennis and was not bad at 800m in early years though could never time it properly.

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I enjoyed hockey and was goal keeper for the second school team. I don't mind a bit of tennis. Hated netball (I'm not tall enough) and rounders, as well as having an abiding detestation for the field we used to have to run around while the teacher got out the equipment, but I was okay at swimming if we had lane ropes and always loved being in the water anyway. We never played lacrosse, rugby or cricket. When I changed schools, I got out of a lot of games due to a bad back (which still troubles me) but I used to love the occasional archery lesson we had.

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The writer's credo: 'Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like' (Delta Goodrem - Born To Try)

I am relieved that there are others who enjoyed being on a sports pitch....

I did indeed play lacrosse (goalie) but I have never much enjoyed descriptions of matches of any kind in school books. Would much rather be playing myself!

My chief memory of netball, which we played at my primary school, is of having to schlepp the heavy goalposts what seemed like an enormous distance for 8-11 year olds, from the Porter's Lodge of Richmond Park, across to the field we were allowed to use. And then back again at the end. Horrible.

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Cestina's dolls houses - I can't bear Christmas....