I am not sure why she was so surprised we had been smacked this was not exactly a school that was shy of using cp, however our class teacher, while strict rarely used cp, Possibly the dinner lady was aware of that and just presumed she would not use cp on us.
To be fair the high jinx in the playground had been displayed in the classroom that week. We had already been split up from each other in class due to `messing about` I should imagine being reported for misbehavior at dinner time was the final straw.
I live in the UK, specifically in England. When I was at school (late 1940s through’ to 1960) corporal punishment was pretty general in most primary schools, for both boys and girls.
Some primary schools did use the cane, but mine didn’t.
The most severe corporal punishment sanction there was the slipper, which was actually a flexible rubber-soled sports shoe applied from one to several times on the clothed bottom with the recipient in a bent-over posture.
At my boy’s only secondary school the slipper was a common ‘classroom’ punishment. The Headmaster occasionally caned for severe breaches of discipline. The Prefects (senior boys who dealt with most of the minor ‘out of class’ disciplinary matters via a weekly ‘court’) caned quite often, usually for repeat offenses. I was never caned.
Corporal punishment, including caning, became illegal in English state schools in 1986 and in English private schools in 1999, so it has been banned in all schools for nearly 15 years now. And my feelings about it? Well, I think that properly used corporal punishment in schools did quite a lot of good, and very little harm. I certainly think it was better than the modern alternatives which seem mainly to involve excluding children from school for periods ranging from days to indefinitely.
