A guided tour of Eton College back in the summer mentioned one form of punishment at the school, which simply required students to report to a member of staff early one morning. Being forced to get up at some ungodly hour, whilst others slept, was deemed to be ‘inconvenient’, and thus rather effective.
Of course, in my imaginary boarding school setting, I’d take it rather further. Let’s work back, logically. The school day would start with assembly or chapel, at say 8.30 in the morning. Breakfast would be at 8; reveille at 7.30am (allowing 30 minutes for the girls to shower and dress).
A girl being punished would be made to wake at 7. She’d be expected to report in her pyjamas, crossing the cold, empty school yard in her dressing gown to the punishment room…
She might have to wait: there could be more than one girl to be dealt with before her turn came to face the Deputy Head. The caning would be hard, across her pyjama bottoms: four strokes was the tally for a first visit in a term; six for the next; a third offence would be dealt with instead by the Headmaster, who caned on the bare and gave anything up to a dozen.
And then she’d be dismissed, made to retrace her lonely steps across the yard, reaching the dorm just as the other girls woke – in time for cuddles, and for curious inspections of her marks in the showers.
…yeah, I don’t think I would get out of bed. I’d rather get a harder caning than let someone mess with my sleep.
I think I would beg my parents to send me to a different school. ANY other school LOL
The 6:30 am “work detail” actually WAS the punishment for “unexcused absenses at the New England prep school I went to. “Work detail” sounds like something out of Dickens, but usually they made you stuff envelopes or move furniture or something.