1. Pretty much everyone was known exclusively by their surname.
2. And anyone with an older sibling at the school was known as "mini [surname]".
3. You trod the very fine line between your tie being just short enough to look cool but just long enough to not get you in trouble.
4. The struggle of the inevitable two boiling hot weeks in May when the school would refuse to announce summer dress.
5. And then as soon as it did, it would rain constantly.
Girls at my school when it starts raining
You'd have to decide between looking cool in summer dress or being sensible and getting your blazer back out of the cupboard.
6. You all had to stand up every time a teacher walked into the classroom.
7. You went from First Form to Upper Sixth, not year 7 to year 13.
8. There was always one house that would somehow win all the sports events, every year.
9. There were quite a few kids whose parents were mates with some of the teachers.
10. And also some whose mum or dad had been to the school before them.
11. When you had to untie your tie with a pencil or pair of compasses because someone peanutted you so hard.
12. Those two dreaded words: Saturday school.
13. Which felt especially unfair, as you also had to go into school on bank holidays.
14. You had to call all your male teachers "Sir".
15. But only had to call the female teachers "Miss" because those two words are *totally* on the same level...
16. Wednesday afternoons were reserved for sports matches, and if you were playing, you'd try to get away with wearing your kit all morning too.
17. You took quite a few classes with fewer than 10 people.
18. New kids were always an absolutely massive deal.
19. Every break time, the tuck shop was a sea of tiny first-formers waving £1 coins in the air like they were the holy grail.
20. Every time you did something bad, your teachers would remind you how much your parents were paying for your education.
21. And then when your parents found out, they would remind you too.
22. While you were there, at least one kid got kicked out for doing drugs.
23. Getting a dead bum from sitting on rock-hard chapel benches (if you didn't manage to skip it).
24. Turning 17, and everyone starting to turn up in their new cars once they'd passed their tests.
There was so much debate about who were the best and worst drivers, and everyone would gossip about who had the most expensive cars.
25. Feeling like this when you broke up for summer and knowing everyone else still had three weeks of school left.
26. You had strong rivalries with every other private school in the area, normally based around sport.
27. And you also had a rivalry with the local state school, based around the fact that you were "posh twats".
