 Boys aged between 11 and 16 were required to bend over and received up to 12 hard whacks on the seat of the trousers.The punishment, which was extremely painful, was the standard response to a wide variety of disciplinary offences, including failing end-of-term tests.More typical, in that the cane was the "official" punishment, and slippering routinely used more informally, was Highbury Grove School, a large boys' school in north London.