School corporal punishment the case of teenage boys) the clothed buttocks. "Slippering"—striking the buttocks with a rubber-soled gym shoe, or plimsoll shoe—was widely used in many schools, for example King's School, Macclesfield, a boys grammar school in Cheshire. In a few English cities, a strap was used instead of the cane. In Scotland a leather strap, the tawse, administered to the palms of the hands, was universal in state schools, but some private schools used the cane. Prior to the ban in private schools in England, the "slippering" of a student at an independent boarding school was challenged in 1993 before the European
School corporal punishment punishment could not be administered without parental consent, and that a child's "right to education" could not be infringed by suspending children who, with parental approval, refused to submit to corporal punishment. In other private schools, it was banned in 1998 (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland) and 2003 (Northern Ireland). Schools had to keep a record of punishments inflicted, and there are occasional press reports of examples of these "punishment books" having survived. The implement used in many state and private schools in England and Wales was often a rattan cane, struck either across the student's hands or (especially in