There were only two in the whole country. One in the North Island, called St Georges, the other in the South Island, called St Andrews. If all the stories told about those two places were true, they certainly were not nice places to be. Our story takes place at St Georges. St Georges Approved School to give it, its full name was nestled in a valley about thirty kilometres from the nearest town. There were all the usual facilities that schools offer, a swimming pool, playing fields, the tech buildings, the classroom block and the hostel block. There was room for up to three hundred boys, but usually there were one hundred and fifty to two hundred in residence at any one time. The full time staff consisted of teachers, cooks, domestic staff and a grounds man, all headed up by the Governor, and the Headmaster. The only females on the staff were the matron in charge of the sickbay and her assistant nurse. St Georges and St Andrews were regarded as the last stop before you were sent to the new Youth Offenders Centres at Waikeria in the north Island and Cheltham in the South Island, that used to be borstals, now renamed. At a time when the use of corporal punishment was tailing off in schools up and down the country, at the two approved schools it was used nearly every day. Under sixteen years in age could expect up to six strokes of the cane over clothed buttocks, while over sixteen years old could receive up to twelve strokes, and on serious occasions administered only by the Headmaster, on the bare buttocks. A bare bum caning could result in repeated offences such as fighting, smoking, bullying or abusing a staff member. There were lesser punishments for the more trivial offences and the punishments from these resulted in a strapping which again was applied to the buttocks, clothed only in underpants, with a strap that was about three inches wide, a quarter of an inch thick and two feet long. No boy was to be punished in front of his peers unless it was for a serious offence in which he had offended the whole school. For an example absconding earned a whacking in front of all the boys and staff, laid on by the gym instructor. Teachers could whack in front of the class for the usual class room offences the same as would happen in any school. More inside > >