He was flagrantly lacking in public spirit

The fact is that every large school requires an advocatus diaboli - and at Castrevenford Mr Etherege occupied this important post. He was flagrantly lacking in public spirit. He never attended important matches. He was not interested in the spiritual welfare of his boys. He lacked respect for the school as an institution. In short, he was impenitently an individualist. And if, at first sight, these characteristics do not appear particularly commendable, you must remember the context. In a school like Castrevenford a good deal of emphasis is necessarily laid on public spirit, and the thing is liable to develop, if unregulated into a rather dreary fetish. Mr Etherege helped to keep this peril at bay. 

E. Crispin, Love lies bleeding (1948), 22

Pupils spend 80% of their time in class pretending to listen

What do pupils spend 80% of their time doing in class? I'm sure you can guess. It's pretending to listen. Children are brilliant pretenders. In his 2007 book The Hidden Lives of Learners, Nuthall recounts the tactics played out in classrooms across the world. Pupils will act as if they are trying to read a book as a teacher approaches, only to idly look out of the window as the soon as the teacher moves on.

L.E. Major, The good parent educator (2021), 125

Cricket is also ideally suited to boarding-school life because it goes on for hours and soaks up whole afternoons

St Leonads, Wycombe Abbey, Rodean, Cheltenham, Sherborne School for Girls and Malvern Girls' College modelled themselves on boys' public schools: hence the cricket. Cricket is also ideally suited to boarding-school life because it goes on for hours and soaks up whole afternoons.

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: life in girls' boarding schools 1939 - 1979 (2016), 188

There were only forty of us, and you could take your own pony

If you look at old photographs of such schools, the girls are smiling genuine giggly smiles of joy. Alexandra Etherington showed me photographs of her and her friends in kilts and blouses at Butterstone, near Dunkeld, in 1969, and I don't think I've ever seen such happy children.  'I can still name every girl in those photos,' said Alexandra, 'there were only forty of us, and you could take your own pony.'

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: like in girls' boarding schools 1939-1979 (2016), 93