The 12 whack limit applied to all age groups, so it was possible for the younger boys to get 12 but it didn’t happen often in practice. I only saw one boy get 12 of the slipper in my first year. The gym teacher caught him urinating in the showers. He told the boy to dry himself and get dressed, then made him bend over in the changing room and gave him 12 of the best. In the second year a boy got 12 for writing something obscene on the blackboard during break. I think he planned to rub it out but forgot. Another boy got 12 for getting a very low score in a History test (something like 8 out of 50).