Scotland has always had a much more rigorous educational tradition than England, and one which, even in poorer and less academic schools, prides itself on results.
Scotland has also had a rather more deeply ingrained religious tradition, with a readier acceptance of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. As a result, certainly in the latter half of the 20th century, in many Scottish schools corporal punishment, usually in the shape of the tawse (generally referred to as the belt) administered to the palms of the hands, was very common for both boys and girls.
In my experience, you are quite likely to hear a Scottish woman refer to having been belted at school. Most of them look at it very lightly, it was just part of life as a youngster. Way back around 1962, when I was on holiday in Scotland I gave the teenage (maybe 14) daughter of the B&B I’d stayed in a lift to school.