At my secondary school, if you were awarded a detention, you were given a card to take home to inform your parents that you would be late home on the chosen day. Detentions were also listed on your end-of-term report, which was in the form of a book you kept throughout your school career. This meant you were never allowed to forget your indiscretions.
If you were caned, no information was sent to your parents and nothing went on your report. However, an entry was always made in the Punishment Book, with its distinctive plum coloured cover, that would be waiting on the headmaster’s desk when you were called in to be whacked.
So, at the end of the sixth form, you knew exactly how many detentions you had received in your career, but no record of how often you had been caned. The school knew though, and in some cases perhaps they still do?