6 on each hand must fall into the realms of sadistic pleasure rather than punishment as does 12 on the backside, There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest the Christian Brother were known for their brutal punishments, I’m surprised a lot more children didn’t end up with long term damage to their hands.
The strap was more common in the North than in the South of the UK, as a softy Southerner as our friends up North like to call us, down South we only had to deal with either the slipper or the cane.