I was slapped, slippered and caned into learning in the Midlands, not South London. Did it work? Probably. The teacher with the penchant for smacking bare thighs tagged me as “slow”. Somewhere shortly after that I got the hang of school work and ended up doing pretty well academically. Maybe I should thank her for making me cry by pulling up my shorts and smacking my bare legs when I was 6 years old?
A lot of the physical punishment at grammar school was not specifically aimed at making you work harder. It was more to do with learning such vital life skills for a young gentleman as “not talking in assembly” (slippered by a prefect if spotted) and “not spitting in public” (the reason I got caned by the headmaster).