A question concenring school slipperings

A question to those out there who might be able to offer me some insight. I'm familiar with 'six of the best' as it pertains to canings in school, but for those who may have been slippered, was there also a set number imposed, or did teachers/administrators use more latitude in the number of strokes applied?

FYI...Please excuse the horrendous spelling error in the title of the post. Terribly embarrassing...

In my experience it ranged from 1 to 6, three probably being the most common.
I had 1, 2 and 3 from prefects. Masters used to smack your head very frequently as well.
In reality it is just as well those days are long gone, as I'm quite sure that it gave rise to an unpleasant atmosphere in the whole school.
Reality is very different from fantasy, must be between consenting adults only.

Many years ago, while on vacation in London, I experienced a school slippering in a school setting. it was six swats bent over the desk by the teacher in mortar and gown. I remember the slipper was huge and it left purple marks on the inside of both cheeks. She expertly landed the slipper, so it hit the delineated crack of my tan shorts. The sting was bad enough, but the bruises made sitting on the flight home a real beast.

Not related to the slipper but to your reference to 'six of the best' . This was a term frequently used in my school days.
But i never heard anyone say 'four of the best' , 'two of the best' or even 'eight of the best'. It was a phrase only used in terms of six strokes.
I would be interested in anyone having the phrase ' the best' refer to any other number of strokes other than six. It makes me wonder if the phrase perhaps come from some other situation and was applied to caning, and strapping more commonly in my school, only later.

I'm not fond of reading about canings much anymore. Six is six is six. Yadda, yadda. Although there are great stories out there wherein someone gets six of the best.
Here is a phrase I'm going to find a home for in a story I write. You many borrow it; indeed, it may already have been used:
Six of one and half a dozen of the other.
I wonder what the other (presumably implement) will be?
Or could it be six people each giving six of the best to the spankee? Or six of the best on six successive days to one poor spankee. Six on one cheek, six on the other? What about the lonely thighs?
May I'll write a future fantasy in which a group of scientists determine, using exacting methodology, that six of (a master's, a senior, etc) cane is more like to change naughty girls (and other wenches) behavior than 5 or 12.

At my school the slipper was mainly used by masters in the prep years and often a boy would be summoned to the front for two, three or four whacks across his trousered bottom whilst laying over the form table facing away from us with. In the senior school the cane was the main weapon of choice and in addition to the headmaster others also caned deserving boys usually in private and almost always to my knowledge six of the best. The history master made a point of caning the first deserving boy in a new school year in front of the class to set an example . If you were caned by the music master you were lucky to keep your trousers and it was not unusual to lose your underpants as well before getting a leisurely six strokes. The PE master still used a slipper or more accurately a size 10 plimsoll in the senior school. At the start of a school year he spelt out the rules telling everyone that any misbehaviour would result in a quick whacking in front of the class in the gym. He added that if he told anyone to go to the changing room and prepare, they were to leave the gym, drop their shorts and be in position over the back of the single chair and await for him, whereupon he would arrive with his size 10 weapon and deliver six of the best across their bare bottom. The same applied to his swimming lessons and being dragged out of the pool and getting a few whacks across wet trunks was even more painful. During my years I was caned a few times, each time getting six including just once a music master trousers and pants off thrashing and again just once a PE master six stroke whacking with his plimsoll. Was the slipper (plimsoll) worse than the cane? No but jolly close

I am sadly too young to have such an experience at school.

However my gran was a teacher for 35 years and a headmistress for 10 of those. She often referred to 'the good old days' when teachers could smack a child when it was needed.

I was a frequent flier across her knee. I certainly got the impression she missed having many bottoms to spank each month. I enjoyed her keeping in practice on mine. She never caned me. Instead it was either a few minutes with her hand or a couple of dozen whats with her trusty old school slipper.

8/10 times it was across her lap, which I found the best, the other 2/10 I was formally bent over the arm of her arm chair, skirt up, panties down and give a dozen swats on each bare buttock. These spankings were reserved for when even I thought I had gone that bit too far.

Mum recounted she had faced similar spankings over grans lap.

Sorry this is a slight tangent, but for anyone born in the UK after about 1975, school spankings are a bit of a dream.

Re: Six of the Best

I've read that this term originated in Mrs Berkeley's Flagellant Brothel, located in London during the Victorian/Edwardian era, and was the standard amount of strokes that a client could give (or receive) before being charged extra!

myrkassi
Goodness, everything really does have its price! I wonder who got the fee for extras, the brothel, or the poor bottom in question?