jimisim:
A heavily subscribed girls sixth form college famous for its excellent results and University placings.
College was very strict and didn't bother with lines, detentions or suspensions, it was either the cane or expulsion.
It might be an interesting way to allocate places in an oversubscribed institution,
When I was a school governor about 25 years ago the state schools could theoretically set their own heirarchy of criteria for allocating places (e.g. living in the catchment area, special educational requirement to go to that particular school or maybe there's a sibling already in the school) In practice, however the state schools pretty much had to abide by the order of criteria as laid down by the local education authority or have a very good reason why they thought they could deviate.
Were this not the case then ability to take a sound swishing could make the list,
and a competition like an entrance exam might be held.