According to this, corporal punishment was outlawed by the British Parliament in 1986:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment#United_Kingdom

I remember that at the time. I was 8-years-old. I'd never been caned myself, even though I was often a naughty boy at times. But about a year before it was illegal, one of my older brother's classmates got smacked with a ruler by a teacher.

By the time I was in that teacher's class, caning was illegal. As it turns out, he ended up being my favourite teacher at primary school. He made lessons a lot of fun, but he wouldn't stand for any bad behaviour. He would shout sometimes. I remember him calling a kid a moron once.

But that teacher did behave a bit inappropriately one time, which I wrote about here: https://medium.com/p/cc755b9f88c2