History Literature / ChaletSchool

** In Adrienne's case, it's particularly glaring because after she has to have her hair cut following a fire, Mary-Lou notices that she looks a lot like the Robin. Firstly, Mary-Lou is someone who barely would have known the Robin, as she would have been at university during Mary-Lou's time at school in the Armishire/St Briavel's years. Secondly, Robin resembles her mother, but Adrienne is related to her on her ''father'''s side.

* PetTheDog: ''SadistTeacher/Herr Laubach'' of all people has a moment of this in ''Jo Returns'' when Polly Heriot borrows a particularly costly art book of his to copy a floral design on a mirror she's painting for Hobbies Club, and accidentally crushes the pages. He is furious with Polly and orders her to show him her work as proof of why she borrowed the book. When he sees her mirror, he is impressed with the quality of the painting and asks her why she can't do that sort of thing in art class. The bad-tempered art master then comes to see the Hobbies Club in action, causing several girls to almost ruin their work in shock, and asks Joey to make some jigsaws for his wife, who is ill. Joey does not want to take payment, but he insists, and she offers to throw in a free one as a little extra.

* WritingLines: A punishment often inflicted by prefects - for example, in ''Rosalie'', Daisy Venables orders both Rosalie and Tom to write lines as punishment for being clumsy and forgetting to wear her gardening overall, respectively - along with being made to learn and repeat poetry.

* ShoutOut: Joey bears more than a few similarities to Jo March of Literature/LittleWomen fame, what with the dark hair, being a bit tomboyish and a wannabe writer, and not wanting to grow up. She even quotes Jo at one point. There's also a Margaret (Bettany, and several other characters), an Amy (Stevens) who starts off as a blonde-haired BrattyHalfPint, and later a Beth (Chester).
** Joey orders Polly Heriot to read Literature/StalkyAndCo as punishment for ringing the alarm bell and waking up the entire school (and the locals) in ''Jo Returns'', and to pay particular attention to what Stalky and his friends think of 'Popularity' Prout.

** Arguably, Naomi Elton's aunt sending her to the Chalet School in ''Trials'' counts as this. Firstly, Naomi is an agnostic and the Chalet School has a Christian ethos, and girls are divided into Protestant and Catholic prayers. Mary-Lou is stumped when Naomi says she doesn't have a fixed religion and would just attend any service. Secondly, Naomi is disabled and walks with a stick, and the Chalet School is, at this point, in a mountainous area of Switzerland where there's lots of ice and snow; Naomi even slips and bangs her head when she brings the wrong stick. The school does make allowances for her limited mobility and pull her along on a sledge, but it's still not ideal.

* CuteClumsyGirl: Erica Standish in ''Summer Term'' is the poster girl for this trope, as well as something of a ButtMonkey, and seems to be a magnet for accidents. Within the space of one book, she's squirted cream out of her eclair while out with Joy (as pictured in the book art), broken her ankle on a walk, been attacked by bees after having perfume spilled on her, hurt her ankle ''again'' while sliding down stairs on a tray, and fallen into a hole in a cricket pitch. Not to mention that she and Joey also survive a train crash on the way to Switzerland.

* ScoutOut: ''Massively'' averted, especially in the Tyrol books, when the school gets its own Guides group (and later has a Brownie pack as well) after Joey and her friends ask Madge for one. ''The Chalet Girls in Camp'' is entirely about a Guide camp. The school continues to have Brownies and Guides in Armishire and St Briavel's, but oddly, they seem to have dropped it in Switzerland.

Features [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters a cast of thousands]] by virtue of having over sixty books and spanning almost three generations of the family.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Over the years, there are many characters added to the alumni, including the children of the main characters in the first books.

* SheIsAllGrownUp: The series follows the lives of LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters as they go through the school, some of them returning as teachers, and we get to see them maturing into adults. Some of whom become noticeably attractive.

* RapunzelHair: particularly in the Tyrol books. Many of the characters have waist-length hair; when Biddy's hair comes down in ''Genius'', it's described as down to her hips. Joey even has plaits down to her ''knees'' in one book. TruthInTelevision as a lot of women did have very long hair in those days.

* AdultFear: Both Jem and Madge and Joey have to deal with their young children going missing at certain points. In the former case, Sybil is kidnapped by the Mystic M in ''The New Chalet School'', while in ''The Chalet School Triplets'', Joey's daughter Cecil is kidnapped by a mentally ill woman. Luckily, no harm comes to either child. And Joey is a constant source of this for Madge in the Tyrol years.

* IdiotBall: Carried by the prefects in ''Bride Leads''. When faced with the problem of Diana Skelton, instead of going to Miss Annersley - as Gisela and her group did in the Tyrol when they were having trouble with Juliet and Grizel - they decide to write to Joey, who is in Canada, and ask her for advice despite the fact that Miss Annersley knows Diana and Joey doesn't. Their rationale is that going to the Head would make them look weak, but they only end up pissing Diana off to the point where she [[spoiler:wrecks Bride's study in revenge.]]

* IAteWhat: The school's reaction in ''Carola Storms'', when it's revealed that Carola and her fellow classmates accidentally fried the doughnuts which have been served for the school tea in ''cod liver oil''.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: In ''The Chalet School in Exile'', one of the wartime books, the school relocates to Guernsey. As [[http://lampandbook.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/chalet-school-in-exile-2.html this article]] points out, Brent-Dyer had no way of knowing that, just after the book was published, the Nazis would invade Guernsey.

%% * AcademicAlphaBitch: Janet Henderson, and this is a plot point in ''Adrienne and the Chalet School'' when Adrienne ties with her at the top of the form league table. Janet is ''not'' happy, thinking Adrienne is cheating (which isn't true at all) and makes nasty little digs at her until, in typical ''Chalet School'' style, Adrienne puts out her dress when it catches fire during tableaux.

** Carola Johnstone and Kat Gordon bond over being sporty girls who came to the school in an unorthodox manner (Carola ran away to school, while Kat went to [[TitleDrop the wrong Chalet School]] by accident.

** José Helston and Jane Carew both have famous parents (royalty and actors respectively) and both want to make their own way in life rather than depending on their parents. They also both downplay their parents' fame as they don't want people only making friends with them because of it.