Friend of my son's abseiled off the School roof today as his last day of 6th year. Quite impressive I thought. Head teacher has banned him from going to leavers prom and janny has his ropes and gear. Fair or Harsh?
Harsh.
Harsh. Also, abseil into prom.
Glad he is safe. The sooner exams are moved forward, results come out in mid July and then you do the University merry-go-round the better.
Harsh.
Jack was planning to ride his bike down from second floor, I'm not sure why he didn't in the end.
Tbf, the same school had a few 'issues' today - including ninja/balaclava'd student wandering through smoking the a nice fat spliff...
Yep seen that photo too Matt. Cam and Joe have been talking about the stairs gap jump but I think this might put Cam off. Apparently Jack's not doing it was coz covid!
Ours bailed out of silliness as "prom" was held over them. In a classic piece of thinking prom is before their last official day so.....
In Scotland exams start next week and finish end of May, so S6 pretty much have finished classes.
"prom"🙄 this is not 'merica
@bruneep they all have proms now! My son is leaving school this year after GCSEs and is also having prom attendance held over them! He’s got another month yet before exams though here in the south…
Fair. He has been dick and whilst he might have the knowledge to rig an abseil correctly the person who tries to emulate him might not. Punishment is there to make the next person think twice.
Pretty sure if I had abseiled from the school roof I wouldn't have been allowed near the place again, and there wouldn't have been any question in that before doing.
I'm surprised it's a thing tbh and that anyone thinks they might get away with it. Maybe things have changed a lot since I was at school.
Fair. Dick move.
And all because the lady loves... Is it a mixed school?
Fair or Harsh?
Fair.
If something happened to him the school will be blamed/sued and probably someone will lose his/her job because of him.
Easy to laugh and think it's harsh, but chewkw makes a fair point.
I don't think the school could have responded otherwise.
I do however have some admiration for such antics over the usual crap which largely seems to be vandalism.
A good thing to do, but a fair consequence. One I'd hope I would have been mature enough to appreciate was likely when I decided to do it and happy enough to take in good grace when it came.
But.......
as his last day of 6th year.
You what now - it's April. What part of the world are we talking?
And the copycat 'prom' tradition in the UK is shit shit shit. The pressure to spunk daft money on a chavtastic 'limo'. Naff - the UK has no spine as we jerk off to gaudy 'merican aspirations.
Scotland - start of exam leave for highers, so last day of normal school.
Our school had a specific abseil point set up on the roof of the science block. There was a very securely locked door onto the roof though!
Abseil point was used a lot by the cadets and sometimes for charity stuff. Forward rappel off it you could get down 4 floors in 4 seconds!
I think the best one was a temporary bus stop sign in the middle of the cricket pitch. Beautifully done, the turf remained immaculate.
Abseiling kid is a boss.
Well I would have gone for the ab rather than the prom.
Leavers Proms are a primary school thing round here (Edinburgh). It's mental. No pranks though.
I was lucky to go to a pretty relaxed school. We did our leaving prank the night before the fifth years finished so it would look like they did it.
We did leave a tin of white paint behind.
https://flic.kr/p/2ng59qm
Some other mates abseiled into the quad and padlocked it from inside.
Tradition was to run around the quad roof on the final day. I remember the Head laughing but not really saying much more.
Son number 1 released 1000 bouncy balls down the stairs into the leavers assembly. Acceptable.
Abseiling and gap jumps, sorry but no.
Harsh. Suspended sentence would have been appropriate.
Worth it
At least it’s there weren’t put in danger, Unlike putting hundreds of balls on a stairs, a child could have slipped and bit another child’s face
Suspended sentence would have been appropriate.
Nice!
Ambrose
Full Member
Son number 1 released 1000 bouncy balls down the stairs into the leavers assembly. Acceptable
Fair...as long as he and his mates picked them up afterwards. ( I am a teacher)
Muck up day has made me use my all time favourite line in a school and one I don't expect to ever repeat. " Jock; stop arguing and just give me the chicken." Teuchter boy had come in on the school bus and neither the driver nor his tutor teacher he had gone to say goodbye to had questioned the live chicken in a cat box he was carrying.
The problem is that a lot of the pranks are just vandalism or dangerous ( washing up liquid on banisters to junior canteen was one hilarious jape.) Or the cat food down the back of built in cabinets that meant they had to removed for cleaning then reinstated at a fair expense by joiners. That is just shithousery.
I remember a teacher at my school that promised he was going to ride the (dismantled) Lambretta in his cupboard down the stairs on his last day. Changed times.
I can see both sides of the abseiling thing, at the end of the day they can't really condone it so here we are. I'd be asking for the gear back though.
Friend of my son’s abseiled off the School roof today as his last day of 6th year.
Harsh but fair.
Heard about this from Thump - If any kid in Scotland was qualified to do this it was him.
An apology to the headteacher and a promise not to do it again should be enough to get an entry to the prom - or go as a "date".
The problem is that a lot of the pranks are just vandalism or dangerous
Some pupils really seem to feel like they want to do damage to the school and there's often a sort of mass hysteria around it which draws in others who wouldn't otherwise. This really annoys me as in most instances they've got no reason to feel aggrieved about their time in school and are merely acting like spoiled brats. If you want to kick against something go find something proper to kick against, not a bunch of people who have for the most part tried their best for you for the previous 5 or 6 years and certainly don't do something that will make a load of work for the cleaners.
I'm with @Spin on this. I hate it and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
N5 class chucking water balloons through the window of the class they've just come out of and next week I've to try and get them through any missed assessments.
At my mates school someone let two sheep loose in the school ground with numbers 1 & 3 spray painted on the side.
The staff where running around all day trying to find sheep number 2!
😄
Fair. He has been dick and whilst he might have the knowledge to rig an abseil correctly the person who tries to emulate him might not.
And why is that his problem?
This idea that people shouldn't do stuff because other people ate incapable is weird.
Heard about this from Thump – If any kid in Scotland was qualified to do this it was him.
A very good point....
😎
And why is that his problem?
This idea that people shouldn’t do stuff because other people ate incapable is weird.
It is not. It is the school's problem. The act was undertaken on their property by their student and in breach of their rules and could lead to copy cat incidents or other outcomes that put students, staff or property at risk.
It is therefore within their remit to treat it as a disciplinary matter and hand out appropriate sanctions.
Being able to do something that someone else cannot is not carte blanche to do it whenever and wherever you choose.
Fair. I love that the kid did it and no-one got hurt, but the school has to take the responsible position on this
Being able to do something that someone else cannot is not carte blanche to do it whenever and wherever you choose.
FFS get a grip. Where’s the fire? Teenagers have fun doing something a bit risky. That’s ordinary healthy behaviour.
Would you jump off a school roof just because he did?
Our little gang made sure be we were off-site and we'll out of the way for the few days of chaos caused by the school vandals.
Fire alarms, blocked sinks and toilets, expanding foam in the electrical boxes, locking all the toilet doors from the outside.
Joyous times. I was in the pub, or out on my bike somewhere far far away from school. Worst thing they could have done was ban me from the end of year party for being off site. Which I had absolutely _no_ intention of going to. Under any circumstances.
Would you jump off a school roof just because he did?
You do know how abseiling works do you?
Asked a recently retired teacher friend how he would handle the abseil-issue:
"Difficult, I used to teach the kids to abseil off the school roof".
Different schools, different approaches.
Said his favourite leaving prank was a kid that parked his tractor across the head-teacher's and deputy head-teacher's parking spaces.
My dad and his mates carried the French teachers car up to the top of a turret. It was an isletta bubble car, but still that must have been pretty irritating!
Some of my mates got green dye into the water supplies. The school had to be completely closed for 2 days.
In 17 years of teaching the worst Ive had was a student arriving at my class with and A3 bit of paper taped to the front and another to the back saying -my last name- will you marry me! At the end of the less on she asked for a hug- I ran off and locked my self in the staff room. I was 99% sure she was joking/ harmless but not loosing my job sure 😃
Asked a recently retired teacher friend how he would handle the abseil-issue:
“Difficult, I used to teach the kids to abseil off the school roof”.Different schools, different approaches.
The obvious follow up questions would have been; "So how would you feel if one of them you had taught, or better still one that you hadn't checked out personally even if by repute you had heard they were competent, abseiled off a different roof using anchoring points you hadn't checked out, with equipment you hadn't checked over and without asking for approval beforehand?'. Did you ask it?
I teach at a school that is big into outdoor education, with its own climbing wall, copious qualified staff and a programme where a significant number of students get climbing qualifications before they leave. Even so I can imagine the consequence if one of them elected to abseil off a school building for a prank for all of the reasons in my question above.
Again, as I said earlier - as a fellow dafty I have no issue with the concept of both thoroughly approving him doing it and approving the school's response. My only issue would be with someone doing something like that and being naive/entitled enough not to appreciate that was the likely outcome and not taking that into account when they chose to do it. Doing a 'naughty' thing (not a bellendery thing that causes others extra work or hassle but a naughty thing that has minimal impact on others but is clearly not supposed to happen) because you want to but knowing it'll have a consequence and that's fair enough is a mark of maturity in my book.
Fair. If he'd got injured or died the school would have been blamed. Even if they didn't get the blame, it's still bad publicity.
Pranks can be harmless but the thing that concerns me is kids recording their teachers reactions then putting it on YouTube. Careers could be damaged and jobs could be lost.
You do know how abseiling works do you?
Yes. You do know how jokes work?
