Law of the Playground

[Interpol Shrimper]

Has anybody been watching this on C4?
For those who haven't it's one of these celeb (in this case I use that term loosely as there are loads of people I have no idea who they are) commentary clip shows along the lines of "Grumpy Old ...."

Anyway, the concept is a good one & there are some really quality stories (can't believe how geeky Myleene Klass looked at school!)

So, I put it to the SZ public, what are your favourite stories/memories from your schooldays?

Mine relates to the dodgy French teacher we had in the 3rd year. I was particularly wary of this bloke as pretty early on in the year we found out not only was he a teacher, but was also a Scout Master & a foster parent. That rang alarm bells that he was a suspected paedo (latterly proved correct after I'd left high-school).

Anyway, I was also going through a particularly rebellious phase at the time & had become even more lazy (my parents would also no doubt say I was hanging out with the wrong crowd). The lad who sat next to me in French was a good mate but in all honestly, looking back, probably was a bit of a bad influence on me. We were sat at the back of the class one day, as bored as ever when I turned to him and said "you're such a f**king gay" (or some other equally cutting remark, well it seems cutting to a 14 y/o). In response to this, he decided to give me a bit of a slap across the face. However, in usual slacker style, I had my pen hanging out of the corner of my mouth. The ballpoint of the pen went straight through one of the main veins in his hand and in no time at all he was screaming in agony at the back of the classroom.

Eventually I managed to attract the attention of Monsieur Camp and told him one of his pupils was potentially bleeding to death. However, due to our reputation he thought it was a setup and we were purely just trying to disrupt his lesson. Only when Matt actually feinted through loss of blood did he believe us. Cue, much panicked mincing around for 5 minutes whilst he tried to get somebody to come and administer first aid. In reality it looked a whole lot worse than the injury was (plus the fact nobdoy seemed to care about the fact he had almost broken my nose too!)

In the next lesson I was told to go & report to the headmaster and was given a severe reprimand and the word "suspension" was mentioned a couple of times, which personally I felt was certainly a trifle harsh. We were also told we had to write an apology (in French) to be read out in front of the next lesson and personally apologise to the teacher too for scaring the life out of him. I always bore a grudge for this & so was very pleased when it turned out he had been found out for what he was and was subjected to quite a high-profile court-case.

I'm sure there are loads of other stories people can add to this thread seeing as we're all in a bit of a nostalgic mood right now for whatever reasons. I've probably got a few more too, I'll have a think!

 

[Southminster_Shrimper]

Having a conversation with someone in another class (who used the same room) by etching the words into the desk with either a pen or a compass. Filled about half the desk up....never did find out who it was tho.

Sabotaging the classroom before the teacher arrived so that it was like an obstacle course and things fell off the desk if he moved or touched the wrong thing.

Being so crap at technical drawing that we were made to sit at the back cos we had failed our mocks. We used the time to torment those that had and on one occassion got sent out for throwing an eraser at one of the boffins at the front. Unfortunately it was over thrown and landed too close to the teacher who then gave us detention.

Having pen fights in RE cos it was so **** we didnt care. It was either undertaken with or without the teacher being in the room. She was dopeyer than Miss Marples great granny.

Deliberately going into the library which was not to be used as corridor but was a great short cut to the other side of school so we had a tactic....we would go in to the library, start mucking about and get chucked out but we went out the door and thus completed the short cut. If you did it straight you got turned back from whence you came...:D

So now you know why i iz fick.......

 

[Pubey]

a kid "apparently" was caught w*nking off into a test tube in chemistry. there are 100s of stories which i'm sure i'll remember over this afternoon. popular in year8 was taking a load of ketchup sachets and stamping on them in the playground, covering unsuspecting people in ketchup. also one year someone stuck a massive padlock on the art room door and so our class was cancelled as some boltcroppers were found.

 

[londonblue]

Story 1:-

My friend and I used to play a game of Snakes and Ladders in double French on a Wednesday afternoon. This was played on a home made board and had a couple of amendments. Some of the squares had cut outs from a Jacobs Orange Club wrapper glued to them and some had barrels drawn on them.

If you landed on a barrel you had to ask the teacher a question. If you landed on a wrapper you had to stand up for 30 seconds.

For a whole year we were standing up for absolutely no reason, and asking the most inane questions.


Story 2:-

In the upper 6th the same friend as in the previous story and I had another game we played in the common room. It was called "Mop through the window" and consisted of us taking it in turns to try and throw a mop head (made of string and a huge hunk of metal) through a window, whilst the other one played "goalkeeper". There were basically 2 tactics to throwing; You either looped the mop head near the ceiling so that it lobbed the goalkeeper, or you threw it so hard the goalkeeper got out of the way.

My friend preferred the latter, but wasn't all that accurate and often missed the open window and hit a closed one. All year the rest of the 6th form kept telling him he was going to break the window, but he never did...until one day when he threw the mop head so hard it left a hole about a foot in diameter right in the middle of the window. Needless to say he was ****ting himself, until I came up with an idea.

I grabbed an empty cardboard box and the two of us went outside. We collected the mop handle, and all the glass we could, and went back inside to wait the 10 minutes until break time. During break I threw the glass all over the floor of the common room. We then waited a few minutes and went outside. We then (as prefects) took two first years to the deputy head saying that they had thrown the mop into the common room!











Before you think i'm a complete *******, we did tell the deputy head we couldn't be 100% sure it was them.

 

[davewebbsbrain]

Using Hollowed out BIC pens as pea shooters wasted many many hours, as did setting off the fire alarm!!

 

[OldBlueLady]

I used to be able to have nosebleeds at will during very boring French lessons as I had a weak blood vessel at the back of my nose - can't do it anymore as it's been cauterized.

 

[Southminster_Shrimper]

Using Hollowed out BIC pens as pea shooters wasted many many hours, as did setting off the fire alarm!!

The science lab version was to connect a bunsen burner to a water tap....:p

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

The science lab version was to connect a bunsen burner to a water tap....:p

We actually used to light the gas direct from the bunsen burner taps. Surprised the chemistry lab never exploded!

Also the alpha male kid in our registration class (every secondary school has one - a foot taller than every other boy in the class, went through puberty at 10, thicker than a piece of 2 by 4), had this habit of "doctoring" the stools in the biology lab so that when a certain dorky kid sat down the stool would give way, causing him to fly across the room! :hilarious:

 

[davewebbsbrain]

We actually used to light the gas direct from the bunsen burner taps. Surprised the chemistry lab never exploded!

Also the alpha male kid in our registration class (every secondary school has one - a foot taller than every other boy in the class, went through puberty at 10, thicker than a piece of 2 by 4), had this habit of "doctoring" the stools in the biology lab so that when a certain dorky kid sat down the stool would give way, causing him to fly across the room! :hilarious:

That Dorky kid was you wasn't it!!!

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

That Dorky kid was you wasn't it!!!

Er, no. Wasn't the coolest kid at school but certainly wasn't a dork!

 

[EastStandBlue]

We labelled everything, and I mean everything, with post-it's before. Whole room was covered in these yellow tabs with "banana" "red pen" "black pen" "chair leg #1" and other crap for ages.

Released a fish from the pond into the swimming pool. Funny as you think, but causes more of a commotion than you think... The pool had to be emptied, chemically cleansed and then refilled. Got in a bit of trouble for that one...

On a non-uniform day one year, a mate of mine came in dressed in a full spiderman outfit, with mask, and continued to not go to lessons climbing on up the walls of buildings, disrupting lessons and running around.

Cellotaped a chair to the ceiling.

Cellotaped someones bag to the ceiling.

Rearranged the room of my tutor completely. turning everything inside out, back to front and upside down.

One of the weirdest teachers at my school was a crazy egyptian woman who taught French... Whoever went to KES will know who I mean. One particular lesson somebody sneezed in the row behind me, and the girl next to me turned round and said "Bless you"... This teacher went nuts shouting "There will be no Blessing in my classroom! Heathens!!!"... Very strange woman.

One of the best stories I heard was a couple of kids brought in 3 live chickens into SHSB, each with a number painted on the back "1", "2" and "4", and set them free. Of course, they found Chickens 1, 2 and 4, and then proceeded to continue looking for Chicken 3 for weeks. Now, if that isn't an act of pure genius, then I don't know what is.

 

[canveyshrimper]

We had an English teacher called Mr Bailey, IMO he was a good teacher, plus at the time he was a member of Essex CCC and would let a few of us get into the members area at home county games.

He was a bit of a tartar and handed out punishments without great genority. He must have seriously p*ssed off someone in a previous lesson, because we arrived and found the blackboard bore the legend Bailey is a c**t in foot high letters. A few frantically were trying to remove the evidence when he arrived on the scene, and I suppose naturally assumed that we had done the deed. Hence detentions all round for the rest of that term. Fortunately we finally convinced him of our innocence.

There was also the story of the bloke who put a firework in the cistern in the boys bogs, and the subsequent explosion sounded like WW3 had started.

 

[MK Shrimper]

My claim to fame: My history teacher was a delectable hippy known as Ms Pryke. Unfortunately she couldn't control the class and often broke down in tears... (sorry Ms Pryke :( ).... she's now a famous florist to the rich & famous!

http://www.paula-pryke-flowers.com/index.html

 

[Pubey]

my uncle told me that he got a micro burner (small bunsen) and stuck it upside down into the desk sink. he then turned it on and filled up all the waste pipes with gas before lighting it... causing massive flames to fly out of every sink in the lab!

 

[SamuraiBlue]

We used to put fuse wire into the plug socket and then turn it on in physics classes. How we didn't electricute someone I don't know. It was really cool as it would glow red and then burn the desk and vanish. It would always blow the fuse box in the room and the teacher would have to pop a switch at the front to get the electricity working again. He used to say it was because we were using too many power packs?! Dumb ****.

I had a bright idea to try it with a paper clip. We stood back and covered our faces and someone turned the plug on. The thing exploded in massive bang and molten paper clip flew out. Not a single injury which was amazing.

KIDS: Don't do this. You could die

 

[Alexis_SUFC]

The 2p game, my knuckles are still scarred 5 years on.

 

[MK Shrimper]

The 2p game, my knuckles are still scarred 5 years on.

Penny up the wall....marbles on drain lids.... those were the days.....

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

My favourite school story is still "the custard 360" story.

At lunchtime, pudding would invariably consist of some suitably stodgy British pud (apple crumble et al.) served with custard. The custard would come in an earthenware jug and - crucially - would inevitably have a pretty chunky skin on the top, in the order of an inch thick, give or take.

So, there we were, sitting round the table, with a new guy who had joined in the sixth form and who was thus keen to impress. And so it was that we explained to him how it was well-known that, because the skin on the custard was so thick, it was entirely feasible to do "the custard 360".

As the trick sounds, you have to put your hand on the handle of the jug(twisting your wrist around, obviously) and then, by turning your wrist over quickly enough, you make the jug turn through 360 degrees. There were two keys to this trick:

1. The speed of the rotation. Obvisouly, centrifugal force dictates that the quicker you rotate something, the more likely it is that the contents stay in it.

2. The thickness of the custard skin. Obviously, this gets you through any dip in centrifugal force.

So, being the new guy, and being keen to impress... he accpeted the Custard 360 challenge. Picture a rectangular table, with a guy at either end, and new guy sitting in the middle.

The wrist was placed on the jug handle... and the spin begun.

The next three seconds of my life will be a permanent, joyful, hilarious slo-mo in my mind. The spin started well... the jug passed through 90 degrees, 120, 150 degrees.

180 degrees.... no problem at all. Not one speck of custard on the table. Was new boy going to do this?!

225 degrees.

Disaster.

The skin gave way... and the custard, by now with the benefit of significant centrifugal force, came flying out. Here was the brilliant slo-mo bit... watching this jet of hot, yellow liquid fly out of the mouth of the jug, bounce off the table about 3 feet along... and then fly up the boy sitting at the end of the table (Ed), covering him from his waist to the top of his head.

For three seconds, we all stared in disbelief.

And then the custard skin fell off Ed's face, and onto the table... whereupon we burst into hysterics, the sort of tearful hysterics where you laugh so hard, you think you're going to faint.

New boy then crowned this moment - if that were possible, by hissing... "Shhh, I don't think the teacher has seen yet."

Brilliant. Priceless. A moment that will make me smile until my dying day.

:D