What was THE INCIDENT at your secondary school?

[NoviceNewMN]

Inspired by a thread on another website that I randomly came across throught google.

Every school has some sort of 'infamous incident' that passed into the annals of school infamy and was the sole topic of gossip for months if not years.

What was yours?

Mine was the head teacher had an affair with another teacher. Both were married. It all became public on the last day of term and neither of them came back the following term. Just disappeared. No one talked about anything else for a long time.

Thinking about it, I remember some first years got into trouble when they went into some of the science labs and old cellars.

Someone's exotic pet almost caused someone a permanent injury.

There was some trouble with an ex-pupil who'd got into trouble after he left. I think everyone thought he wanted to even some scores.

An inter-school sports tournament led to an unfortunate incident with one of the most popular pupils.

I think some specialisms seemed difficult to recruit, a little like the STEM teacher shortages now. Some teachers only had a short tenure before disappearing under a cloud. It made continuity of learning quite difficult for those who just wanted to study and learn. It as almost like repeatedly having a different supply teacher for a full year.

I vaguely recall DfE or OFSTED sent in some new SLT to try and turn things around but they didn't stay for more than a few months at a time.

As you asked about the 'incident' OP, that was arguably that there was a massive fight with mostly Y11s? where some family members and even some old pupils joined in. The school got trashed. I left after that though heard things settled down.

I could never understand what OfSTED and the Local Authority health and safety people were thinking? I retrospect, I think everyone in charge seemed to know each other and there seemed to be quite a lot of leeway.

Didn't very science block catch fire? In ours everyone was high as kites or suffering significant burns from melting rulers over the Bunsen burners.

A couple of teenage pregnancies (one in my year and one in the year below). This was before Internet/mobile phones etc so I never knew what happened to the girls. I hope that they’re both doing ok.

Teacher got arrested for armed robbery of an off license (think it was an off license!). He was quite a popular teacher as well, so we were all pretty shocked by it.

A girl made a fake/hoax phone call to police about a bomb at the school. Whole school had to be evacuated.

Reading some of these posts makes me very happy i went to a staid old fashioned Grammar school.

There are some horrible stories about teachers or incidents on here, that posters have posted about. Thus, I think I hindsight (though i did not think that way at the time ) I was lucky to have not seen, heard or experienced any of them, or maybe i was just innocent and naive !

Teacher had an affair with a student. They stayed together for a good many years though.

One of the teachers racially abused a child and was physically assaulted quite severely by older siblings. Another teacher was jailed for assaulting a pupil over a football/religion row and another quite quiet IT teacher was failed for selling fraudulent festival tickets.

My high school was awful, we had a resident police officer and security cameras up within the corridors.

New headteacher disappeared after a term after tales of her being found passed out drunk under the table in the entrance area.

Secondary school. English teacher and school secretary got together. Both married. Then we had a school camping trip with them both. Awkward.

Suspected paeodophile teacher. Been there years . Friends with the equally vile head. Horribly abusive in class, Really obviously picking on the the rough kids no one listened to. He moved schools when I’d left and then hung himself when he was caught.

Quite a few pregnancies, some girls had multiple abortions and some had babies at 15/16. I think a 14 year old also had a baby.

Two girls gave their boyfriends BJ on the coach on a school trip.

Two teachers had an affair.

Pupil was murdered, which was very shocking in our (then) quiet 'safe' town. Person was wrongly convicted & jailed and then the real killer was caught 40 years later.

Pupil killed on school ski trip.

14 year old girl got pregnant, which in the late 70s was a huge scandal.

PE teacher had relationship with 16yr old pupil, they got married - no idea if they're still together now.

Teacher hanged himself after his affair with a 14yr old girl got found out.
Schoolboy got thrown out of a window in an RE lesson, we were on the third floor, he lived but only just.

14yo who went into labour in an RE lesson. She didn’t know she was pregnant. It was an all-girls catholic school.
Ended up in a gossip mag and I remember just feeling sorry for her

@CatsArePeople same thing happened at my school, so sad. Wonder if it’s the same one, did you go to a catholic school.

@ladycarlotta I am wondering the same!! In Devon?!

Think my school was tame compared to some of the schools here! And the male teachers were all decent.
Only notable things were, the school was broken into and the perpetrator left blood everywhere. And two of the English teachers were rumoured to be having a lesbian affair (this was a big thing nearly 40yrs ago), we didn't really believe it. Then years later I found out that yes, they were a couple and were still together. Quite romantic really, though a shame they'd had to hide it.
Oh and a teacher set all the wrong books for an O'level, the girls found out on the morning of the exam. The (lovely) teacher was devastated, lots of tears from the pupils.

Not sure there was just one as such.
Violence toward puplis from teachers. Pupil on pupil violence (throwing furniture), physical fights. Racist abuse from teachers to pupils. Relationships between support staff and pupils (the latter being 14/15). A 14 year old girl for pregnant, was due to return to school but got pregnant again. Allegations of paedophelia against some teachers (some proven), fires, thefts, deliberate vandalism.
Somehow at the time, it was all considered 'just how it is'.

@WeRTheOnesWeHaveBeenWaitingFor

There were two.

• A 13 year old got pregnant
• A group of boys killed a man

Was this in Cardiff?

In 6th year a new boy started at our school for our final year. After we left school the sun newspaper had him on their front page, the story broke that he was a 32 year old man posing as a teenage boy. He did it to get into medical school apparantly.

@SmallWaistFatFace

A girl in our school apparently got fingered with a twix

We had the same rumour. Did your school begin with W?

Girl was in the cdt block at lunch,when she wasn't meant to be
Dragon of a teacher caught her and the lass grabbed a hammer and hit her over the head
Broke her skull and she was off for a year-was very forgetful when she did come back
Girl got booted out and school tried to cover it up

Lad got caught selling weed-was my golden child brother and my mother fought like hell to keep him in school while denying her golden boy would ever do that
His twin was caught selling fags at 50p each
The school gave up and allowed him to carry on while shaking their heads at him from afar

We had the same rumour. Did your school begin with W?

I suspect that the more likely scenario (given that there are near-identical stories on this thread involving a Mars bar and a cucumber) is that bullying teenagers will habitually find a girl to humiliate with unpleasant sexualised lies.

14 year old girl having a sexual relationship with the 30 year old bus driver who had been grooming her since she was 12. All the teachers knew, her parents did and invited him over to stay for weekends!!

We had one of these too, the poor girl fell pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption. I often think about her, it must've been horrific.

art teacher and a sixth former rumours
several bomb scares and evacuations. (English town) (common in the 80's)
a kid broke in and wrote a slogan on the school roof about a teacher.
the other school rioted in our grounds/corridors and we were locked in classrooms.
we locked the french teacher out of the classroom.
a friend was killed in a car accident.
a friend commited suicide.
another friend's brother died

At my junior school the brother of a boy who was in my class got killed climbing up a pylon. He was in the year above. At first our class teacher told us he was in hospital and fine, but he died shortly afterwards. This was the early 70s. It affected the whole school.
The family moved away I think.

At Secondary school the headmistress was our Needlework teacher. She was a right bag, had her favourites and used to regularly slap our legs...not that it's any excuse of what comes next...
2 girls (egged on by us lot) put pins in her cup of Tea whilst she was out of the room. She sat drinking it and then saw the pins. Thank god she took so much sugar in her tea the pins had got stuck in it.
No one would dob the girls in, so we all had to stand in the hall every day for hours until someone told. No one did, but the girls cracked after about 5 days. Can't remember what happened after that.

History teacher (Let's call him Mr H) was married to a teacher at the primary school next door. They had a daughter in First year (Y7).
Mr H had an affair with daughter's friend's mum. She became the 2nd Mrs H.
A few years pass and Mr H is now having an affair with Mrs L the German teacher.
2nd Mrs H was charged with drink-driving having been caught drinking vodka at the wheel of her car. It was reported in the paper as she "was going home to face her abusive husband Mr H".

2nd Mrs H lost her licence, got a fine, and her life fell apart.
Mr H carried on with the German teacher and became headteacher. Horrible man.