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.

Head of Lower School was an abusive alcoholic
Metalwork teacher threw hammers at kids
PE teacher with 20+ years service was abusing the boys in his care for much of that time - got jailed, remains unrepentant.
French teacher had a breakdown and gave the same lesson all year - we failed.
Senior teacher married a girl from the local convent school not long after she sat her A-levels - they're still together 30+ years later

Sixth former faked suicide convincingly by jumping out of a first floor window onto crash mats below which were hastily removed by his accomplices - sorry Bruce.
My friend invented a game called window-walking, seeing how far you could walk along the external window-sills two or three storeys up.

My sister and brother attended a rural state school in the early 1970s. After 3 out of 35 13-14 years old in my sister’s eighth grade class fell pregnant by other students, my sibling were packed off to strict private single sex Quaker schools.
At the girls’ school, we were told to start talking about baseball when boys started talking about sex.

Two beloved teachers who were married and both worked at the school went home on a Tuesday and were killed that evening. It was terribly sad.

So our annual trip to a nearby theme park was never visited again because one of the year 11s got caught having sex with a boy from another school!

We had a teacher from Spain who was teaching German and French in our U.K. school (countries have been changed for anonymity). In hindsight that's amazing, that she spoke 4 languages fluently. But at the time we all decided we didn't like her and she got a hard time in our London comp. It reached it's apex when someone who was normally our goody two-shoes, high achieving Hermione Granger type locked her in the stationery cupboard for a whole double lesson. She came out crying and left the school. I still feel bad about it but there was no way I was going to defy Hermione and let her out.

I went to a catholic school and one of the priests got one of the nuns pregnant. We all talked about that for a long time.

Two children dying on a school trip. I went on the same trip 2 years before. My younger brother was booked to go on the same trip but got an infection, he had heart problems and mum decided it would be too stressful for him. 17 days and 15 European cities.

A friend of mine taught at a local PRU ( pupil referral unit) where kids who are too wild or difficult for mainstream school go. The PRU was in a London suburb. One night she dropped friends off at the old style Kings Cross station and drove back past the steps which were a massive red light area at the time. A 14 year old student of hers was on the steps , touting for business in a very skimpy outfit and was outraged when my friend stopped and hauled her into the car and drove her home.

The girl who used to sit on the school steps rocking back and forth and crying.

She gave birth in the school toilets, nobody knew she was pregnant. She was 14. The baby died shortly afterwards- it was her stepdad’s.

Always wish I could go back in time and sit next to her instead of doing what we all did and hurry past and make faces.

If we are allowed to go back to junior school-

A black panther lived in the church grounds which was next door to the school. We used the church hall for gym, tv, school concerts and nativity.

There were a lot of sightings apparently, at 4-7 years the whole class would run at full speed to get to/from the church! Can still feel the fear!

Was never outed as a "scandalous incident" just a regular occurrence.....science teachers used to get drunk at lunchtime so afternoon science lessons were totally incoherent but very funny, once one of the teachers while conducting an experiment (while completely ratted) accidentally set fire to a lab technician, we quickly put the fire out and he was luckly unscathed, teachers response "oh s..t"....i also caught one of the science teachers smoking a joint but didn't report them......not surprising we all failed 0-level science. This was back in the 80's

Teachers having sex with pupils was rife, the bandmaster even ran away with a 16 year old girl and left his wife for her. Some of the dirty wankers have been recently jailed in quite high profile cases for the stuff that went on when I was there, including the vicar.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles The teacher engineered a terrifying scenario that the students believed to be real but wasn't, think threat to lives/sudden death.

Drama teacher left his wife and shacked up with a very recently ex 6th former, but not a one off as we all knew not to be alone with him. That was eclipsed by the married head of 6th form taking advantage of very vulnerable girl whose parents were going through a messy divorce. How they let him continue to be a teacher was beyond me even then.

One of the languages teachers stole all the money that had been paid for the school trip to Germany. When one of the others confronted him he pushed her down some stairs.

@Thulian

Oh and someone brought an air gun to school once and shot someone else in the leg.

Our school was rough, but the catholic school up the road was rougher. Gangs of lads from our school used to go there to fight their gangs of lads.

I had a friend who went to a much posher school. There was a scandal there one Christmas when the 6th formers sprayed swear words on their common room window with fake snow and some got suspended.

I was and thought it was the biggest non-story ever :o

Still reading but this reminded me of my only brush with the Law!

When I was about 7 at around Christmas time I was gently teasing a friend about fancying a boy in our class and sprayed a heart with their initials in it on the outside of my garden fence with fake snow. I wasn't being mean and it was just a quick silly joke.

Her mother called the police on me because she was mad I had been teasing but all they could do was give me a lecture on vandalism. I was scared stupid! Over fake snow initials

@JurassickJay

...Thought of another.

We had to make stuffed toy animals in what was then called Needlework, and someone had the idea of fitting their cloth rat with a pencil sharpener up its bum. After some use in class, soon everyone wanted one, and they were all the rage until banned.

This is brilliant @JurassickJay

I have to say that I feel really naive for starting this thread. I had thought (this being predominently a UK site lacking in guns at school) that it would be mostly of the type of rats arse pencil sharpeners and lions in the school with a few teachers affairs for good measure.

Much of what is on here is really dark and really sad - so much abuse of pupils by teachers.

I thought it would be mostly glibbly entertaining school gossip and a bit of fun so I'm sorry it took such a dark turn. I'm ashamed at my own lack of insight as probably I should have realised.

I've thought of another one for my school that was less traumatic. At one time there were only two televisions in the school that was this big thing on stilts and wheels so it could be seen by all those sitting in the class and moved around. One time two men dressed in boiler suits just walked into the school and carried both of them out of the school.

This was in a era where you could just walk in through the door rather than having to by pass any front desk security.

They were seen by loads of people including many teachers during this operation but no one stopped them because everyone assumed they were officially there/taking the television for a lawful reason.

There were many jokes about the crimewatch observational skills of certain teachers and much playing up by pupils as result.

When a teacher couldn't find anything a standard pupil response was are you sure it hasn't been stolen?

This goes back to the early 1970s. A 15 year old girl had an abortion...her second. She had her first at 13.

Very tragically, a girl was killed in a funfair accident.

For my school, it was when two brothers were suddenly whisked away from school one afternoon, never to be seen again. Their parents had died in a murder/suicide that day. I can still feel the shock. Their parents were active within the school and there was never any hint that something was badly wrong.

Not the secondary school i went to, but the one in the town where I now live - two lions escaped from the circus pitched up on the green next door and got into the school, entering one of the classrooms - made the national press and in more recent years somebody recounted the event on the Graham Norton show.

@Babyroobs was this in South London? I remember a biology teacher marrying one of the 6th formers - as far as I know they are still together.

Sixth form building was victim of an arson attack by pupils from a neighbouring school.

Can't remember any others. I think we were very, very boring judging by the other stories here!

NoviceNewMN I'm sorry, I was one of the ones who shared darker stories and I wish I hadn't really. It's not your fault that there was so many grim memories. I have enjoyed the more frivolous scandals though!!

During an A-level English lesson we were studying King Lear, the teacher was reading aloud the passage describing the death of Cordelia, when she suddenly broke down in tears and ran from the room. We all just sort of sat there wondering what to do, then five minutes later another teacher came in to take over. Turned out our English teacher's 20 year old daughter had died in a road traffic accident a few years before and reading about the death of the young woman in King Lear had triggered her. It was so sad.

@CharityBallsUp

This goes back to the early 1970s. A 15 year old girl had an abortion...her second. She had her first at 13.

Very tragically, a girl was killed in a funfair accident.

I'd forgotten a story from my 11-14 middle school. When someone went to the loo and and found a dead foetus on the toilet floor. Some poor girl had miscarried and left it there. As a community we never found out who had lost that baby but I hope the school did and took care of her.

Ok I’ll bite

• mass kicking out of U6th pupils for possession of pot only three weeks before A levels (considered very harsh)

• U6th former secretly videotaping (through a hole in the wall) his mate shagging a female classmate and it got circulated around school

• housemaster having an affair with sixth former in his house - he got kicked out

• (different) housemaster marrying a sixth former about a year after she left school - he is still there

• female deputy head having worst kept secret relationship with female head of maths which everyone knew about but pretended they didn’t

• boy complained of sore leg, told to “run it off”, turned out to be leg broken in two places

• boy felt ill, given an aspirin and sent away, turned out to be throat cancer

• head killed by bomb dropping on his doorstep (true story but happened before my time)