Did anything really tragic happen at your school?

[TattiePants]

I’ve spent today thinking about a murder that happened when I was at school over 30 years ago. I think it’s on my mind partly because it happened when I was sitting my GCSEs and DS is doing his now but also it’s been in the local news that another loosely connected child murder may finally be solved.

A boy from year 3 went missing and he was found murdered in a nearby derelict house. In the year prior to that, two other children had been killed in tragic circumstances so it was a really horrible time for the school community. Things got worse when a year 5 boy was arrested for the murder and spent months in custody, missing all his GCSEs. Many of us then had to give witness statements as we knew the arrested boy well. It took over 20 years for the actual murderer to be convicted and unfortunately he’d gone on to murder more boys from my school by then.

In all the years my DCs and friend’s DCs have been at school, they’ve (thankfully) never had anything like this. There’s been fights, teenage pregnancies, minor drug offences etc but nothing on this scale. Did anyone else have something really tragic happen when they were at school.

@TattiePants now you have me thinking about it, we actually went through a lot during our time in Secondary school, and while I'm absolutely not traumatized from it now, I wonder why there was no attempt made at grief counseling?
On top of the murders, which spanned several years, a girl from the year below me drowned at the seafront and it was just class as usual the next day.
That's a least 4 deaths during my 5 years at the school and I barely remember it being mentioned by teachers, I can't imagine that would be the case now.

My mum taught someone years and years ago who was later killed by her father and she still feels icky that she sat across the table from him at parents evening discussing her.

I went to an all girls school and one of the students was being groomed by a teacher. Ran off with him. Huge upset.

Another girl in my class ran off with an African man. The police called my house asking if I'd seen her. They found our numbers in her diary. Scariest phone call as a teenager.

THEN another girl in our little gang was arrested and sent to prison for her part in a honey trap. The guy she set up was murdered.

Absolute madness and I so hope my daughter never experiences anything like this in her school years😣

@BackToWhereItAllBegan i remember her being swept off the steps by a wave. There was also a boy killed with one of his parents in a gas explosion. Three deaths in 12-18 months and I barely remember it being mentioned at school. I so hope things are different now.

When i was in Y5 a boy in the class next door to mine was killed in a car crash alongside his parents and younger sister. I still remember the morning we were all told so clearly.

When I was 15, saw on the local news one evening that a man had shot his wife, then shot himself.
Went into school the next day, and our Teacher stood up and told us it was the parents of a boy in our class.

It was the first time I’d seen a man cry. He was so upset. I’ll never forget that day. Tragic.

A fellow pupil was killed at Hillsborough. It had been a birthday treat for him. I’ll never forget that Monday morning assembly for as long as I live.
Two pupils who’d not long left died in the Manchester Airport runway fire. They were high school sweethearts off on their first holiday.

@CannotCopia i have a relative who worked for BA at the time and knew many of the crew.

I think it was only reading about it again as an adult when I realised just how horrific it had been. As a kid I think I was quite sheltered from it. Such a terrible loss of lives.

Agreed...Very Grim.
Dunblane was horrific.

Aberfan Disaster, too, despite being many many decades ago is still remembered by grandparents &c.

Every school has had it's tragedies, but I'd not want to mention them specifically.

Not school but uni.

DD's best friend was murdered while studying abroad, you will definitely have seen the case in the news a few years ago, it was unbearably tragic especially if you know, as we do, some of the small details that wasnt released to the news. It wouldnt have been her if she hadnt been so sweet and kind hearted, it would have been someone else, it was a totally random attack and the killer we believe didnt actuallly intend to murder her.

Thank goodness DD happened to be home the weekend it happened so I could be there for her.

Dunblane massacre happened. It wasn’t my school but we lived very close by and it affected everyone around about. I was in high school and my friends mum worked at the school. Also 1 of my husbands friends at school borrowed a teachers car and wrapped it round a tree killing himself. Another of his friends was going to fast in his car and also hit a tree and killer himself (leaving a baby son)

A boy hung himself in the forest. He was only 11. Glue sniffing was rife where I lived and he got involved with older lads and seemed to just lose it.

We were all stunned and completely shocked, we had just left junior school going up to secondary, we were all so young. It was shocking and I do still think of him, so so young.

I hope this thread stays up, I know some people have posted that its inappropriate but sadly a lot of these things were swept under the carpet at the time and it seems sad that we're still doing so.

For me, we had two accidents in the fifth year resulting in brain injury, one on a school trip where a girl missed a zip wire and had no safety harness and the other a boy playing chicken with traffic - both came back to school but were entirely different.

A little girl, a year below me at primary school, got struck by a car driving on the pavement. She survived after months in intensive care but severely affected by her injuries.

Two (out of my primary class of 30) were dead before 18 killed on their motorbikes.

One boy in 6th form (funniest bloke I knew) killed himself.

sadly a lot of these things were swept under the carpet at the time and it seems sad that we're still doing so.

These are people's individual tragic stories. It is wrong, in my opinion, to share them here, private grief in a public forum (some are known tragedies; many are not).

(I am not taking away from the losses that have affected the posters here, just that this is not in good taste).

These are all just heartbreaking. We had the youngest dad in the UK at the time at our school, although I think he's lost that title now, which is pretty grim. He was all over the news for it, he was 12.
Someone who I knew a little bit hung herself at 13, she was badly bullied and would sometimes sit with my friends and I in the library on days when she needed to get away. I still think of her and how everything can seem so permanent when you're that age and you don't think things will ever get better, I wish she'd stuck around to see that life changes and our teen years don't last forever. Terrible.
I remember as well that one of my teachers had a son murdered. He was an adult and his body had been found in a canal in London. It was all very hush hush as I was only in primary school so parents and teachers didn't want us to know why he was off for so long, understandably. When he came back to teach he was completely different, I think he retired not long after.

When I was in primary school a girl I used to buddy at playtimes was strangled by her mums boyfriend and her mum was stabbed to death they where crack addicts it’s strange as I looked this up only the other day as I was obviously very young when it happened and it seemed the motive was to steal the mums money was very disturbing when it happened.

also in primary school year 1 I think a girl in my class banged her head in school went home and died in her sleep my mum went to the funeral and said it horrific.

Not me but my older cousin had a school mate killed by a lion in town (in the U.K.). It escaped from the circus.

Years before I was there someone went in with a flamethrower and badly injured students doing their a level exam. A girl in the year above went into hospital after not feeling well, diagnosed with cancer on the Thursday and died on the Monday. Just remember how quiet the school was the day we heard. A lot of people in my year lost their mums. We had to do a presentation on something/someone special and there was at least 7 who did it on their dead mums.

Very recently a woman was murdered at night outside my DC's primary school.

At my high school we had some very tragic deaths - copycat suicides and high speed car crashes. A friend of mine was left severely brain damaged at 13 after being hit whilst riding her bike.

A girl in my school accidentally killed a classmate with a javelin

A boy had died on the playing field hit by a javelin years before my time

i remember this going round out school as well. Always figured it was an urban myth. A google does show a girl did die after being hit by a javelin, but surely it can’t have happened multiple times?

Yes agree..people reading this could be friends/ relatives!!

Agreed. A collection of horrendous things that happened mostly to children, told by people who didn't really know them for purposes probably best described as gossiping.

And what makes anyone think that they or their families would want to be remembered in this way: identified and referred to only by the gruesome manner of their death.

It's in very poor taste.

A girl in the year below died because she couldn't find a bone marrow donor.

A girl a few years above was diagnosed with cancer in the sixth form and died a year or two later while she was at university.

And a teacher was jailed for child porn offences.