How did you work around school rules without getting detention?

[Oscillating]

How did you "bend the rules" at your school? I worked out demerit system to the max.

We had a stupid rule at our school saying if you were more than 5 minutes late you got a demerit so I was just under 5m late to every lesson, except the ones after break, because they also had a demerit rule that if you got more than 5 demerits in a week, you got detention. And they reset the demerits each week.... so I limited myself to 5 demerits every week, and achieved this by walking in 10-15 minutes late for the lesson after first break 😂

I never did get detention for being late to lessons 😂😂😂

I also changed my mums phone number to my own at the beginning of high school so I got every late or absent text message instead of her. She likes to tell people I was her most well behaved child - "never had a single phone call from school about her" 😂

Wow, weren’t you cool. And you’re so proud of it years later.

I got on well with the head of PE as I was on all the sports teams. If I was ever late for a lesson I would say I was sorry for being late but that I’d been given a task to do by Mrs Head of PE. She always backed me up if she was asked.

Ditto! Bunked off a far bit and got away with it.

This too!

I repeated a year in a religious school, where religion was a mandatory subject to final year. I had an extra exam subject so no “free period” in my timetable that most others had (there was a handful of us doing 8 subjects).

As I had hated doing religion the first time around, I had NO intention of repeating such a useless subject again for no good reason…I started by going into the study hall, but most years it had more junior classes only and no seniors so I stuck out like a sore thumb (and there was one teacher who hated me covering one period). So instead I used to sneak into the old toilets just past the school hall that were generally unused, and whose locker room had cupboards of sports nets and old stage props instead of lockers - bench cupboards that I could lie out on and study for 40 minutes in peace.

I got caught coming out too soon after the bell after I’d been using it for 7 months, by a different nun who had previously taught me religion lower in the school - she had to take me to the principal but the both scolded me with smiles on their faces as I was working there (I showed them the maths homework from that morning ing that I’d just done) and they knew my schedule and that I’d already done, and been very cynical in, that religion course.

We were not allowed indoors at lunch unless we were at a club.
Choir had already been joined and left to get an early lunch card. That guaranteed a better choice of lunch.
Opted to start a new club which us "indoorers" all did together. We painted models for D&D. Well that's what it looked like we were doing if anyone came by. Sufficiently odd to keep most people away.

My DS14 is generally well behaved and very charming to adults. If he is told off he usually cheekily/light-heartedly argues that there is a loophole. This has meant he has received no demerits in 3 years. Now, if a demerit is threatened he points out his unblemished record and teachers seem to go easy on him because of this! I can't help but admire it!

🥱

When I was at school the rule was you wore your school beret outside of school while you were wearing school uniform a friend and I used to pin the beret on the back of our heads and back-comb our hair so the beret wasn’t visible

Yes it was in the 60’s I’m very old
We had a really strict maths teacher who saw us going home one afternoon asked us why we wasn’t wearing our berets and when she saw what we had done pulled the berets right down over our forehead
We both went home looking like twin Frank Spencer’s in Some Mothers do have em

Up to age 11 I was one of those children who tended to keep out of trouble and obey the rules. Then something happened to me which I wont go into here. Lets just say I was blamed for something and hadn't done. I was not believed because I was naive and failed to act smart. That incident wrought a significant change in my personality. I learned that those who get on in life are often the twisters and the clever liars. My orientation altered to taking real pleasure in finding ways around the rules to my advantage.

When I was 13/14 is used to go into school and have the register taken so I was marked as being present for that afternoon. Then the class split up to go to their specialist classes. That meant there was a lot of kids tramping about corridors, noise and chaos. I used to hide in the loo until the traffic ceased then grab my coat from the cloakroom and slope off. Sometimes alone and sometimes with a friend. We would get the bus into Liverpool and go to the cinema or look around the shops. I was never caught but I used to do it about once a term. And always contriving to miss something like maths or science which I was not fond of. I never missed history, English or French because they were lessons I loved.

I still look for ways around the rules. Its hard wired into my character.

Genius.

I used to write my own 'sick' notes to get out of PE if i didn't fancy it -quite often !
teachers were appallingly bad anyway so didn't pay much attention to the regularity.
I used to write and sign them in the style of my nan's writing, i was very good at it and ended up writing 'sick' notes for friends too😊

I was similar. I liked to wear nail varnish even though we weren’t allowed. One day a girl in my class who was always in trouble got told to take hers off. She piped up “ how come you don’t ask Pinkpony to take hers off??” The teacher replied “because she’s not drawing attention to herself like you are”.
made a mental note of that and it’s served me well in life 🤣