Strangest memories from school?

[Matt N]

Regardless of background or anything else, one thing we will all have done during our lives is gone to school. And I’m sure that will have held a number of memories, whether they’re good, bad, or just strange. It’s the strange memories I’d like to focus on today… as I was reminiscing about school the other day and unlocked a very strange memory I’d previously forgotten about.

I remembered that in primary school PE, I did a unit called “fleeing”. It wasn’t a safety-based unit or anything, it was literally just some sort of dance routine where we started out doing normal things and then had to suddenly leap into action and run, jump and slide under things Mission Impossible-style to intense music… believe it or not, we spent multiple weeks doing this! My dad, upon hearing about this, proceeded to take the mickey out of me about it for years afterwards…

On another note, I also have a vague recollection of some strange van turning up on the playground in primary school once a year that we had to go inside for some sort of session. It was dark in there and there was an animatronic giraffe, but that’s about all I remember… other than that I was absolutely terrified of it, for some reason!

For context, I was in primary between 2007 and 2014, lower secondary between 2014 and 2019, and sixth form between 2019 and 2021.

So I’d love to hear; what are your strangest memories from your time in school?

 

[DiogoJ42]

Well, there was the time our new headmaster wanted to make an impression, so in his first assembly, he pulled out a 9mm semi auto pistol and fired a blank round at the ceiling...

 

[rob666]

Reading Sounds and NME on Thursday afternoons at the back of the physics class in the fifth form...or year eleven as some of you may know it.
The birth of punk, playing stud poker, miniature bottles of spirits, and discussions of the bands of the weekend.
Somehow I still managed to pass.

 

[East Coast Mariner]

At primary school, my friend and I were at the corner of the playing field, when we saw a thick, copper coil wrapping itself around a fence - it was a snake. Well, of course the school brought in a snake expert, and the headmistress told him I was more reliable than my friend. He showed us a book with the native snakes in and told us to point to what we saw... Well, I'm not proud of this, but despite thinking at the time it was more like a grass snake, I pointed straight to the adder!

Another time, the same friend decided he didn't want to go back in after lunch, so he asked me to tie him up with a skipping rope. I did so and went to join the rest of the school, lining up in the playground. No one else could see him, laying in a heap on the playing field. We went back into class, and my teacher asked me "Where's (Friend's Name)?" I replied "He's a bit tied up at the moment!"

At secondary school, we had a head-of-year who was obsessed with the film Die Hard, and gave us a whole assembly about how Bruce Willis' vest changes colour in it.

We also had a legendary supply teacher who knew just how to handle the naughty kids. During one English lesson, the usual suspects were being rowdy. Quick as a flash, he jumped up onto their table and held a pose, which brought the class to a stunned silence. After a few seconds, he exclaimed "Sorry, that's my SAS training."

Another time he was covering a Humanities lesson, and the naughty kids were playing up as usual, so he threatened to put them in the ceiling. When they didn't believe him, he climbed up onto the table again, removed a ceiling panel and began to have a long conversation with the "kid" he'd put up there before!

 

[DiogoJ42]

Our drama teacher was a legend in many ways. Most of which I cannot repeat here for legal reasons. But once we got to sixth form, A level theatre studies theory lessons would take place in the local pub. And she always bought the first round.