What was the funniest thing that happened at your school?
Posted by jurwell@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 52 comments
One of the things I miss about my school days was the general sense of chaos that you can only get by forcing large groups of children or teenagers to spend hours a day locked in rooms together. The feeling that something might happen that you’ll talk about for the rest of your life.
Mine was padlocking my best mate in the woodwork tool cupboard, asking the teacher to unlock it because “I’d forgotten to put this file away”, him doing so, and then turning his back on it as my mate gently slid the door open and snuck out behind him without the teacher noticing. The comedic timing of it was perfect.
I’m interested in what your stories are!
Sea_Photograph_3998@reddit
Oh wait I thought of another one! A few people started laughing and pointing out that one lad had an erection. He was all embarrassed and saying “no I haven’t” while walking and looking at the others, and he walked straight into a tree 😂
smoulderstoat@reddit
Boy at my school let slip he'd been off sick the day before because he'd trapped his gentleman sausage in his flies, and has therefore been known as Zippy for forty years and counting.
QuimmSim@reddit
So he got wood after all.
HumourNoire@reddit
The following morning: "alright, Tree?"
double-happiness@reddit
Kid fell asleep on a sunbed and came into school looking like a lobster.
smoulderstoat@reddit
Someone dropped a plate in the dining hall and everyone cheered, as is a fine British tradition. The Headmaster lost his shit and said that everyone who'd cheered had to come back the following lunchtime and practice sitting in silence. When we assembled the next day there were three teachers sitting with us.
A few months later we had a visit from the Army who brought a whole load of kit to show off. Their commanding officer was invited to have lunch with the school. He cheered, but everyone else stayed silent, which prompted him to say loudly "miserable bastards."
CaptainRAVE2@reddit
Our friend with his remote control watch that kept changing the tv channels and pausing, rewinding the video. Teachers had no idea what was going on.
levezvosskinnyfists7@reddit
When I started uni loads of people had MacBooks and someone discovered the remote control that used to come with them worked on any MacBook. Cue people constantly turning people’s laptops off and things like that until one guy snapped, stood up in the middle of a lecture and marched up and down the rows of seating demanding to know who was doing it
OverlyAdorable@reddit
Someone tried that in a class I was in. Someone slapped the kid who was always doing that in the back of the head. He started crying. It turned out it wasn't even him
DollySheep32@reddit
I convinced several generations of primary school kids that one specific stall in the girls loo had a sewer rat that would jump up and bite your bottom.
Retrogamer2245@reddit
Year 6 in the late 90s, a teacher sat us all down to watch a nature documentary. At one point there was a close up of an elephant doing a poo. Of course, being a group of 9/10 year olds, we started to laugh. The teacher screeched angrily at us and told us to grow up. She then, for reasons I still cannot fathom, rewound the video, so we got to watch the poo go back in! I don't think she regained control after that, especially when she insisted we watched the scene again...
cryamiga@reddit
this is hilarious
trainpk85@reddit
When we were in 6th form we were put into 2 portacabins in a school yard. They had steps we used but also a ramp which I’m assuming had to be legally there. The game was always to sit on a chair with wheels (just an office chair) and roll down the ramp and see how far you could get. Human marbles I suppose. Then one day I was sitting in a French lesson and saw the chair fly past the window with a force I’d never seen before and the lad in it was taped in with that thick silver tape and it was also round his eyes and mouth. Looked like something out of a war crimes book. French teacher saw it but pretended he didn’t and kept on teaching even when the chair spun out of control and the taped boy just slumped in a pile still attached to the chair. I assume he didn’t want the admin. He probably went past 4 classrooms and no teachers went out. He was eventually rescued by the people who pushed him I think.
sconebore@reddit
This made me laugh out loud!
Familiar-Candidate-7@reddit
Senior English teacher totally flipped out one day in the corridor at lunch break. Another teacher came running over to see what was going on, English teacher just screaming and freaking out but no one could tell what was wrong. The second teacher then slapped her across the face in front of about 25 kids. It was quite the talking point. English teacher was never seen again.
crochetprozac@reddit
One of our teachers was bending over the table to assist another student, and this girl from my table thinks it would be funny to mime poking a pen in her butt and the kid next to her smacked her hand and that's how my entire table got a weeks detention.
Both kids got suspended but it wasn't for that long.
Thinking back, it wouldn't be taken as lightly today if that happened, but I remember the way the teacher instantly turned-tail (pun intended) and how absolutely-utterly furious she was - it was very, very funny to my kid-self lol
PacmanBurger@reddit
Someone set fire to one of the desks by dousing it in deodorant while the teacher was writing on the board, teacher turned around to a full blazing inferno and completely ignored it and carried on writing on the board.
The kid who started the fire went into full on panic mode and started trying to put it out with any liquid he could find while the teacher carried on teaching.
Dont think that kid ever started a fire again
Fit-Mistake-4390@reddit
PE changing rooms, someone doing pull ups on a pipe hanging from the ceiling. As you can imagine, pipe bursts, water spraying everywhere, chaos. I’ve never seen a teachers face so red before, absolutely (and rightly) livid
bopeepsheep@reddit
We had a Physics teacher who liked to demonstrate the properties of magnets by swinging from one. The heating pipes did eventually give way. It's not impossible to bollock a teacher, but it is if you try doing it in front of the class.
_Nefarium@reddit
We used to often have sheep on the school field. We were kicking a ball about and one of our mates got his foot down a rabbit hole and fell, curled up in pain. One of the sheep took this opportunity to mount him.
We've never let him forget it
jimmybiggles@reddit
welsh, perchance?
_Nefarium@reddit
Nah, Derbys unfortunately, the jokes wouldve been another level.
QuimmSim@reddit
Kiwi kid?
Recidivist67@reddit
That's phenomenal
levezvosskinnyfists7@reddit
We had to have an emergency assembly for the whole school to basically get a collective bollocking about something, I can’t remember what it was. The teacher giving the assembly said “It is not acceptable in this school!” and paused for effect, and a kid ripped the loudest fart ever. Obviously the entire school burst out laughing. The teacher was the angriest I’ve ever seen anyone in my whole life.
peppermint_aero@reddit
" “It is not acceptable in this school!”
I understand why they phrase it this way (gives a sense of belonging/pride) but also always makes me wonder "are there schools where it is acceptable?"
Stinkingsweatygooch@reddit
And a hero was born that day
Madog-Hellgeese@reddit
We were taking a class photo on a school trip at some nature reserve. Robert thought he would be cool and try and slide into the photo on his knees and went through a massive dog mess then cried 🤣
kernowgringo@reddit
Like a lot of village primary schools in the 80's, for some reason, we had an outdoor swimming pool it was in a fenced off area next to a porta cabin classroom.
In year 5 (9/10 years old) we were all working through a maths quiz sheet and one of the questions was count the number of steps to the swimming pool, at the end we all put our sheets on the teachers desk but one girl was missing from the classroom, we all went out and looked around for her and she was nowhere. I think her parents were called and everything, then we were all out the front of the school in the fenced off yard and she just came walking round the corner, she'd walked to the local swimming pool in the next town over and back again which is a 2 mile round trip, all the time counting how many steps it had taken her. I see her around from time to time some 30 something years later and it's still the first thing I think of, still makes me smile just thinking of it now.
GruffScottishGuy@reddit
Well? How many steps did she do?
kernowgringo@reddit
I wish I could remember
ASarcasticEngineer@reddit
Someone got curious and decided to look and see what was inside a Bunsen burner by staring down the barrel while it was on. Set their curls on fire. Teacher was in the process of putting the fire out with a notebook when the head of the school walked in showing parents around. Couldn't have timed it better, or worse, depending on the perspective.
caboose89@reddit
In DT, using epoxy. Teacher stepped out for a min so I glued a pound coin in the middle of the corridor outside. By the end of the lesson it had completely cured. What followed was several weeks of laughing when someone went to pick it up. The school caretaker eventually removed it.
RetiredFromIT@reddit
This going to sound horrendous, but it was of the time (1970s).
I was seated next to the maths teacher's desk, while he critiqued my homework. Very old-school teacher, he described my handwriting as "like a spider who has fallen into an inkwell and expired across the page". Specifically, he questioned whether a "5" I had written was a "5" or an "S", "as an S would make no sense at all."
"You boy," he said to a boy whose desk was directly in front of him. "Is this a 5 or an S?"
"It's most certainly a 5, Sir" the boy said.
The teacher leaned forward across both desks, grabbed the boys lapels and pulled him up off his seat.
"Don't be cheeky with me, boy!"
As I say, it sounds horrendous, but the whole class laughed, including the boy, and the teacher had a glint in his eye. My homework was instantly signed off and forgotten.
OverlyAdorable@reddit
I have one that was funny at the time but now it's just sad and a little disturbing. One teacher used to go in the cupboard and pull the door to so she could have a drink of water. Someone would often lock the door behind her and most of the class would find it funny. She'd come out and would be tripping over her own feet and almost slurring her words, which we put down to being panicked from being locked in there.
We found out several years later (long after we'd finished school) that her niece and a female student had been going through some traumatic things at home. She'd reported both several times but nothing was ever done. That's when it clicked that the water was always in a glass bottle that was always high up and in a sealed bottle. She'd see the girl, be reminded of her niece and how there was nothing she could do so would go into her cupboard, down a small bottle of vodka, and we'd lock her in and find it funny
Hollow_Silk@reddit
I remember my classmate was messing around with this banana peel but it still had a load of banana that had gone off inside of it. We were all waiting for the teacher to arrive for the class. He wasn’t actually threatening to throw it over anybody. But he was near the building where people walk past but you can’t see anybody coming.
At this point he’s proper spinning it. The teacher walks round the building and I kid you not he had a brand new suit on. Like he has just got it that day. The banana flew out of his hand and it absolutely covered his new suit. Everybody started laughing and I couldn’t stop laughing. He went mental and wouldn’t let the kid into his class. I kept breaking down trying not to laugh all class as he sit there with banana on him.
He banned him from the class for weeks and tried getting him expelled.
Sea_Photograph_3998@reddit
Erm… it’s pretty heavy but in hindsight I find it hilarious… lad called Richard was doing cart wheels in studded football boots, and he caught Andy’s leg and gave Andy a hell of a deep cut wound down his calf. I wasn’t even there I just heard the story but when I think about it now it’s just makes me laugh
And some gobby kid threw an eraser at religious studies teacher, she threw it back and it hit him in the forehead hard. Over the next several weeks he was guilt tripping her about that, saying he could report her and so on.
mcglash@reddit
Neither of those things are funny. Are you OK?
theModge@reddit
The key point this thread rams home is that kids have always been arseholes.
As parent who's child is nearing the end of reception this is important to remember.
My school produced it's share of 'locked the teacher in the cupboard' stories as well as any number of locked other child in a silly place. The randomised violence we had was less bad than some (no one really got stabbed) but still, kids were arseholes
Diadem_of_Ravenclaw@reddit
We locked our music teacher in the cupboard, then played the William tell overture (which she had been playing earlier in the lesson) whilst sitting backwards on our seats pretending to be having a horse race.
Also climbed through a window in the home economics room, to retrieve some mince pies we’d made from the freezer, and promptly ate them (whilst still frozen).
OverlyAdorable@reddit
First thing that came to mind was the talks of a giant Smurf in school. This was secondary. I would've been in year 7 or 8 but the whole school was talking of it. It was a year 10 or 11 covered in something blue.
Each year, our school loaned out one of their fields. I'm not sure what it was for but they'd tell us we weren't allowed down there for a while until they were done. With the exception of year 7, whenever we would get told this, my form tutor would look directly at me and make me repeat it. I never understood why. The company we loaned the field to wasn't allowed anywhere else on school property.
I later found out from my brother (3 years older than me) that someone in his year was being a bully. My brother's friend went over to him and dared him to go down to that field and use a portaloo. The friend, my brother, and a couple of others followed him down, tipped it over and rolled it up against a tree in a way he couldn't get out. Someone from that company had to let him out and the site foreman came up and had a word with the head master. Portaloos are filled with that blue liquid and the kid was coated in that (and other stuff) so that was why he was a Smurf. Apparently, a few teachers, including my form tutor, suspected my brother and his friends but never found out for sure so the only one to ever got in any trouble was the Smurf
MazerTanksYou@reddit
I went to an all boys school, the vice principal was showing us a careers video in the assembly hall, he fell asleep. So 'someone' tied his shoelaces together and we all made sure that we were ready to race out of the hall when the bell rang. The clatter he made and that low growling "little bastards" coming from him will never not be funny.
jurwell@reddit (OP)
Amazing stuff. This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I bet you still talk about that with old schoolmates and laugh about it.
MazerTanksYou@reddit
If I ever saw them I probably would, seems like a lifetime ago now.. Even though it's only 35 years
Otherwise_Living_158@reddit
Being in a Welsh medium school, we had a day every year when we would traipse down to the local theatre and spend a day at the Eisteddfod listening to people recite, sing etc.
You obviously had to keep silent while someone was performing so the whole thing was incredibly boring if you weren’t involved. My mate sneaked in his Walkman which he listened to at a very low volume on earbuds. Somebody reached over in the middle of some poor girl’s performance and turned the volume on the Walkman all the way up and he screamed “FUCK!” at the top of his voice.
Toastinho@reddit
Came in one morning and there was blue graffiti all over some of the buildings. Guy in school came in with blue spray paint all over their shoes. I'm pretty certain he may have also wrote his nickname, which teachers were aware of. This was 30 years ago so my memory may be a bit off!
Fine_Cress_649@reddit
I went to a school where the building was very shit indeed - think terrible 1960s prefab that had aged 30 years by the time we were there.
There was one very large child in our class (as in he's now 6'6" tall and wide). Some of the other kids would play this game where they would lie in wait for him to come round a corner and then 6 of them would jump on him and try to push him through one of the hollow plasterboard wall.
There were about 4 or 5 David shaped holes around the school by the time we left.
captain_crackerjack@reddit
Either the school hard case punching the headteacher in the face, or Dobber Jenkins getting locked in a supply cupboard and starting to cry
captain_crackerjack@reddit
Dobber Jenkins was a teacher, btw
Dolphin_Spotter@reddit
We had a maths teacher who, he claimed, had once been in a circus. In one double maths lesson on a warm afternoon, attention was clearly wanting by the students. To wake them up he grabbed a chair and balanced it on one leg on his chin for several minutes.
RunningCrow_@reddit
The first thing I remember that wasn't at the expense of someone else;
The teacher left the room for all of 60 seconds. In that time, we all stood up and arranged the tables in a line across the length of the room. One student jumped up, did the worm along all the tables and hopped off. We put the tables back and sat down with about 3 seconds to spare. The teacher knew something had happened but they were ultimately none the wiser.
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