Muck-up Day

[Exeson]

So, whilst this is mainly a thread aimed towards the people living in the UK I'm sure you Americans have similar traditions.

I am of course talking about your last day at school, the day when you come in dressed in costumes and outfits etc. (Remember in England all schools wear uniforms) And the main theme are the pranks.

For ours, which was last Friday we decided instead of just wreaking havoc during the day the whole year would pull together to pull off somehting special, and we did, we created our own music festival on the school lawn.

And then we did many other amusing things, such as tie the head boy up in his boxers outside the local girl's school, and bringing a lamb into school (it pissed on the deputy headmaster's office door. :smallbiggrin:)The list goes on. Needless to say it was a blast, made all the more fun by the fact that most people were still slightly pissed from the night before. There are videos, which I won't actively link, but just search youtube for Coxfest (Cox being the surname of our headmaster and Fest being short for festival, unfortunate name I know.)

So what did you all get up to on your muck up days past and present?

[Cobalt]

Mine hasn't even happened yet (this Friday), and I've already seen a group of 12 get expelled. I can only imagine the terror that will be reaped at the end of the week.

I'll be sure to come back and say what, if anything, blows up.

[lesser_minion]

Hmm... Mine was four years ago.

We were pretty reserved. Admittedly, that was because the head of middle school basically exploded on arrival and everything was apparently cleaned up by the time school started.

In the end, the worst thing that actually stuck was the family planning leaflets and condoms we left for the headmistress. Let's just say we felt she was pushing it a bit (taking a job and going on maternity leave within five minutes? Seriously?)

Oh, and there was "extra revision" (that particular euphemism was coined by the head of middle school).

[Octopus Jack]

We get two muk-up days, one at the end of year 11 one at the end of 6th form

My fire one was last yearand of course I did nothing personally, as for the rest on my year... This year the yar 11s were kind of forced not to do anything.

The upper 6th this year still did something: got a dead badger, poked holes in it and put it on someones car is the most famours they did this year thing I think.

[Serpentine]

Okay, I've gotta check... When does the UK and the US transfer from one year to another? :smallconfused: That is, what time of year is the transition from, say, year 8 to year 9? Things like this make me think it's half-way through the year, which makes no sense...

[SDF]

@^: Most US schools get out around this time of year. My little brother is in high school and this is his last week. My last week of Uni for the semester was two weeks ago.

Well, in the US some places have a tradition of Senior skip day, where the senior class just plays hooky. We also have senior pranks which can vary from playful, to mischievous, to criminal.

[horngeek]

Muck-up day, at my high school, was NOT ALLOWED.

An entirely sensible decision, in my opinion, given that it was an all-boys selective school. Intelligence is inversely proportional to Common Sense. :smalltongue:

[Rockphed]

Okay, I've gotta check... When does the UK and the US transfer from one year to another? :smallconfused: That is, what time of year is the transition from, say, year 8 to year 9? Things like this make me think it's half-way through the year, which makes no sense...

In the US it normally happens over the summer when most schools take a 2 - 3 month break. Most schools get out Junish and start back up in August or September. Technically, I think the actual transition is the first day of the new school year, so these parts it is the day after labour day(because some genius decided that school couldn't start before labor day, which is always a Monday.)

I haven't been in that system for nearly 5 years now, so my info may be hilariously out of date.

[Serpentine]

@^: Most US schools get out around this time of year. My little brother is in high school and this is his last week. My last week of Uni for the semester was two weeks ago.So, year 8 would finish around May, and year 9 would start around June or whenever?
...
Why? :smallconfused: Is it just so you get your big holidays in the summer?

[SDF]

There are year round schools, and the occasional school with alternate schedules. Those are few and far between though. Doing absolutely nothing for the summer as a child is an American tradition!

[Superglucose]

Public schools are a wild-card below Uni level. I know that my little bro's school has two weeksish left.

After high school it's more standardized. Semester kids were out about two weeks ago, quarter system kids still have three or four weeks left.

@Serp again, actually, yes. Summer holidays were initially formed because Americans were an agrarian society and a fairly large amount of work needed to be done during the summer, if I remember the reasoning correctly. It became traditional whatever the reason and no one ever really bothered to change it. I know when I was in elementary school (years 1, 2, and 3 specifically) I was on a year around school and I had the "A" track, meaning I had the months of July, November, and March off. This was supposed to do something about keeping the school year continuous but personally I don't think it did anything really.

[Serpentine]

Weird. All Australian schools start around the same time (January-February), and end around the same time (Octoberish? It's been a while) - so, the transition from one year to the next coincides with, you know, the actual year :smalltongue: Different states have some differences, but those are always/usually standard, too (NSW and Vic are, iirc, always a week apart).
If it is just about summer holidays, that may (sort of...) explain it - we get our summer, Christmas/New Year and between-school-year holidays all at the same time.
edit: Ah, agriculture concerns. That's a factor I didn't think of.

[horngeek]

We get our year... well, more in line with the actual year. :smalltongue:

[SDF]

Different hemispheres, different seasons. No one wants to have a bunch of free time when it is cold and raining/snowing. New Year is around the end of the first semester in most US schools.

[Serpentine]

We get our year... well, more in line with the actual year. :smalltongue:How so? :smallconfused:

[Rockphed]

Different hemispheres, different seasons. No one wants to have a bunch of free time when it is cold and raining/snowing. New Year is around the end of the first semester in most US schools.

It would be significantly more sensible if the semester break WAS the Christmas/new year holiday, but, sadly, it normally happens in January.

[Exeson]

Muck-up day, at my high school, was NOT ALLOWED.

An entirely sensible decision, in my opinion, given that it was an all-boys selective school. Intelligence is inversely proportional to Common Sense. :smalltongue:

Same here, I'm at an all boys selective school and we managed to do a load of things that didn't get anyone hurt or damage anyhting.

I think the full list of pranks was

Coxfest
Fake school letter announcing the marriage of two teachers
Me and a mate running round school in mankini's
croquet on the front lawn
The head boy exercising his right to graze a sheep on the Headmaster's lawn (my school is 500 years old so weird little things like that still exist)
tied the head boy in his boxers to a pole outside the local girls school
Made a wall of shame with pictures of about fifteen teachers together with incriminating and completely true quotes
ambushed and water bommed the younger years at the train station


And we managed to do all this without disrupting any exams or damaging any property or hurting anyone.

[Dogmantra]

There's a sort of "secret society" (they're secret in as much as everyone knows that they exist...) at my school, that does silly pranks before they go on study leave for A Levels. This years was awful, they just drew a bunch of silly faces in chalk around the school grounds.

Last year was much better. They put a boat in the dining hall. With no-one seeing them. It stayed there the whole day.

[Lioness]

Our muck-up day pranks have ranged from funny to inappropriate. I think one year they covered the deputy's car with whipped cream (just the outside). Last year's was funny:

A few year 12s found a teacher that they knew pretty well. Then they asked him for something that was in the office, or the media wing, or somewhere really far away from his class. While he was gone/distracted, a couple of other year 12s kidnapped his class, took them into the science wing, and hid them in an empty classroom.

The teacher came back, couldn't find his students, and went around the school looking for them. While he was gone, they all went back into the classroom, and looked at him oddly when he asked where they were. "We were here the whole time! What's wrong with you?"

My sister's class was the kidnapped class.

This year, I'm thinking organising a year12 -wide game of assassins, on a day when there are no exams. Fun times.

[KuReshtin]

The part of Sweden where i grew up doesn't have these things. Well, not that much, anyways. My sister said that someone at her school poured a couple of bottles of washing up liquid in the fountain at their school on the last day. Lots of bubbles happened.

Usually, the pranks are saved for the week leading up to the annual indoor rugby match between the two high schools in the town.
One of the schools is a more vocational school with a lot of practical courses, like car mechanics, electrical courses and stuff like that, while the other is more of a theoretical school with more science and physics related stuff.

The pranks have been pretty elaborate at times, like the time one of the schools gained access to the other school and arranged an entire park in their lobby, complete with a lawn, gravel path, bushes, park benches and a working light post.

Another time, the mechanical high school had dismantled a car and reassembled it in the rival school's lobby.

of course, there have also been times when these pranks have got out of hand a bit, like a couple of years ago when one of the schools were greeted with a row of freshly dug graves with the names of the players of the rugby team on the grave stones.
Or the time the mechanical high school arrived in the morning to see that the other school had been to the local slaughterhouse and bought a bull's head and had strung it up outside the entrance. The mechanical school's logo has a bull as a central symbol.
Those kinds of pranks are very much frowned upon.

[lesser_minion]

Okay, I've gotta check... When does the UK and the US transfer from one year to another? :smallconfused: That is, what time of year is the transition from, say, year 8 to year 9? Things like this make me think it's half-way through the year, which makes no sense...

Around this time of year, everyone in year 11 and up goes on study leave (i.e. there is no obligation to be in school any time except during exams).

Years 7 through 10 typically broke up around mid-July, got about 6-8 weeks' holiday, then came back early September.

You actually transition from one year to the next in September or October, usually - just as you come back from the summer break.

[Yarram]

Our year?
Well first we put a chair on the roof. One of those metal ones you have to unbolt from the ground first...
Gah, there were other things too but I can't recall...:smallfurious:

[toasty]

of course, there have also been times when these pranks have got out of hand a bit, like a couple of years ago when one of the schools were greeted with a row of freshly dug graves with the names of the players of the rugby team on the grave stones.
Or the time the mechanical high school arrived in the morning to see that the other school had been to the local slaughterhouse and bought a bull's head and had strung it up outside the entrance. The mechanical school's logo has a bull as a central symbol.
Those kinds of pranks are very much frowned upon.

What? Those are the cool pranks! I mean, seriously. I'd enjoy a freshly dug grave. :smallbiggrin:

[Cobalt]

Alright, well, nobody died yesterday. But there were cops everywhere. Seriously, you would have thought you were in Fort Knox if you were just walking around my school the last day.

Little unnerving.

[Anonymouswizard]

We didn't have a muck-up day, I think because everyone was to concerned about the biology exam in the morning, and the PE students had their exam in the afternoon. Now I just need to get through these things they call exams and study leave and it's into sixth form in September!

And now I spend two years planning for the year 13 muck-up day (I have worked out a plan for exploding science rooms)

[Kiren]

Damn! I have a month left of school!

Last year though, the worst that happened was someone brought a mouse to school. It never left the bag though.

Halloween was a different story.

[Stadge]

I'm from the UK and this whole muck-up day thing is completely new to me. I've honestly never heard of it. Is it a (delete as apllicable) southern/new(as in the last three years)/public school thing?

I'm finding this quite baffling, although it does sound kinda brilliant!

[Xyk]

In the US (or at least at my school) it's called Senior Prank Day. The seniors (highest level students in high school) dressed up as wizards and played quidditch for like fifteen minutes in the main hall of my school. I thought it was more of a flash mob than a prank and was disappointed.

PS: I don't know anything about the UK education system so I figured I'd cover my bases.

[Groundhog]

Unfortunately, my class was not allowed a muck up/senior prank. But in return for this, we got a three-day senior trip as opposed to the two days that most classes got.

The year ahead of me brought in a horse though. And decorated the rest of the school to look like a farm.

[Moonshadow]

Weird. All Australian schools start around the same time (January-February), and end around the same time (Octoberish? It's been a while) - so, the transition from one year to the next coincides with, you know, the actual year :smalltongue: Different states have some differences, but those are always/usually standard, too (NSW and Vic are, iirc, always a week apart).
If it is just about summer holidays, that may (sort of...) explain it - we get our summer, Christmas/New Year and between-school-year holidays all at the same time.
edit: Ah, agriculture concerns. That's a factor I didn't think of.

Typically, our school year in the land down under starts around the start of feburary, then terms tend to be about 9 to 10 weeks with a 2 week break inbetween, then our christmas holidays start about a week and a half before christmas for primary school and years 7 to 10, and about mid novemberish for years 11-12 to account for VCE exams. Our Christmas holidays are about 6 weeks or so. Sad that I remember this, and I haven't been to school for 6 years, heh.


As for muck up day, I wouldn't know, I refrained from going to mine because I did not feel like I would be welcome with my peers at all, so I stayed home. Yay, I'm boring!

[rakkoon]

Interesting, you do it at the last day of school?
Here we it's called "The last 100 days" and take a wild guess when it occurs?

Worst things: locking out the teacher and putting a show with naked ladies on the TV set
Best things:

Doing a Chippendale performance (me and 4 friends) in front of the entire school (students and teachers) :smallbiggrin:
people dressed up in Dracula outfits running through the hallways
We told our Latin teacher that we didn't want lessons, only singing. She said "No problem" and we spent two hours singing (and translating) stuff like "Oh fortuna", which I learnt then is about a gambler who loses all his clothes and blames Lady Luck


Where I live now all the students of the schools in the city come together on the central marketplace (largest one in Europe) and they dance and throw confetti around. Looks like fun actually

[Cobalt]

*ignores awesomeness to ask boring question*

How long is your school year? If we did the 'last 100 days' here, well... We only have 180 days of school. It'd be a bit chaotic. Is your year longer?

[skywalker]

*ignores awesomeness to ask boring question*

How long is your school year? If we did the 'last 100 days' here, well... We only have 180 days of school. It'd be a bit chaotic. Is your year longer?

Probably more like the last 100 days... Including weekends. It's probably more like the months of March, April, and May are the "last 100 days," you dig?

Serpentine: You don't mess with corn around here. Good to remember that formerly, school was not such a big deal. Yes, you technically had to go, but lots of kids up through the 60s/70s would skip the first or last couple of weeks if they had something more important to be doing. So if we had school during farming times, kids just wouldn't show up when they needed to be farming.

You lucked out as far as our arbitrary choice for the start of the year, seasons, and school goes.

[Lyesmith]

Man, you got cops?

Mine was a cowboys and indians theme, we did wanted posters of all the teachers - gave 'em nicknames and crimes. My English teacher was wanted for 'Flaunting Grice's maxims of Quantity, Quality, Manner and Relevance'.

We did some blig blow-up cacti and teepees about the place, but nothing majorly destrutive actually went down.

[rakkoon]

Indeed, schoolyear starts in september, ends in june.
Last 100 days are usually last 80 days (including weekends) because organising and high school kids don't really mix :smallsmile: