Pupils Attempt `Great Escape` from School

Ah the Bulldog spirit.
The kids in question are attending Djanogly City Academy in the city of Nottingham which has a policy of not allowing the kids out of the school gates during the day , not happy with that situation they decided to tunnel under the fence Great Escape style and make their break for freedom and the shores of Blighty ... sorry got carried away.

In a statement, interim head teacher Elaine Crookes said: "We can confirm that five pupils tried to leave the school at lunchtime by getting below the fence on the fields at our Gregory Boulevard site.
"We have spoken to the students concerned, and taken action to repair the hole. That part of the fence has also been reinforced."
www.bbc.co.uk...

The daring plot was was discovered when a "large quantity of cutlery was found near a hole at the bottom of the fence"

we have closed campuses here. nonetheless, my son leaves most days to get more fairly priced water bottles from the convenience store.

Ha ha! I am a teacher and I would love to teach these kids - the determination, the effort to achieve a goal, the team work, the planning! A teacher's dream to have this in a classroom....

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On second thoughts, the school is in special measures. I would probably be asking the kids if I could join their team, I would even supply the cutlery! Lol!

a reply to: gortex

Hmmm I wonder if Hollywood would make this into a movie. I can seriously see a movie based on this.

We did something like this in school. Inspired by THE GREAT ESCAPE.

The planning and the initial moments of freedom after the escape were the best parts.

I'll never forget it.

a reply to: gortex

One is often prone to smile in response to something like this.

However, that any group of students was prepared to actually get together, formulate a plan of escape, and execute that plan (even in as much of a slapdash and ineffective manner such as the one bought to our attention in this article), suggests to me that the real problem is not with these particular students.

I would dearly hope that the escape attempt was not an effort to escape being locked in with a set of total psychopaths.

I used to just walk out of the school gates... No one expected " Plain sight " escapes !

P.s. that was 45 years ago... No one cared anyway....

a reply to: MrJohnSmith

I thought about doing that many times in the 4th grade. I hated my teacher and he hated me. I just didn't have the guts to make the 3 mile walk home on a very winding road with no shoulder and a straight drop down on one side, and barley more than an inch between the white line and the cliff on the other side. Very, very dangerous road even for drivers. Anyone who came looking for me was more likely to hit me before they saw me.

I sure did dream though, and I did walk off campus in the 5th grade at a different school. Then again I only lived 2 blocks away.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: gortex

I would dearly hope that the escape attempt was not an effort to escape being locked in with a set of total psychopaths.

Hiya True. I do not know the teachers or the school but I would like to say a word in their defence. It is more likely that the pupils are the psychopaths. The school is in special measures and

it was ranked inadequate in all areas. Inspectors pointed out the pupils' lack of self-discipline, high levels of absence and poor attitudes, while attendance remains below the national average.

For a school to reach this status the situation is very bad indeed. I have taught at some very hard schools. I have come home with bruises inflicted by a 12 year old thug whom I was not allowed to touch. That was daily, and his behaviour was not out of the ordinary. It was, in fact, so ordinary in that particular school that nothing was done to protect me or remove him from my classroom. He was considered to have special needs and therefore had the right to be in my classroom and the right to have me as a teacher. Throughout the school student behaviour was appalling, respect and discipline non-existent, truancy was more common than having pupils in lessons and yet that school was rated adequate to good.

I don't have a very high opinion of OFSTED or their ratings but I do know the scale against which they make their judgements. And I guarantee that there are some very special and dedicated teachers at that school who are doing their best for a group of teens that simply don't give a s***

I do not however condone the actions that the school has resorted to (i.e. locking the gates) but I feel for the person who made the decision. They must be at their wits end, but I doubt they are psychopaths.

a reply to: Mura44

Oh, believe me, I know that school kids can be dangerous and violent.

It is the violent dangerous ones, to whom I referred with the description of psychopaths, not the teaching staff!

In your last post, you mention being bruised by a young thug. The simple fact is, that no individual right of one person, can be allowed to impinge upon the rights of others, and that the establishment at the school, and no doubt a government policy to boot, are complicit in the removal of teachers rights to go unmolested about their business. That should render the school unfit, it's leadership should be removed in the very first instant that they support one violent thug, over any innocent party, and the child in question should be removed for education at a secure facility.

I believe however, that EVERY school which does not immediately exclude children who are inexplicably violent from its registers, is failing every other child at the school, and the teachers too. It is a fools errand to try to teach berserkers in the same room as people who could do well, and the government and school boards need to accept this, and take it on board. If that means a shocking statistic where a significant percentage of children have to be sent to the child hood equivalent of a boarding school for the criminally insane, then so it must be.

The method of placing all children, regardless of their psychopathology, together in a place of learning, has failed people in the past, and will always fail the people it should protect in the future.

At my old school there have been some changes over the years, but it's still the same old place in some respects. One sixteen year old rammed a woodworking chisel into the neck of another young fellow a few months back during a CDT lesson. Who was the school protecting by keeping volatile individuals in the mainstream? The creep with the impulse control problem of course!

Thanks True for clarifying your meaning. Silly me to assume you meant the teachers. I got a little defensive there because of my own experiences.

Yes, I agree with you that our methods for inclusion are screwed up. It puzzles me that all the adults making these decision are the ones who claim that the 'spare the rod and spoil the child' attitude of our own childhood was so much better than today and proudly brag about the tough discipline they received that never did them any harm, but that is for another thread methinks.