Education

School leavers at Waingels College have been banned from an end of year prom after a group of pupils went on the rampage and trashed the school
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School leavers’ rampage leads to prom ban

By Paul Cassell
June 19, 2012

School leavers at Waingels College have been banned from an end of year prom after a group of pupils went on the rampage and trashed the school.

Around 40 Year 11 students have been told they will not be able to attend the party at Trunkwell House, Spencers Wood, next month after causing trouble at the Woodley secondary.

Teenagers assaulted other students, damaged school property, threw eggs and flour and turned over bins and squirted ketchup in classrooms on Stand Down Day on Friday, May 11.

The day has been a regular fixture at the end of the summer term at the Denmark Avenue school.

Pupils can wear their own clothes or fancy dress to celebrate finishing school ahead of their GCSEs.

This year several pupils wore all-in-one ‘morph suits’ to conceal themselves from head to toe, with staff claiming that they refused to reveal their identity.

Parents have been refunded for the prom tickets but are furious, having splashed out on clothing and limousines for their children’s big night.

A dad-of-three, who declined to be named, said: “I think it’s outrageous to be honest.

“My son has never been any bother. My daughter left last year and from what I have heard it seems things were quite tame in comparison to other years.

“There seems to have been around half a dozen that have instigated it but the majority have caused no trouble and are being punished for the behaviour of a minority. The school has over-reacted and handled the whole thing very badly.”

The problems are believed to have been instigated through a now-closed Facebook group called ‘V for Stand Down Day’ administered by a pupil, who later bragged about the trouble on his blog.

The plan for the group, which has 18 members, was to wear masks with dark hoodies and trousers so “they won’t be able to tell us apart and we just beat the s*** out of people we hate and cause havok (sic)”.

On the blog on May 15 a post read: “People were throwing eggs, knocking on windows, causing a mess. It was absolutely crazy.”

He added: “The teachers were fuming. Apparently this has been the worst set of damage they have ever had on Stand Down Day for 18 years.”

Thames Valley Police confirmed officers were aware pupils were leaving that day, but were not called to any disturbance.

In a school letter dated May 4 parents were urged to ensure their children “conduct themselves appropriately and respect all aspects of behaviour” on Stand Down Day and were warned any misconduct would jeopardise entry to their final examinations and their attendance at the prom.

Waingels confirmed there had been “an incident of poor behaviour and criminal damage”, and a decision had been taken to ban any pupil involved from the prom.

Vice-principal Gareth Blunt said: “Many of our students have been appalled by the behaviour of this small minority.

“Governors have responded to parents, explaining that the behaviour could not be condoned.”

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To all the students commenting, your language skills (grammar/spelling) are appalling. Perhaps the school should invest in some extra english tuition? Other than that, I agree with many of the points you raise. The school gave permission for this "down day" and knew what to expect!

Triple OOO
25/06/2012 at 13:33

Look, I'm going to be honest. You grown 'men' commenting are pathetic. You're sitting there trying to argue your points, about a subject you know very little about. You can pretend you do, but the fact that you have been going on about criminal damage, assault, abuse, etc, when that had nothing to do with us being banned proves our point. The reason we was banned was due to the fact we did not remove our hoods.

I think if anyone needs to grow up, and act maturely it is you. Not us, yes we may of attended in morphsuits and miss behaved at our stand down day. As does every year. But at least we don't act like 10 year olds in the sense that we believe everything we read, alike you. I would suspect you to know and understand, seen as you are so 'mature' that not everything published in the newspaper is factual. Therefore, it is not all going to be true. Therefore, don't try and argue about something where you don't know the full story.

And back to what Ben M said, despite whether or not it was legal, or illegal, what the author done was still wrong. He wrote an article based on what he had heard, not on what was true. Which lead to foolish people, like yourselves, believing his every word.

Charley Hook, Reading
21/06/2012 at 16:16

idpb bf w, Reading "Added to that, facebook groups can be made private and if you try to access information from them a message reads 'you are not permitted to access this page'," Your so right BUT the person setting it up has to set the settings on the page correctly to start with. If that had been done then the Author would not have been able to access it and..maybe just maybe if that was done someone with access pasted on the contents of that page.

A. XYZ
21/06/2012 at 15:02

Ben M - what I was trying to respond to is idpb bf w, Reading's comment "where do you get your information from". Clearly, the article states that there were problems and on your post, you say that there were a few people also and unfortunately you were caught up in the punishment for it and are upset at being branded a hooligan.

I don't think it's right that those not involved should be punished but unfortunately it appears to be the good old minority ruining things for the majority.

I sincerely hope those who were actually involved in this come forward and clear your name and that of others being tarred with the same brush but alas, I don't believe they will.

T Green, Reading
21/06/2012 at 15:01

ben M

I think you will find data protection is abbot not giving out information about people not about accessing it.

Copyright is what you refer to but having checked, newspapers are entitled to use a reasonable amount of words without breaching copyright as necessary dor reporting purposes.

Purple Turtle
21/06/2012 at 14:45

@ T Green, unfortunately for you i have first hand information as I was a person who attended Stand down day.

I did not wear a morph suit and instead wore another costume, and i was mistakenly banned from prom for wearing a morph suit. Furthermore, i complained and was promised a written apology from the school and a meeting. In the meeting it was said that NO CRIMINAL DAMAGED OCCURED, and that it wasn't the worst stand down day ever! So all you little losers commenting on how we were so bad go and put your time into doing something useful and shut up. The school admitted to me that they lost control from being unorganised and the only possible reason i have for them banning everyone is that the new head wants to make a statement.

Added to that, facebook groups can be made private and if you try to access information from them a message reads 'you are not permitted to access this page', so as the author did he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, especially after completely lying about what was said.

Just another useless author with no material so they have to unlawfully access information!

idpb bf w, Reading
21/06/2012 at 14:13

@ Ben M - As PurpleTurtle said already, that is a load of bull. That information is in the public domain and doesn't breach data protection. The creater should have made the pages private. No personal details have been provided such as names or addresses either.

"Yes, anybody has the right to view the information. But before it is boradcasted to the masses, and used as evidence against the accused, the owner must give permission." - That is incorrect. The information is in the public domain and anyone can gain access to it or pass on without the owners permission.

Mistwalker
21/06/2012 at 13:44

@PurpleTurtle

Yes, anybody has the right to view the information. But before it is boradcasted to the masses, and used as evidence against the accused, the owner must give permission.

You could check the data protection act, and come back to me?

Ben M, Reading
21/06/2012 at 13:25

Just wondering if idpb bf w, Reading would like a needle and thread for his comment on sewing people..or maybe the phantom knitter of Earley could assist

A. XYZ
21/06/2012 at 13:09

Ben M

You're talking nonsense.

I think you will find anyone is entitled to look at public pages on a social networking site such as Facebook.

The reporter has done nothing illegal here as anyone else who might have wanted to look with or without the itention to join the group can do so freely.

If you don't set your privacy settings to avoid this then you only have yourself to blame.

Purple Turtle
21/06/2012 at 12:53

@ T Green I’m afraid you’ve misinterpreted what I previously wrote.

I did not include as to why we were punished in my last comment. After a meeting with the Head Mistress, it was confirmed that the morph suit boys were not banned for criminal damage, and assault; but instead for not removing their masks upon request – which I disputed.

Instead, I have been told, that those who committed the crimes should expect further punishment.

This leads me to ask, why weren't other people who had there identity hidden: firstly - asked to remove there masks, hoods etc, and secondly - punished for having their faces concealed. This is another example of discrimination shown by the school.

Do you still agree that us innocent victims should be banned from prom, simply for not removing our hoods?

Furthermore, the writer of this article had no right to use an event, shown on facebook; as according to the data protection act of 1998, must seek permission from the creator before using as evidence against a person, or persons.

Ben M, Reading
21/06/2012 at 12:43

Jai - you beat me to it!!

@ idpb bf w, Reading: Would think that the person setting up the Facebook group would need to set the privacy settings to prevent anyone accessing this group/page? Am fairly sure that Facebook leave the responsibility of privacy settings to those setting up the pages/groups!

As for "where did you get information on what happened from" - read Ben M's post - sounds very much like he was there and that there were people causing trouble - perhaps not as many as are being punished, but as has been said before, I doubt very much that those who were will stand up and admit their actions, thus allowing those unfortunately incorrectly associated with them off the hook!

At the end of the day - the school warned what would happen, they kept to their word and now some people are complaining because they didn't listen to the warnings from the school.