Adelaide High School Year 12 students say the ‘fun police’ ruined end-of-year celebrations

The “fun police” have squashed Year 12 muck-up day celebrations at one high school, stopping water balloon pranks and threatening to call the cops over a confetti gun.

The “fun police” have squashed Year 12 muck-up day celebrations at Adelaide High School, stopping water balloon pranks and threatening to call the cops on students.

Students have told The Advertiser the leadership team even threatened them with not graduating if the pranks didn’t stop, saying spraying water on each other was a “safety issue”.

Year 12 student Sid Farquharson said his final day had been tarnished by “party poopers” who acted like “we were throwing poison around” when squirting students with water.

“I think it’s so ridiculous, like they were threatening to call the police on us for messing around with water with fellow Year 12s,” Sid said.

“We all thought it was insane, because in previous years people have been running around going into classrooms squirting people with water guns.

“Now we’re not even allowed to go on to campus, we just had to stay on the oval.

“It’s meant to be a big day for people, but being told they’ll call the police and threatening to take away our graduation is just absurd.”

Adelaide High School, on West Terrace. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Friend and fellow Year 12 student Sam Neave said after a difficult few years of schooling due to Covid, it was disappointing the day had been ruined.

“We’ve been there for five years and got through Years 10 and 11 with Covid and the last day of the year when every other school is letting loose a bit, we can’t,” Sam said.

“I was part of the group that let off the 2ft confetti gun and we didn’t shoot it at anyone, it wasn’t in a classroom with anyone trying to learn, it was outside of the library.”

The students said they received a text message from a Year 11 schoolmate, who said the police had attended the school after the confetti gun prank.

However, a police spokesman said no patrols were called to the West Tce campus.

Charlie Fox said the leaders’ reaction to their pranks were “over the top”.

“They made up all these rules about safety and they were scared about safety with water balloons, which we don’t understand because it’s water,” the Year 12 student said.

“We’ve seen other schools do the same thing and we’ve been at the school for five years and seen it happen ever other year.”

It doesn’t get more dangerous than confetti...

Charlie said he had asked the principal Cezanne Green why there was an issue with their pranks, who told him she was following advice from the Education Department.

Sid’s mother Amanda Blair said the “fun police” had invaded the school.

“We’ve been at AHS for five years now and witnessed the descent into over compliance, risk aversion and tight boundary setting,” Ms Blair said.

“The poor kids are missing out on many privileges seen as rights of passage due to this.

“If I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have enrolled my child in what was (once) a leading school in public education.”

An education department spokeswoman confirmed a confetti gun was used in a building corridor outside the library but said the matter was not reported to police.

The spokeswoman said the school held an “end of year breakfast celebration” for Year 12 students on the school oval which was scheduled to finish at 11am.

“As is expected at any celebration, school leaders did need to remind to a few students about appropriate behaviour,” she said.

“Students were not asked to leave early as a result of any behavioural issue.”

Originally published as Adelaide High School Year 12 students say the ‘fun police’ ruined end-of-year celebrations