Re: Were you different at school?
school was weird for me, i still dont quite understand how things changed so much since then. i was a quiet child and was fine at school until a joined secondary school (age 12) then all hell broke loose.
the first of my secondary schools was of a high academic standard, my grades were good but my behaviour was deterating rapidly, i started smoking, drinking and taking drugs, im not sure why but maybe it had something to do with my parents getting divorced at the time or the months previous spent in hospital. who knows?
to fund my drug crazed life style i began to steal at first shopplifting then quickly moving on to burglary. i was truanting more and more from school, distancing myself from the larger groups and moving from friend to friend never really sticking around to be anyones real friend.
i remember that pe became an issue that year and i did everything possible to avoid it. i havnt got a clue why as i actually like sports but i started doing things like, forgetting my pe kit, which never worked as you had to wear the lost property clothes instead. so i started dropping to the ground 5 mins into pe, screaming and grabbing my knee or ankle, it was quite amusing at first, one of the teachers would give you a piggy back to the medical office and phone my mum to come and pick me up, so i got the whole day off. they soon worked me out after a while, so i just didnt turn up from then on.
i got expelled after just one year in the end, the final straw was a fight with an exchange student. he was a foot taller than me and 3 years older. he threatened me and i only hit him once but the damage was bad as i fractured his skull.
my second school was different it was in the middle of a rough council estate, not that it bothered me as i was raised on a council estate. i remember my first day it was really confusing. i turned up with my dad in my new uniform thinking i was just starting a new school but as we were walking towards the building my dad said to me, just go along with everything i say. puzzled ? i was, we sat in reception for what seemed like hours and finally a teacher came to speak to us, only to say i had been refused. my dad went mental, shouting at them and insisting that they take me as he had brought the uniform and it had cost him a fortune.
my dad won (haha nice one dad) and i was in but on condition i had to sign a contract agreeing to certain rules. the rules were simply i had to report to my head of year before school, at breaktime, at the beggining and end of lunch and after school. everyone had a little book to sign to say i had behaved and was doing my work aswell so i felt like i was being watched constantly.
i behaved for the first 2 months and did all my work and the contract expired, i was officialy acceppeted. 1 week later i was truanting, they tried to put me back on report but i used to through the little books away and not turn up.
i was truanting pretty much from the start, sitting round a friends house getting stoned and hiding from truant officers. the few times i do remember going in was either on speed or magic mushrooms.
ok so i was no saint but i found i was getting accused of every little thing that happened, they accussed me of allsorts so i thought fook it and started stealing anything that wasnt nailed down. they had 14 video recorders in the school when i started and 2 when i left.
the teachers didnt know what to do with me, they offered me a psychiatrist but i refused so they reported me to the police for drug dealing and burglary but that never worked either.
i can remember one day i went in with trainers on and was called to my head of years office, he was acting all smug and asked me if i wanted to be at school, i replied asking if he wanted me there and he said no we dont, with that i said fine jumped up and walked out of his office and out of school. on the way out i noticed my dads car in the car park, i thought fook and carried on ,5 mins later my dad found me and shouted at me to get in the car, he told me to put on the school shoes the school had phoned him and asked him to bring in. i said no but lost that arguement.
ten mins later and im back in the office with my head of year looking very happy with himself. my dad shouted at me some more in front of him then left. i thought to myself you dirty git you set me up.
there was a rule at my school that all teachers had to be addressed sir or madam and i felt like being awkard so when my head of year asked me a question i just said yes, he shouted back at me yes sir to which i said yes. i could see the veins bulging in his face as he relised he still had no control over me and thats when he lept at me, grabbing me round the throat. 3 teachers dragged him off me and he wasnt aloud to speak to me again.
the day i finally got expelled i got called up to the deputy heads office and was told they were suspending me, by the time ide walked home from school they had phoned my mum and said i was expelled. they didnt have one excuse they had pages of them, six sheets of a4 paper with events listed and dated.
i was 14 when i left school and never even thought about my behaviour but looking back it was far from normal.