Eden Marine High School students say they are disappointed in the lack of any celebration at their school to mark their final days.
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Despite not having “muck-up days”, other locals schools arranged week-long celebrations filled with fancy dress, teacher/student games and silly activities.
However, Eden Marine High students claim they were this week threatened with severe penalties if they were to participate in any shenanigans.
A few of the Eden students have come forward to shine a light on the issue, which they deem as being unfair.
The soon-to-be-graduates have asked to remain anonymous as they believe they would be banned from their Year 12 formal if the school was to find out they had spoken with the newspaper.
“We are livid,” one student said. “Been looking forward to muck-up day all my high school life, started coming up with ideas way back in Year 7!
“The whole year is crushed about it. It’s been great seeing and having a laugh with the previous years about it and it gets taken away, and we are left with the same reward for finishing 13 years of school as the sports group with the most points.”
At Lumen Christi, a week of activities was put on for the graduating class of 2017 including two dress-up days, barbecues, breakfasts and a number of assemblies. At Bega High it was a similar story with an activity day filled with teachers versus students games, a staff and student lunch, a day out at the beach and then finally a graduation assembly and morning tea.
But an Eden High student said it was school as usual all week for them, with only a barbecue with teachers on Thursday, September 21, and their graduation assembly and morning tea on Friday, September 22.
“And we even had to attend normal classes on the last week and not even allowed to dress up,” he said.
“If we did anything that wasn’t ‘formally approved’, which nothing is, not even games for us, then we were told we would get banned from the formal,” another student said.
The two students who came forward said they had written down a formal proposal to the staff with ideas of safe activities they thought could be part of their celebrations, but that these were all turned down.
Muck-up day a thing of the past
Relieving principal Leesa Wungluck said there is no such thing as a “muck-up day” anymore and that this is something that has stopped all over the state over a number of years.
“Our staff held activities with their classes throughout the week and then we had the whole year lunch with staff and then finished today with a lovely assembly and this afternoon tea with parents and carers,” Ms Wungluck said.
“It’s a beautiful way to celebrate.”
Ms Wungluck also said the students’ real celebration was the school formal, which would take place after the last HSC examination.
But the students said they wanted a chance to really celebrate at the school where they had spent the past six years of their lives growing and learning.
The students said it was hard to see photos of kids at other locals schools having week-long celebrations.
“I think it made us annoyed because we have been denied so much to see other schools in the area have a dress up,” the student said.
“When we realised we weren’t going to get a muck-up day, we hoped we would still be allowed a dress-up day or a games day.
“When we couldn’t do that some people considered rebelling and doing it anyway, but they threatened us with our formal, it’s a once in a lifetime experience.”
The students said they were glad that none of their classmates had acted out, but hoped that in future other Year 12 graduates would be celebrated a bit more and allowed a little bit more fun in their last week of school.
