Pranksters put school on sale

SPOOF SALE: Wanganui Girls' College students (from left) Amy Williamson, Tegan Webster, Renee Harrison and Mia Cutelli started school early yesterday to prep the pranks.PHOTOS/STUART MUNRO

End-of-year pranks are a rich tradition at Wanganui Girls' College as senior students see their school days out by playing tricks on staff.

This year, head girl Renee Harrison led the senior girls in plotting a raft of unpleasant surprises and conspired with Ray White to put "for sale" signs up on the school hoarding and front fence.

More surprises awaited the staff when they arrived at school yesterday morning to find a Honda Logo had been driven into the foyer and doorways had been sealed with cling-film and the handles were slippery with Vaseline.

"There wasn't much room to drive the car up the path without scraping the handrails but we managed to get it in."

Deputy principal Nita Pond opened her office door to find a paddling pool in her office and the sensible senior students had transformed into crazy characters in colourful costumes.

The students had also hoped to see principal Tania King arrested by real police for the fake drugs they planted in her office.

"The police said they were too busy to come and carry out a fake arrest, so we didn't manage to pull that one off," said Renee.

"We have put the real estate ad on the Facebook page today and a lady dropped in this morning to ask why the school was being sold."

The Chronicle also got one person thinking the sale was real and ringing up with a news tip.

Students were at the school at 6.20am yesterday distributing 500 balloons around the school, setting up laser fields with red string and pasting wanted posters of teachers around the walls.

The day was all about fun and games before the students get down to the serious business of their final exams next week.