Viewing Thread:
"MoJo's guide to knocking off"

Hate school? Have homework due in that you haven't even started? Keep getting caught missing lessons?

Then follow this guide to knocking off and you'll soon be running rings around your teachers



Firstly, let me tell you I am the Yoda of knocking off. I started in year 10 by knocking off Geography with my best mate. Soon I was knocking off German, Chemistry, English, Maths, Biology, Physics, Geography, History... every single lesson I did except PE and Drama. I knocked off by myself as much as I did with my friends.

At one point in year 11 we were knocking off so much we never, EVER had a full day. And we'd even take entire days off sometimes


And what were we doing when we weren't in lessons?

My mate's mum had lessons (ironically enough, at our school) in computers on certain days. So his place was empty. We would sit in his house, with the music channels on. And the days when we couldn't go there?

Well around the back of my garden is a big allotment, with places to sit, hidden by bushes and trees. The only thing we had to worry about was gardeners coming in, and that rarely happened

So, how do you get away with this dastardly crime?

Here's a few tips

Teachers -

Don't take any risks. Have you been off a lot lately? Then stop. And go in to lessons for a few weeks to get rid of suspicion. The worst thing you can do is be off one lesson, in the next, then off again. This crazy pattern will make your teacher get in touch with your form tutor. It's far more likely that he'll just think you're ill if you're off for 3 lessons in a row and then you come back.

Is your teacher stupid? Are they the kind of teacher you can lie to easily, and never hand in homework to? These are the perfect teachers to run rings around. However, do they ask you where you were last lesson, do they always, ALWAYS make sure they collect homework from everyone? Are they strict? If so, then they are a big "no no". You can probably get away with being off for one lesson every month or so, but anything more than that and they know something is up

Escaping school -

My mate would always say it was better to take off an entire day rather than just the morning of afternoon. This way you eliminate a lot of problems. Firstly, escaping school. If you knock off the afternoon, then just leave at dinner time and don't come back. But, if you go during break, or just the gap between two lessons, you run the risk of being seen. There are two ways getting past this, but they both have drawbacks. First, is to leave when the main car park or whatever there is near the exits are at their busiest. When all the kids are walking back and forth to their next lesson, just blend in with the crowd and then slip out of one of the school exits (our school had 3, and we very rarely used the main gates. We would go out the side across the field) However, if the students are out, chances are there will be some teachers/staff walking back and forth too. So be careful. The other way of escaping is to go to the toilets/someplace you can hide until the next lesson has started. If any teachers see you walking around they will assume you are late to your lesson. But, when you start to leave, this is the danger zone. You have no reason to be walking towards the exit other than to be leaving school, and without the cover of hundreds of other kids, you are bare and exposed. So be quick. A teacher could easily be walking around and see you. If they are close, and they call to you, go to them and tell them you've dropped your keys and need to find them. Or, even better, say you need to run home to collect some homework you need for the next lesson. This excuse can be used to anyone who asks you why you aren't in school as you walk home/to your hideout. Most teachers will say "OK" and let you on your way. If they're far away when they see you, too far to make out who you are, then LEG IT. And don't look back.

Also, you may want to stick your coat in your bag. Your bag and your coat are what give you away, as most kids have a different bag or coat to the next. If a teacher sees a kid with a red nike bag and blue adidas coat, they don't need to know who you are, they just report it and they can check who has those items the next day and bang - you're caught

So, put your coat in your bag and hold your bag INFRONT of you if you're walking away from the school. Then if a teacher sees you from his or her window, all they can see is the back of your school uniform. Walking off with a friend? Then remain silent. The last thing you want is for a teacher to see you, open their window and hear one of you saying "OK Jimmy, lets go to my house" "OK Bob" Not only may they recognise your voices, but they know your names and who's house you're at. Expect a phone call to that house very soon. Very bad. So don't do it. Remain silent until you're far away enough not to be heard

Be weary of all doors and windows you may walk past on your way out, try and make sure you don't walk right past the room of the lesson you should be in. I've done it loads but only when his window was shut. In the room you could see where I was while walking past, so I knew to stick close to the wall out of view.

While you're knocking off -

Most people who see you may give you a funny look, and if they see your school uniform, some REALLY nasty people may phone the school. So once you're far away enough from the school, put your coat back on and zip it all the way up. Also, you could have your trainers in your bag. Put these on, and just walk right past anyone staring at you. See someone you know? A friend of your parents? Cross the road or duck and hide out of sight. See a policeman walking down the street? Casually cross the road and walk down a street. They will think you're going home and shouldn't bother you. If you're on a long road with no streets to run down. Just cross the road and stop, look impatient and keep looking at your watch. Then when they get close, walk back the way you came. Hopefully it will look like you've been waiting for someone and have given up. Walk speedily, but not so much as to arouse suspicion.

Once while on our way to the allotment, my friend and I came across his art teacher, walking her dogs. She must've been on her day off or something. We just walked past her. The next day we both wore different coats and stayed clear of the art department.


Don't wander around aimlessly. The more you hang around on the streets, the more the chance of someone who knows you and your school seeing you. Either go to a safe house (where you KNOW that their parents won't be in) or find a park or somewhere nice and hidden. Read a magazine, listen to your MP3 player, even read your English book! Just do something to keep yourself entertained, or you'll go mad. I once had to knock off an entire 4 lessons (an hour each almost) in the morning, and I was alone. I had nothing to do and it was one of the most boring experiences of my life. I had to stay hidden incase my sister saw me through a window in the house. So take something to do, or talk (quietly) to your friend if he's there. If you're in a safe house, just watch TV and relax. But always be ready incase someone DOES walk in the door. If you're in an "un-secure" house (meaning there is a chance of someone walking in at any moment) then there isn't a whole lot you can do. Once my brother came in while I was knocking off in the morning. I quickly jumped up, and ran into the hallway, telling him I'd slept in. I grabbed my bag and ran out of the house. I was lucky that time, but if it had been the afternoon, I would've been stuck. So either have an excuse ready (you were let out of school early) or be ready to make a dash for the back exit.

Hide any evidence that you have knocked off in your house/friend's house. Have you been eating? Put all the wrappers etc in the bin. Don't move anything (newspapers etc) and keep your coat, bag and shoes on you, so you can dash out without having to grab anything and without leaving any proof that you were there

Getting back into school -

Sometimes you would want to go in for the afternoon after knocking off some lessons in the morning. So go in at dinner time, tell your form tutor some excuse (doctors, dentist, the usual) and then go to your lesson. Do NOT, however, go anywhere near the teachers of the lessons you missed. Avoid those corridors completely, and if you see a teacher whose lesson you missed, turn and RUN! I've had to do that on more than one occasion!

The next day -

After knocking off an afternoon, we would go in the next morning and when our form tutor would ask where we'd been in the afternoon, we would tell him we were late for registration and just went straight to our lessons. Again, the stupid teacher rule applies - if he's thick, this excuse can be used again and again. If not, then you can get away with it once or twice a month and that's it. That's the best excuse, but don't forget classic like "at the doctor's" etc

If you were off all day, tell them you were ill. Chances are he'll ask for a note, tell him you'll bring it in tomorrow. Now, if it's a Friday, by Monday our tutor would have forgotten. If another day, every time he'd ask we'd say we'd bring it in. However, can you forge your parent’s handwriting? If so, then do it, and save the trouble of your teacher bugging you. Again, the stupid teacher rule applies. Some people will phone your parents straight away to check that you were ill. So you really need a good letter to get away with it, you can't keep fobbing them off.

Teacher's alliance -

Luckily for us, our school is divided into two halves - the west block and east block. West and east teachers RARELY see each other. So you could knock off a lesson in east and your teachers in west would never know. Infact, most of the time even teachers in the same block wouldn’t communicate. All the maths teachers stick together, all the English teachers stick together, and so on and so on. BUT, some teachers are friends with each other. My drama teacher and my geography teacher were best mates, so I was really risking missing geog. then being in for drama. Once my geog teacher walked past me on my way to drama after I had missed his lesson. He gave me a dirty look and kept going. On another occasion, I knocked off geography, then when I went into maths, HE was the cover teacher. He didn't say anything, but if that had been another teacher (he KNEW we knocked off) I would've been done. So is your form tutor friends with one of your teachers? If so, be VERY careful with excuses. Don't tell one teacher one excuse, and give the other a different one. Also, don't be stupid enough to miss a lesson if your form tutor is the teacher! That would just be stupid.

What your friends can do to help -

All the years we knocked off, we had people getting angrier and angrier at us. Not teachers, but other kids. We were never in and were getting better grades than nearly everyone else. This makes a lot of kids angry, and sometimes they can grass you up. This happens like -

Teacher - Where's so and so?

Kid Who Hates You - Eh? He was in this morning!

*Teacher reports this. You get caught*

Sometimes it can be completely innocent, and they'll do it by accident, but sometimes it's because they're evil. So, to counter this, tell a trusted friend to give an excuse for you - "He had to go doctor's/dentist/home to let builders in" whatever the excuse is, make sure they either tell the teacher at the start of the lesson, or shout it out before the evil kids get a chance to grass you up

Parents -

Don't forget, your parents are just as likely to catch you as the school. But, just because the school catches you, doesn't mean your parents have to find out, and vice versa. If you get caught by your school, they'll either phone your parents (make sure you answer the phone every time it rings that night) or send a letter home (get to the mail before anyone else each day and hold any suspicious letters up to the sunlight. Look for the school symbol, a teachers name or something that makes it look like it's from school. If so, open it, read it, assess the situation, then destroy it. Leaving it in your room is just ASKING for your parents to find it. Last letter I got, I burned (ironically enough, while on school grounds at night) If the letter is asking for a reply, either destroy it and hope the problem goes away (can happen) or just come clean with your parents.

Getting caught -

Everything above tells you how to knock off and get away with it, but sometimes it's out of your control. A kid can grass you up, a teacher can check with your tutor and see that you were in for registration but not his lesson. Or your parents can walk in while you're knocking off at home. When I got caught, it was because of a new technique the school introduced. If you weren't in for morning registration, they phone your house. This is what got me. I'd been knocking off DT, German and maths for 2 weeks, and finally my parents said to me "we got a phone call from school" - one my brother got while I was in school

But, I had an excuse, and so should you. The reason I was knocking off DT was because the teacher hated me (probably because I never did any work) and I was so far behind in the work I couldn't possibly catch up. I was knocking off maths because I'd recently been moved down in the sets. I was so embarrassed I just didn't go in. And I was knocking off German because my teacher (who was German) ran it like a POW camp. He picked on me constantly and made my life a living hell.

So, I exaggerated all these problems, and got my parents on MY side! I had to remind myself, as far as they knew, it was the first time I'd knocked off EVER. So I gave a sob story and they believed it. They phoned the school, told them what I'd said, and I was called into the office. I was told I was being taken out of DT (get in!) Mr Fox (my German teacher) was being asked to leave me alone, and that my new maths teacher was OK with what I'd done. The head of upper school made my promise not to knock off again and I returned to my lessons.

Of course, two weeks later I was up to my old tricks. I was caught, seen leaving with my best mate by one of the geog teachers, who had a perfect view of our usual exit point and clearly saw us walking out of school. I was put on central detention (like normal detention only a LOT longer) and so was my mate. He was meant to be on it anyway, and we went and did it, and that was it. They couldn't suspend us because we were coming up on the GCSEs and we needed to be in school. So we did an hour and a half of detention each, as punishment for missing countless, COUNTLESS hours of school each month. Sounded fair to me!

The drawbacks -

There are drawbacks to knocking off. The obvious one is what you miss in lessons. And I certainly missed a lot. I got 3 Cs and a B in my GCSEs, but all the teachers said I could've got a LOT better had I not missed so much lesson time. So, I'm telling you now, if you're going to knock off, do it in moderation. I knocked off simply because I couldn't be bothered with the 10 minute walk to school! That is a stupid reason to knock off! Only knock off if you have homework due in, and haven't finished it yet. I knocked off for all sorts of reasons, and I wish I hadn't now. My mate who knocked off almost as much as me got 5 As in his GCSEs! He was lucky, I wasn't, and you may not be either. So only knock off when absolutely necessary. Heck, we once knocked off PE (the only time we ever did that) to WORK on our geog projects which were already late! We finished them, and he got a A in geog and I got a C. Even our teacher was surprised by that, considering we were never in. Also, if you get caught, you can get suspended. When my mate was caught, he stopped knocking off for weeks (the teachers thought he had been dragged into it by other kids so he didn't get punished) until the heat died down. He was lucky, so was I, but every other kid we knew who got caught was suspended. And you don't want that on your record

The good things -

You can laugh, knowing that while you're sat watching MTV in a nice warm living room, all your classmates are currently huddled in a freezing classroom doing work

I got two Cs for my AS levels, and I was predicted two Es!!! The Es were there because I'd missed so many lessons. I enjoyed beating almost every single kid in the year grade wise. The kids who had 100% attendance got lower grades than me, and I liked that, heh

The end, and after -

Well I'm in 6th form now, in my second year of it. Knocking off is a lot easier, as since we get free periods, no teacher will think twice when they see you walking out of school. However, my old geog teacher is now my form tutor! "Great" I thought, I can get away with anything. Except I think he was sick of me extracting the urine, and keeps a VERY watchful eye on me. I've already been caught knocking off and have been threatened with being thrown out. I had 60% attendance last year in year 12, when it should've been 100% (I'm rarely ill) This year I knocked off for a full week once, and got a letter home and had to convince them to let me stay in 6th form. I missed so much lesson time so far that I really messed up the exams I just did, and I've been told if I fail them, I get thrown out. So I've turned over a new leaf, I'm always in lessons and I don't sleep in any more (that was the main culprit for the school I missed, I would sleep in a few hours!)



So, knock off only if you have to. Don't get caught. If you do, have a good excuse. And a backup excuse. Don't EVER grass up your friends - I told everyone I knocked off completely alone when I was first caught. And don't get reckless! Told the school you were ill? Then tell the STUDENTS in your lesson you were ill too. You don't want the idiots blabbing and grassing you up. Take turns knocking off. Our geog teacher knew we were knocking off because we were sat next to each other and nearly always off on the same days. So we would take turns if one of us had to knock off.


So there you have it, MoJo's guide to knocking off!

"And as for the 6th form, i'm in year 12 and we're not sposed to leave school during the day, apart from lunch. We all do it and rarely get caught, and only year 13's can sign in and out to leave school."

Ha ha, unlucky! I can't believe they'd have a rule like that! Here, year 12 and 13 is exactly the same for us, no difference


Anyway - Additional notes I forgot to add and have been meaning to post on here


Back before we got a second line and cable modem, I would go online during the time I was knocking off, and for a few hours after school (until I knew all the staff would have left the school)

This kept the phone line busy and meant no calls from the school could possibly come in

I don't know if it ever worked (because I wouldn't have known even if they did ring) but it's a good precaution to use.

But can't get online?

Then 1471 can be your best friend. Knocking off in a safe house? Does the phone ring (man the phone just rang as I was typing that, freaky! Heh) if so, don't answer it. Wait until they hang up, and do 1471

Most school letters etc will have the school number on, so if it's the school or even if you don't recognise it, don't call back. If it's a friend then go ahead



I'll try and think of some more, I'll ask my mate who knocked off with me a lot if he can remember any more details

So did you do 'Resistant Materials' then??
I do 'Graphics Products', where you can design ANYTHING and then go on and make it, even if it's just a poster, or something 2-D you can do on a PC!

And as for the 6th form, i'm in year 12 and we're not sposed to leave school during the day, apart from lunch. We all do it and rarely get caught, and only year 13's can sign in and out to leave school.

I got caught the other day leaving during first lesson. The male-looking 'female' teacher was leaving school and saw us. She got out of her car and said something like: "Get back in school or i'll sit on you." - ??? That's what it sounded like anyway! I think she actually said 'suspend you', not 'sit on you'! I think I only got caught cuz I was with someone who keeps getting in trouble and having to see her? Maybe if I wasn't with him i'd have been mistaken for a year 13!? But we got off ok after.

Na, we had to make something wooden (we had no choice) and I knew fine well I couldn't make anything good

I didn't even start making a stool

I designed it as easy as possible, but he told me it needed to fold and stuff like that!

So I just didn't bother starting it. I even helped the kids in the class with theirs, so I was quite often working on a bit of wood whenever he came by. If not, I had to run! Heh

As for fire drills, in 6th form you're meant to sign out and in again so they know if you're in. But, along with almost everyone else, I don't bother

Hopefully the teachers would know that I'm not in when I don't have lessons (everyone knows that) and I'm sure they'd get someone to phone my house before sending people in after me

MoJoJoJo, I think you found DT boring beacuse you're making a STOOL! You should have made something more interesting, like a GameBoy (like me!) and then maybe you'd be more interested!

I've also wondered about fire drills, and I go out of school quite often, going home early at least once a week! But i'm not alone, and I just think 'i'll stick with them, working together!' But I doubt that would definitley work! And luckily, if we're just down the shop or something, you can hear the fire alarm and even the buzzer! So we know when to get back to school.
But the problem is getting back in without being seen! :S

James Pond wrote:
> But if you are going to do this. Tell one of your mates, that is not going to
> dob you in, in lessons that if there is a fire, that you have gone home
> sick.

That is what i do when i have free period and go home.

------------

Exactly

If you'd read my guide, you will see that I say it's a good idea to tell your friends to come up with an excuse


Anyway, if there's a firedrill, they go out and the teacher takes the register... the same teacher who has just been in a classroom and seen that you're not in

So a firecrew will NOT be sent in after you

Do you see?

But if you are going to do this. Tell one of your mates, that is not going to dob you in, in lessons that if there is a fire, that you have gone home sick.

That is what i do when i have free period and go home.

I don't really want to p£ss on your bonfire, but what happens if you are out of school when a fire happens in school. Most people will be in school, and you are not. When they do a register and find out you are not here, they will send a fire crew in, to rescue you when you are not in school. These firemen could be killed looking for you, can you live with your self?

Cheers, I nearly always find out my GAD wins from Rakuga, who emails me when he sees them


Anyhoo, as for winning for this, obviously I'd love to, but has that ever happened? I mean someone winning two times right next to each other?



"Just out of interest.. Is it really worth cutting a lesson only to sit in some shrubbery for a few hours and constantly worry about being seen. I mean you said yourself that one time you bunked off on your own it was the most boring experience of your life. Surely school isn't that bad... "

Believe me, I could either go in for DT and sit, totally bored for an hour and a half, and have to run away every time the teacher came near so he didn't see that I hadn't even started making my stool. OR - I could not go in at all and spend that time thinking

Although it was boring, it WAS better than school

Oh yeah, and well done for your other GAD MoJoJoJo, the review one. Can you make it 2 GAD's in 2 days straight???

There's no reason why it can't happen, you can win in ANY forum, and this could be probably the first EVER life topic to win GAD!!

I got home ok today. I tiny bit wet and some nice 'clean' old trainers is the only downside. I was gunna play footy during 5th, but no-one turned up so I went home, and it was the trusty old swimming pool route for me.