Wednesday 1st April

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Have you played any pranks today? Do you know why we celebrate April Fools’ Day?

Today many of you may have planned to be mischievous and play pranks on your family because it is April Fools’ Day. I can remember when I was in primary school and our headteacher, Mr Good, did an assembly on April 1st. During the assembly he told us that the school had been broken into over night and the burglars had come into the school on a small quad bike and if we looked really closely at the floor we would be able to see the marks the tyres had left. He told us to let him know if we saw or heard anything that could help the police catch the burglars. For the rest of the morning, Mr Good had a queue outside of his office with children desperate to tell him about the evidence they’d seen and who they thought it could be. Later that day we had another assembly (which was very odd, we only ever had one assembly a day) and Mr Good admitted it had been an April Fools’ joke. I remember thinking it was all a bit strange, our teachers had all be laughing during the first assembly when Mr Good was talking about something really serious and the hall, with the supposed tyre marks, was on the second floor of a building with no lift! There was no way they could have got a quad bike up the stairs.

Yesterday, the blog discussed learning new things so I thought I would do a little research into April Fools’ Day and why it is known as such.

Surprisingly little is known about the origins of April Fools’ Day and there are a large number of completely different theories about why April 1st has become known as April Fools’ Day. In some areas of Europe it is actually know as April Fish Day. People think this is because there are a lot of fish in the streams and rivers around April 1st, and they are easy to catch - foolish fish! So it became a tradition to play tricks on people too.

In 1957, a news broadcaster told his British audience that Ticino, a region in Switzerland, had an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop that year. The camera then showed footage of people picking spaghetti off of trees and bushes, then sitting down at a table to eat their real, home-grown spaghetti. Some viewers realised it was prank and were absolutely furious that it had been broadcast during a serious news program; other viewers reported asked about how they could grow their own spaghetti at home. I am sure you would have all realised that it was prank and know that spaghetti does not grow on trees!

In 1989, Richard Branson (a very famous business man you may have heard of) played a prank on the residents just outside of London. In the evening, residents spotted a flying saucer that appeared to land in nearby field. Police officers went to the field to investigate the supposed UFO (do you know what that stands for?), and were surprised when they actually found one. As they approached the flying saucer, a door opened and a silver-clad figure walked out. The police ran away. Little did they know, Richard Branson was hiding in the UFO behind his friend, who was dressed in silver. The two of them had taken off in the flying saucer - which was actually a hot air balloon. There was a problem with their prank mind, they had planned to land in Hyde Park (Central London) on April 1st, but the changing wind forced them to land a little early on March 31st in a different place.

Traditionally you can only tell April Fools’ jokes until midday on April 1st, after that time you are meant to come clean about your pranks or it is said that you are the fool and will have bad luck - I hope you all came clean about your pranks in time?

Have you got any good April Fools’ stories to tell? Perhaps you have done some research also and found some examples - email us at children@olive.dudley.sch.uk.

Whatever you have done today, we hope it has been a good day and that you are all continuing to stay safe.

We miss you so much, the school is just not the same without you - you are the heart of our school and we cannot wait for the heart to start beating again.

Stay safe