Mount Waverley Secondary College students celebrating end of Year 12 attacked in Valley Reserve with baseball bats

JOHN Brumby has condemned an unprovoked baseball bat attack on a group of celebrating year 12 students.

The group of about 100 students from Mount Waverley Secondary College had gathered in Valley Reserve, near Waverley and Blackburn Roads in Mount Waverley, when a group of people "came out of nowhere" and attacked those celebrating with baseball bats.

Police are investigating the incident, which happened just before midnight.

The attacking group was described as three or four people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas.

One student is now in hospital with a broken jaw, and two others are being treated for other injuries.

Mt Waverley Secondary College student Tina said up to 100 year 12 students had gathered at The Valley Reserve for end of year celebrations, when the party was crashed by several masked intruders wielding bats.

We just grabbed each other and headed up to the main road, she said.

It was unprovoked, we did nothing to deserve that.

It was really nice up until that minute and they ruined it for us."

Premier John Brumby said there was no excuse for such an attack.

"I don't understand that sort of assault when that occurs," Mr Brumby said.

"I'm alarmed by this, any act of unprovoked violence is completely unacceptable in our state.

"It's completely unacceptable, it's completely un-Victorian, we reject it absolutely."

College principal Mark Kosach told 3AW the school was shocked by the incident, and said he knew of no rivalries that could culminate in such brutality.

"Our concern is with the children who are hurt and we've spoken with the parents of one student who is still in hospital in the moment, a boy with severe concussion," Mr Kosach said.

A Mt Waverley Secondary College class of 2010 Facebook page carried the motto: Party hard, rock n roll, were the class you cant control, naughty ladies, pimpin men, were the class of 2010.

Three students were taken to Monash Medical Centre.

Police said they have spoken to several witnesses.

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For most Year 12 (Form VI, it used to be and still is in some schools) students in Victoria, this is their last week of school prior to SWOTVAC and their final exams. By tradition, this is a week for parties and pranks. 'Muck Up Day' is the term often applied to the last day of school, where students have traditionally engaged in rowdy behaviour and practical jokes. Often, and increasingly in recent years, some kids have taken things too far and the jokes have become dangerous or cruel or criminal, or all three.

For a few years my school has maintained a zero tolerance approach on muck up day - any boy engaging in any muck up activity no matter how innocuous has been severely punished (normally with a caning). We did this because we didn't want things going too far, and attempts to trust the boys to keep it sane and sensible had failed. This year, after a number of years of zero tolerance, we've loosened up a little - we've made it clear any boy who goes too far tomorrow (which for our boys is the day) faces severe consequences, but we'll tolerate innocent pranks and jokes that don't cause major problems. It is incidents like the above one, though, that make me wonder if we're being wise.

Party hard, rock n roll, were the class you cant control, naughty ladies, pimpin men, were the class of 2010.

I also have to wonder at the attitudes that put that type of statement online. Yes, it's probably a silly joke, but schools tolerate silly jokes like this one far too much nowadays - "we're the class you can't control". All too true, these days, in many schools.

Best of luck tomorrow Doc!

Seriously I guess this has always been the case....in my old student union records at university there was note that in 1933 if my recollection is correct the rag committee approved a prank to :-

Pour and set alight petrol in the cities tram tracks .It as to b poured from the top of each city hill and to make a conflagration in the city centre ( the valley)! It stopped the entire tram system. However the city fathers prosecuted no one, but charges the ?university for damage.

These would be up to 21 year olds, acting like fifth formers. I haven't ever looked up the local paper to see what the local citizenry suggested....but given the year plus custom and practice I suspect many on this forum might have a idea........

Of course that prank was dangerous , stupid, thoughtless.......you could go on, but at least it didn't include personal violence.........unlike baseball bats.

This sort of incident is by no means uncommon in the UK. Doubtless due to the climate parties here are generally held at least partly indoors and usually the gate crashers wreck the building in addition to any injuries inflicted on legitimate participants.

I imagine the youngsters in this case contributed to the problem by publicising the party on their Facebook page. That sort of publicity is what often lies behind incidents over here.

I was intrigued to note Doctor Dominum that you probably quite unconsciously corrected the Facebook entry from 'were the class you cant control' to 'we're the class you can't control'. A wasted effort I fear, it is unlikely that the writers of the Facebook page would know or understand the difference!

What was passing through the minds of those who attacked with baseball bats? Were they aiming to kill? Or are they so lacking in understanding and experience that they thought a blow from a bat causes no lasting harm? Or was nothing happening in their heads? Cyber entertainment rather than physical play seems to be giving some a very distorted view of reality. Perhaps a few strokes of the cane would help them understand?

I wonder if the masked avengers were local residents who had to clear up after the last years' muck-up?

It's surprising how intolerance spreads-there's recently been a lot of moaning letters in our local paper regarding drunken Uni student antics around Mutley(the suburb of Plymouth where the uni is situate). And I'm afraid the only people ever featured in the paper's "In the courts" page for these crimes are NEVER students-just the local scumbags looking for somewhere different to get hammered.

Mind you, as I assisted in getting a Mini Cooper hauled on to the roof of our school's main hall and then secured there, maybe I should just shut up. It wasn't even MY "Muck-UP"!! And we would definitely NOT have been advertising that on Facebook in advance had it existed in 1968.



Steve

Mount Waverley Secondary College students allegedly attacked Avila students at Mount Waverley station

MT Waverley Secondary students have allegedly attacked other students with urine-filled and blue paint balloons.

Students from Avila College said they were ambushed at Mt Waverley station after school finished yesterday afternoon.

'Britney' told 3AW the Avila students were too scared to use the train platform at the station, instead trying to hide until the train arrived.

"Mt Waverley students were all around at the station and we didn't want to go on the platform because they were all on the other side with eggs so we were waiting in the carpark for the train, so they pretty much surrounded us and started chucking eggs," Britney said.

Teachers at the scene tried to help the Avila students and take photos of the assailants, but were allegedly assaulted themselves, Britney said.

"There were about three teachers who were around us with cameras trying to take photos of them and apparently one teacher took two cartons of eggs off a boy and he returned a minute later, attacked her and took them back."

The attacks happened only hours after Mt Waverley students celebrating the end of year 12 in a park were set upon themselves by baseball-wielding thugs.

Avila students told radio station 3AW they had urine-filled water balloons, blue paint and fish oil thrown at them.

Mt Waverley Secondary College principal Mark Kosach said teachers were at the station, but didn't see any of the alleged incidents.

One mother rang the station to say her year 11 daughter had come home covered in blue dye and was so upset she had reported the matter to the police.

She also accused Mt Waverley Secondary College of failing to take responsibility for its students' behaviour.

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A 'follow up'?

A most interesting follow-up Doctor Dominum. A fair amount of this used to go on between schools here in the UK, but now the kiddies all join gangs at 10 and shoot each other with machine pistols instead of old-fashioned ineffective methods like throwing paint and eggs. Do these two schools have previous form for this sort of thing?