The Fire Drill occurs about twice a year; one time it is announced in advance to all students, the other time is a "secret" which only the staff know about. However, it always occurs ten minutes into a lesson, and a tell-tale sign is the fact the teacher will ramble on about something irrelevant for far longer than usual to bide time.
Once the fire alarm sounds, students proceed to the Astroturf where registers are taken and people are shouted at by either Mr Porteous or Mr Reeves to get into a straight line through an ineffective megaphone.
It is rare that the fire alarm is set off by a real fire. On other, more recent occasions, the fire has been set off on purpose a couple of times resulting in a staff member guarding each fire alarm for the next month, the fire alarm has been set off by a student leaning against one, students being pushed against the one by the Canteen entrance, a chair being thrown into one, someone soldering plastic in an electronics lesson and the kettle in the staffroom boiling underneath a smoke detector. As most will know, some past year 11s (intake 15) would set off the fire alarm on purpose for Justice for Turab.
To this day people are still unsure whether they are supposed to bring their schoolbags on a fire drill or not. One memorable event is when we were watching ‘The Bucket List’ in RS and just as the guy was about to parachute off the plane the fire alarm coincided with the alarm for the plane, so our whole class just thought it was the sound from the film. Only when the guy was halfway down to the floor we began to wonder why the alarm was still going on and Miss Butterworth just went “Oh damn that's that the actual fire alarm.”