SPIFFING news! There's going to be a remake of the frightfully popular St Trinian's movies, those jolly 1950s tales of naughty gels who so love their school that they'll do practically anything to save it from being closed down.

British producer Barnaby Thompson will begin filming at the Ealing Studios later this month, with a cast that includes Rupert Everett as the headmistress and her brother, Colin Firth as a dastardly MP (is there any other?) and Russell Brand as, well, something they haven't revealed yet.

Fans of the original St Trinian's films will remember them as a riot of short-skirted, fag-smoking fourth-formers, dodgy spivs and, more than anything, a succession of hilarious, life-threatening pranks.

Home-made bombs, race-horse nobbling, switching buckets of water for buckets of petrol - you name it, the belles of St Trinians did it.

So, in that spirit, the Daily Echo asked its own staff to answer this - what was your best schooldays prank?

Fiona Pendlebury, reporter: "When I was at Lamberhead Green Junior School in Wigan I can remember some of the boys thinking it was really funny to put drawing pins on the girls' chairs."

Alita Miles, sub-editor: "I went to school in Turkey and I can remember the day some students, er, found their way into the room where the exam papers were being held and made them available to everyone taking the exam. The results were very good but of course we did get found out. It was even in the papers."

Emma Joseph, feature writer: "We got up to loads of things at Tyrrells County Primary in Chelmsford. One April Fools Day we did this thing where, when the teacher stood up, we'd all sit down. And when she sat down we'd all stand up. One day we all pretended to go home - we got our bags and our coats and hid in the toilets. But we got found out and told off!"

Ed Perkins, deputy editor: "The art master fancied himself as a sculptor and made a hideous, life-sized bronze of a knight that he donated to our school. It was insured for thousands of pounds and the school felt obliged to erect it in its prestigious quadrangle.

"That statue weighed a ton and it was the object of much scorn among pupils and one day vanished from its plinth. It was spotted high on the roof of a classroom block, suitably decorated with silly hat, shades and other clobber. Nobody could fathom how it got there (or, of course, owned up to the spiffing wheeze).

"Incidentally, the art teacher responded in typically eccentric way. He hid in an art room dustbin before a lesson began. We enjoyed 40 minutes of chatting away... until the dustbin lid suddenly flew into the air and out popped Sir'. Bizarre."

Helen Stanley, sub editor: "One day a boy in the science lab was holding a pickled locust over his mouth as if he was going to eat it. The science teacher, who was tiny, with her hair scraped into a bun, tapped him on the back of the head to tell him to stop messing about and by mistake the locust fell in."

Allyson Howden, sub-editor: "It wasn't me but I can remember the day at Ashford County Grammar when someone pushed the teacher's Mini into the pond that they had at the front of the school. And there was another day that someone painted a trail of white footprints on the school, as if they were going up the walls."

Malcolm Morrison, sub-editor: "At school in the 1960s one boy climbed up into the school loft and put a load of washing-up detergent in the water tank. Every time the taps were run or the loos flushed, you can imagine what happened. When I was at Christchurch Grammar, which is now Highcliffe School, we had a cattle grid at the entrance because the road went straight into the forest.

"One day, for a ransom, to raise money for charity, we took away the grid and all the teachers and their cars were trapped inside the school."

A lady reporter, who asked to be nameless, admits: "We managed to set the art room on fire. We had a teacher there who was a really nice man but he was always having a sneaky fag.

"One day we noticed the bin had a bit of smoke coming out of it so we decided to push it under the curtains at the window. The next thing, it all went up. No, I am not going to tell you the name of the school."

As my own memories?

I can remember the headmaster giving some boring talk at assembly and all of us laughing after someone used a stick to slowly push out the school science skeleton behind him.

At sixth-form college there was a fantastic day when the principal, who often wandered around like Teecher' from the Bash Street Kids in a mortar board and gown, practically assaulted a student who'd lobbed an egg at him.