{"id":359679,"date":"2026-04-02T03:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359679\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T03:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:58:08","slug":"april-fools-pranks-tauranga-school-sale-sign-goat-mowers-and-goldfish-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359679\/","title":{"rendered":"April Fools pranks: Tauranga school sale sign, goat mowers and goldfish regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawes said she emailed parents about the signs going up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome parents were on to us from the start, but others were well and truly sold. It turns out we\u2019ve got some very convincing storytellers on staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Tauranga Primary School pranked students that the school was for sale. Photo \/ Tauranga Primary School<\/p>\n

She said it got the kids thinking and asking questions \u2013 a really good skill to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy lunchtime, we let everyone off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not Tauranga Primary School\u2019s first April Fool\u2019s Day rodeo.<\/p>\n

Hawes said five years ago, she told the students Jacinda Ardern was visiting the school, and the grass on the field had to be no higher than two centimetres.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the whole school out there with rulers and scissors, cutting the grass to two centimetres.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said they trimmed a fair bit of the field.<\/p>\n

Previous pranks also included promising a brownie prize, then cutting e\u2019s out of brown paper, and an iPad competition, where the reward was a picture of an eye on a pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose moments of shared humour really help strengthen relationships across the school and the community,\u201d Hawes said.<\/p>\n

Firefighters and councils across the Bay of Plenty also pulled out all the stops for April Fool\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n

Top four April Fool\u2019s Day pranks in the Bay of Plenty<\/p>\n

Freshwater snapper<\/p>\n

Gibbos Fresh Fish in Whakat\u0101ne announced the addition of freshwater snapper to its supply.<\/p>\n

Its Facebook post read: \u201cThanks to a breakthrough and a very advanced breeding programme, snapper have officially adapted to freshwater conditions and the crystal-clear waters in Lake Rotom\u0101\u201d.<\/p>\n

Motorised response<\/p>\n

P\u0101p\u0101moa Volunteer Fire Brigade said it had added two additions to its fleet of response vehicles on Facebook.<\/p>\n

A single-person response unit (SPRU) e-scooter, allowing firefighters to respond quickly and avoid traffic congestion, and a motorcycle for open-road incidents outside of town.<\/p>\n

\" P\u0101p\u0101moa Volunteer Fire Brigade joked they added e-scooters to its fleet of response vehicles. Photo \/ P\u0101p\u0101moa Volunteer Fire Brigade<\/p>\n

Going green<\/p>\n

Whakat\u0101ne District Council told the community of its new \u201cEco Grazing Team\u201d on Facebook to keep grass levels in check and reduce emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going fully goat-powered,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n

\" Whakat\u0101ne District Council added goats to its maintenance crew for April Fool’s Day. Photo \/ Whakat\u0101ne District Council<\/p>\n

A fishy discovery<\/p>\n

An increase in \u201cNemos found conducting unsupervised laps\u201d meant all goldfish needed to be registered with the Rotorua Lakes Council.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s Facebook post asked goldfish owners to submit a passport-sized photo of their fish; provide the fish\u2019s legal name, date of birth, favourite flake flavour, and swimming style; and pay a small fee of one shiny seashell.<\/p>\n

Bijou Johnson<\/a> is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. A passionate writer and reader, she grew up in Tauranga and developed a love for journalism while exploring various disciplines at university. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies from Massey University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawes said she emailed parents about the signs going up. \u201cSome parents were on to us from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,54170,98660,17215,189741,5503,189740,111,43,139,69,27257,8143,189569,6177,30637,1133,4062,7806,1227,1961,31785,102,1530],"class_list":["post-359679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-april","tag-fools","tag-goat","tag-goldfish","tag-knocked","tag-mowers","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-occasion","tag-park","tag-pranks","tag-primary","tag-regulations","tag-sale","tag-school","tag-sign","tag-tauranga","tag-this","tag-tradition","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}