A video shows two boys going toe-to-toe in a fight at Underdale High School yesterday in the school’s sports sheds while dozens of other students watch on and film it.
9News understands it was an organised brawl.
A student who cannot be identified claimed it began at recess and at least one of the boys didn’t want to fight.
“They have like a roster on who fights every day but I don’t know if it’s on paper, and they just start fighting each other,” the student told 9News.
“Older kids were calling him names so he felt like he had to fight.”
It comes two weeks after a statewide phone ban was introduced in South Australia but the video shows more than a dozen phones recording the fight.
Afterwards, the footage spread among students and even to parents at the school.
“(I) came across this as an AirDrop that was thrown across the school,” a parent said.
“I watched it and I felt disgusted looking at it, like it’s not something young kids should be doing.”
Up to 18 students have been suspended as a result of the fight.
South Australia Police visited the school today and are now investigating the incident.
Education Minister Blair Boyer said dummy phones are being surrendered at school gates to get around the phone ban.
“They’re using the phones to orchestrate or organise the fight and the timing to record it and then distribute the footage on social media,” he said.
“I expect schools to take strong action which they’ve done here, come down on them like a tonne of bricks which they’ve done here and suspended those with the phones as well.”
Parents of students at the school had not been notified of the incident prior to the education minister addressing it today.