Principal Daniel Wilson came up with the idea of writing a fun fake news story about the school buying a plane to solve its transport problems.

The school published the story on facebook on April 1st in the spirit of April Fool's Day.  While it generated a lot of comments from those who saw it on facebook, it also captured the attention of the national media.  

Mr Wilson said the idea for the joke came from some staff room banter when a group of teachers were discussing transport and the idea of a school boat was floated. "The discussion got out of hand and soon we were talking about the Virgin planes sitting at the airport – hence the idea was born!" Mr Wilson said.  

"Schools and students do amazing things all the time – often these are very difficult to get reported," he continued. "It just shows that either negative articles or ‘quirky’ stories do make the headlines. It was a fun way of showing that Nayland College has amazing opportunities for students – and a sense of humour!"

Read about the Nayland plane hoax in the NZ Herald's April Fool's mash-up 

Go to pg 7 in last week's Nelson Weekly for a local take on the story

If you missed the original post, you can read it here