Rosyth School released the following letter to parents regarding a game that the students were caught playing, which is believed to be the Blue Whale Challenge.
Just in case you can’t see the letter above, here’s the text in full:
It has come to the school’s attention that messages with regard to an incident that took place on one of our school buses, have been circulated at various parents’ chat group. Different versions of the cases were shared, which have resulted in the discomfort amongst parents. The purpose of this letter is to clarify the incident.
The messages revolve around an incident that took place on 3 July 2018, on school bus 19. A group of students were playing a self-devised game, which involved a merit and demerit system. Points were credited for positive events (e.g. praised by teachers), and deducted for negative ones (e.g. not doing well for spelling). Objective of the game was to gain as many “happiness” points as possible.
As the game progressed, a primary one boy expressed his desire to stop playing. In a bid to persuade him to complete the game, the other children made comments along the line that one would exit when he/she ‘dies’ from the game. Though the students understood it as the ‘end of the game’, unfortunately the primary one boy did not perceive it in the same way. As a result, the latter reported the incident to his parents when he reached home, who in turn updated the school. No physical hurt was inflicted during the course of the game.
Upon being notified of the case, the school took immediate actions to warn the students involved against playing of the game, whilst investigations were carried out. There was strict compliance by the students and there have been no further reports of the game being played.
The school has been working with the parties concerned, and would like to appeal to parents to stop circulating unverified accounts of the case. Queries can be directed to us at rosyth_sch@moe.edu.sg. Thank you for your attention and we look forward to your continued support.
The Blue Whale Challenge (or the Blue Whale game) is said to be a game, conducted primarily through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that encourages people to kill themselves.
In this game, participants are told to perform one task a day for 50 days. These daily tasks, given by a group of administrators or a certain curator, usually start off easy and then get progressively extreme, which encourages self-harm and eventually suicide.
If your memory serves you well, you might recall that the Education Ministry has issued advisories regarding this game on their online publication Schoolbag.sg before.
You might be thinking, “Why would there be anyone so silly, play game play until go and commit suicide one?” But say real one, this game has been linked to quite a few cases of teen deaths in Russia and India hor. So better don’t play play and don’t let children anyhow play.
Life is very valuable.
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