Meanwhile in Florida, schools are taking such a zero-tolerance approach to bad behaviour that they’re involving the police.

Police were recently called to a high school in Port St. Lucie in the state to arrest an 18-year-old student who had snatched a decorative apple from his teacher’s desk after she took away his treasured metal spring.

After refusing to return the apple, the student was arrested for petty theft and “disruption of school function.”

Even farting can get you arrested. Police in Stuart, Martin County arrested a 13-year-old pupil who was “passing gas” and switching off other pupils’ computers. The boy “continually disrupted his classroom environment” by intentionally breaking wind, according to a court report.

Apparently state law stipulates that a pupil can be arrested for “deliberately acting to create a disturbance” or “impeding the successful functioning of the school”.

Given these misdemeanors are relatively minor, two questions have to be asked. Firstly, what action would schools take for more serious disruption, such as an assault on a fellow pupil or teacher? And secondly, how long before Johnny Fartpants sues his school for disruption of bodily function?