It's funny. There's a more than pretty good chance that everyone has been late at least a few times. When workers are late, their pay may be docked and heaven forbids that a doctor should be late for surgery. But is a student being late so inexcusable?
Let your Superprof arm you with 14 ways to disarm teachers with good excuses for being late to school. In this article, you'll find:
1. The Classic
Daylight saving time gives students a one-day free pass to lateness, but only in autumn.
Confined to just one sweet day a year, forgetting to put the clocks back is a timeless excuse that’s bulletproof to detention. We're willing to wager there’s not a person you know who hasn’t been through the frenzied panic of realising this error, the superior breed of teachers included.
Unfortunately, as more people rely on their phone apps to wake them up, this excuse is becoming less viable.
Smartphones spring forward and fall back on their own. So if you want to make this a viable excuse, you will have to insist you use a low-tech alarm.
Historical footnote: chronic class latecomers lost a real gem of an excuse when wind-up alarm clocks fell out of favour.
If you forgot to attend to it before drifting off, it stopped running in the middle of the night. Ditto if it fell off of your bureau or nightstand, how could you hear it ring, muffled as it was by the clothes on the floor?
Digital models, those you plug in and leave set, slightly diminished the likelihood of not arriving on time due to faulty alarms but the DST excuse was still believable. Unfortunately, even those are now considered an anachronism.
With more people using electronic device apps to wake them up, the best excuse you can hope to get away with is that you let your phone's battery die. And even then, that story might not wash. What teenager would neglect to keep their electronic devices charged?
2. The Random Act of Kindness
You were on your way to school with plenty of time to get there. Suddenly, you spied on a grandmother crossing the street. Or a cat in a tree, or a runaway pram or a dreadful traffic accident.
...Of course, you had to stop and help. If you use that last excuse, be sure to have dry blood on your person. Otherwise, it won't be that believable, even if you claim to have washed up.
How could anyone be angry at someone who’s made themselves late due to an impromptu act of kindness? Taking the homeless for a slap-up meal, rescuing a puppy from a swollen stream, helping an old lady down from a tree...
You might have cuddled a crying child or stopped to calm a mate down who's stressing at the wait for exam results.
A bit drastic, but, witnessing a brazen crime and being forced to provide a witness statement at the police station, maybe useful?
And you can always take one idea or two from movies. What about helping a pregnant lady that was just about to go into labour as her water broke while you were casually passing by. May this Sex and The City scene be your inspiration:
The choice is yours and it is only limited by your imagination.
Just don’t use this card too often, your teacher is liable to say that you can perform charitable acts after school.
3. The Blinky Mole
If you routinely wear glasses, the ‘accidental misplacing’ or even breaking of your spectacles can lead to a series of consequences bound to make even the best of us late.
“I’m sorry sir/ma'am, I couldn’t find my glasses. After stumbling around the house, looking for my uniform, put on my sister’s clothes. And then, I got on the wrong bus, which took me to the wrong school...”
In China, South Korea and other East Asian countries, it's quite fashionable to wear glasses frames with no lenses; people do that because it makes them look smarter.
Plenty of foreign ESOL teachers in those countries have been fooled by students turning up to class wearing spectacles most of the time who suddenly appear without them.
In the previous case, quite often, the ESOL teacher asks: "Did you get contact lenses?" only to discover that the frame wearers never needed vision correction, to begin with.
You could make a go of this excuse in your classes; you only need to invest in a pair of frames to wear to school that you can conveniently leave at home when you fail to wake up on time. Thus, your lost/broken eyeglasses story will be believable.
4. The Wardrobe Malfunction
Closely related to the 'missing glasses' excuse is the malfunctioning wardrobe. If you can't see what you're putting on, how will you know what you're putting on?
This excuse covers much more ground and is much more versatile. Try the following:
"I had my mind on my final exams and forgot to change out of my pyjamas!"
"I was halfway to school when somebody on a bike grabbed me, totally ripping the sleeve off my uniform"
"I forgot my trainers at home and it's gym day! (and you left your PE kit hanging on the line)"
All of these cleverly explain why you had to return home for a wardrobe change. Getting halfway to school and realising you’re still in your PJs is certainly one way to make yourself late.
Also, you can't participate in sports if you don't dress out, right? You had to go back for your tie, P.E. kit, swimming hat, and underpants.
Thinking about it, any piece of school accessory will do. But don't use the wardrobe malfunction and broken spectacles excuses at the same time.
Thankfully, we're not talking about going to school in the U.S. as wearing pajamas wouldn't as a wardrobe malfunctioning at all:
5. The Keys
Nowadays, we have at our disposal various devices designed specially to help you rapidly locate lost items.
The AirTag or other accessories that stick to your belongings and connect to an app for tracking (Apple is making millions with these little buttons) have become essentials for travellers who are too afraid of losing a suitcase or for parents who put them in kids' backpacks for safety reasons.
And, of course, their use is starting to increase with house keys.
But - thankfully too - as 95% of the population, exactly, your pair of keys is not yet attached to one of these precious devices; not being able to find your keys is one of the main reasons people can get delayed in their daily routines.
House keys are essential when leaving the house, especially if they’re needed to lock a door completely, or if no one will be home after to let you back in.
Losing your keys or not being able to find them to leave your place, is also a perfect excuse, one that can even justify skipping various hours of class.
Another excuse might be that someone who left before you accidentally locked the house, and since there wasn’t a spare key, you were stuck inside and couldn’t leave on time.
In this case, you’d probably need some collaboration from your parents if someone from school calls them to confirm your story.
Just in case, and to avoid any real incidents, you might want to take a look to this video:
6. The Trouble with Tech
In the early days of GPS, it was not uncommon for a driver's device to direct them down roads that didn't exist.
One German driver made international news by blindly following his GPS's direction straight into a pond! He couldn't believe his beautiful BMW was now submerged.
We’ve all heard stories like this. Unfortunately for excuse seekers around the world, global positioning satellites have gotten so much more accurate.
These days, one can hardly blame them for lateness due to misdirection anymore.
We said 'hardly'. There is still a way to blame dastardly directional devices. You might say that your phone's traffic app did not indicate your route to school would be completely blocked.
You're late because you had to find another way to get to school even though you were halfway to campus.
If need be, you can spice the story up by cooking up a fictitious accident - but not one so big that it would be likely to make the evening news.
“Why are you late, then?” “Please Sir, I set out for school using the RAC mapping system and ended up completely turned around…”
This good excuse for being late would work particularly well if you ride a bike or take a bus. But less so if you walk to school.
Learn more of how the marvelous GPS has drastically changed our way of thinking about getting directions or anticipating routes:
7. My Little Sibling Didn’t Let Me Arrive on Time
It’s still very common for older siblings to take care of their younger brothers and sisters, especially in large families.
When the responsibility falls on you as the older one, it’s the perfect opportunity to use the excuse of being late because “you had to drop off your little brother or sister at school”.
Usually, the schedules of schools for kids under five don’t align with the schedules of teenagers over 12.
So, if it’s your responsibility to drop off your younger sibling or even skip a class to pick them up from school or another activity, you’ve got one of the easiest and best excuses to use for being late to class.
And even if you don’t have a younger sibling, simply knowing the name of a nearby nursery school or primary school can make your excuse more believable.
8. I Forgot My Wallet
Maybe this excuse for being late is only useful if in your area there's still no app for public transport where you actually can quickly buy a ticket by just sending an SMS or with a pre-charged balance or transport card on your phone...
In any case, even with an Apple Watch or Apple Wallet, many parents either don’t feel comfortable or see no need to get their underage kids a bank card.
Because of this, carrying cash if you’re under 18 is still the norm. This gives you the perfect excuse: you can say you forgot your wallet, and since you didn’t have cash, you couldn’t pay for transportation or cover other expenses to get to the school.
9. Waiting for an Important Delivery
In the case of a major appliance, like a fridge or a laundry machine, being scheduled for delivery, and one of your parents couldn’t stay home to receive it because of work, it might have been “your turn” to take on that responsibility.
Waiting for that “essential” big package that your family desperately needs can be a valid and very good reason for being late to school.
10. Incident at Home
This might be one of the riskiest since someone could ask to call your parents to confirm the situation. However, you could always find photos or videos online to back up your claim.
Some examples include:
A gas leak in the house or at your neighbour's
A power outage at home (and you can claim that your main door is electric and wouldn’t open)
Flooding in the kitchen or bathroom (you “would not be able” to leave until it was resolved)
11. The Woeful Weather
The great British weather is the natural go-to excuse when anything goes wrong in this country. Train companies, airlines and politicians have all been known to point to the skies when they drop the ball. You could do the same.
You may, for instance, claim that one of your wellies slipped off as you were dashing across the street.
If you have both wellies on, you might say that they filled up with water during this heavy downpour and you had to stop to empty them. Alternatively, you may also aver that you stepped into a deep puddle, filling only one boot.
You can add credibility to that tale by limping slightly, as though you'd sustained an injury as your shoe filled with cold, cold rain.
If the weather is particularly warm, as it has been in recent years, you may state that you had to rest in the shade as you felt a heatstroke coming on.
Don't use that excuse when you perspire, though, because one symptom of heat sickness is the lack of sweat. However, slurring your speech and staggering around a bit would work in your favour.
Weather (pun intended) you got lost in the fog, blown away by gale-force winds or buried in 5 feet of snow; burnt to a crisp or severely dehydrated, it’s all fair game.
Naturally, be sure to check the actual weather forecast before concocting your excuse. You wouldn't want to claim frostbite when it's 30 degrees out.
12. The Day Fail
Take a deep breath because this one takes guts. If carried off correctly, this excuse can render any waiting teacher speechless or potentially bent over in laughter.
You turn up late for school - very late. A narked-looking Head of Year is the first to feel your collar as you try to sneak your way in. Now, rubbing your eyes and in your sleepiest voice, say “I’m sorry, I thought it was Saturday”.
This excuse works best on Mondays and Fridays; especially Fridays.
It would be best to not use Sunday as an excuse unless you know your Head does not care about attending church. If s/he does, s/he might become gravely offended that you overslept when you were supposed to be in Church and punish you even more severely.
This excuse really does work but, like the best of them, probably only once per semester.
13. The Injury
This one is so good it will not only buy you the odd hour you're late to school but could excuse you from homework if you play it just right. Suffering a sprained wrist, an injured arm or a twisted ankle is never a pleasant experience.
Fortunately, you only need to look like you're in agony for this excuse to work. A quick trip to your local supermarket or chemist can help create all the hallmarks of a serious injury without the pain of broken bones. Stock up on plasters, bandages and slings and get creative.
You might also consider a bottle of Betadine wash, that sinister, gold-brown solution every A&E uses to wash out wounds.
That will work for being late once in a while unless you want a reputation as the most accident-prone student in school.
If you would prefer a more long-term plan, invest in a splint or brace of some sort: an ankle brace, a wrist splint, or maybe even a neck brace.
14. The Brown Nose
Arrived late for class and feared the inevitable wrath? Then do your homework beforehand - not literally, of course.
Turn up with their favourite chocolate bar, magazine or tobacco brand. You’ll get it in the neck from your mates but nothing cools the blood of a teacher on the rampage like an unexpected treat.
Conversely, you might keep an essay, poem or short story that you wrote handy. You could say that you were up at all hours working on it, your teacher might find such work more flattering than any store-bought gift.
If your teacher is all about academics, simply say you were up all night studying so you wouldn't fail your exams.
What's the Best Excuse For Being Late?
And there it is, kids – our top 14 excuses for being late to school. Don’t be too shy to use the comment box and chip in with your suggestions, you might save a fellow bed-dweller from a world of pain today. Now, for some final thoughts.
We'll say nothing about the irony of an organisation dedicated to promoting education and responsibility publishing an article inciting students to be irresponsible and avoid education.
We hope you'll see this exercise as a lighthearted stab at the tyranny of standardised education.
On the other hand, let’s face it: telling the truth when you turn up late for school is never going to wash with tetchy teachers.
90% of us are late because our beds are just too warm and comfy.
Of course, we hope theses excuses to class are useful, but if you have use them all or they simply don't adjust to your routine, maybe it's time to learn more about the concept of "time blindness", as you might be suffering from it:
Best Advice to Improve Your Punctuality
After all, when a worker is late, they cost their employer money. We can all imagine what might happen if a surgeon gets to the operating theatre late. Lives hang in the balance, there.
So, yes: not arriving on time has real-world consequences, but what hangs in the balance if a student is late?
Granted, turning up late shows a lack of respect for your teachers and classmates, and even for yourself. School routines train you for your future as a professional, so could you discipline yourself to get to class on time?
Improving punctuality as a young student involves adopting effective time management strategies and utilising supportive tools.
Below is a table outlining five methods to enhance punctuality, along with corresponding apps that can assist in implementing these strategies:
| Punctuality Strategy | How to make it work? | App Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Set Clear Goals and Priorities | Define specific objectives and prioritize tasks to focus on what's essential, reducing the likelihood of running late. | Notion – A versatile app that combines task management, note-taking, and organization, allowing customization to suit individual goals and needs. |
| Use Timers and Reminders | Implement timers and reminders to stay on track and allocate appropriate time to tasks, preventing delays. | Brain Focus Productivity Timer – A timer that allocates set amounts of time for studying and breaks, helping maintain focus and productivity. |
| Plan Ahead | Schedule tasks and appointments in advance to ensure timely completion and arrival. | Google Calendar – A useful application for organizing time, planning schedules, and coordinating events with others. |
| Monitor Time Usage | Keep track of how time is spent to identify areas for improvement and adjust habits accordingly. | RescueTime – An app that provides insights into time spent on various activities, helping users make positive changes to their habits. |
| Establish Routines | Develop consistent daily routines to create structure and reduce the chances of being late. | My Study Life – An app specifically designed for students to keep track of schedules, homework, exams, and tasks in one place. |
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Hello! Thank you so much for the tips! I got out of school for 2 weeks because of one of the excuses 🤣 my teacher was so clueless and I am so thankful to you I can’t thank you enough (sorry if my grammar is bad English is my 3rd language 🙂)
what excuse?
This is so funny omfg