Like Kids Rule OK!, School for Survivors took its inspiration from The Lord of the Flies, but School for Survivors was utterly shameless, and stole the idea wholesale. Pupils from Alma Road Comprehensive School near Birmingham were on an educational cruise to the West Indies, escorted by two teachers. Joey Slade led a gang of bullies who delighted in violence and anti-social behaviour. Slade's opposite was school geek Specky Hewitt, a swot and a teacher's pet who still had sufficient backbone to stand up to Slade. Disaster struck as the ship hit a reef in a storm. Slade and his cronies left their companions to their fate, forcing their way into a lifeboat and casting off. Hewitt and five others, including a student teacher, also managed to escape, and put ashore on the same remote island. From that point it became a survival struggle. Slade's gang were hopelessly inept but vicious, whilst Hewitt and company were organised and equipped, but destined to be victims as their civilised behaviour was threatened by the base animal survival instincts exhibited by Slade's gang. A temporary truce brought about by the arrival of illegal pearl divers ended abruptly, with Slade inheriting firearms and the upper hand.

At any other time, School for Survivors could and should have been a classic Action story, despite the familiar feel. Unfortunately it suffered from the post-ban editorial twitchiness that IPC exhibited across all its titles. Despite some implied or 'off-camera' violence, the goings-on are pretty tame, and the only death happens as a result of a bush fire. Just as the story reached its final life-or-death struggle, the school science teacher showed up with the British Navy and the naughty boys were sent to reform school, accompanied by knowing smiles all round. A missed opportunity.