School of Hard Knocks

School of Hard Knocks is an achievement related to the seasonal world event Children's Week. Completing this achievement is part of the meta achievement For the Children.

It is considered one of the more difficult achievements to earn, particularly below the level cap (where there is a smaller population for the battlegrounds to draw from).

Getting in
Pick your battlegrounds specifically, don't just go random. The four used in the achievements will have very short waiting times, but the other seven battlegrounds will just waste your time - you only have a week!

Being reasonable
While some PvP guilds take Children's Week as a time to get free honor from lots of people who have no idea how to play the battlegrounds, sometimes the opposite faction will permit your faction to achieve the goals. If the opposite faction is being nice and allowing people to achieve these objectives, try to pay that back in letting them do so, too.

None of the below requirements require your team to win the battleground. You should be content to allow the other team to win if they are letting you get the achievement credit. You can play for keeps the other 51 weeks of the year.

Strategy

 * This achievement should be your first-priority achievement for children's week. The others are incredibly simple and most can be done while in the queue for battlegrounds.
 * Keep your orphan out! You need to re-summon the orphan each time you die - and you die a lot in battlegrounds.
 * You can solo this achievement, however if you want to fight for it premade battleground groups. You can all take turns completing the requirements until everyone has them completed. So that it's clear who is going when, it's also recommended to set up the order ahead of time. Be courteous to your other party members and avoid completing the achievement criteria multiple times.
 * In particular with Eye of the Storm and Alterac Valley, it may take several tries before you are successful, so have patience and try to be organized. But whatever you do, remind everyone to have their orphan out. Any time a member dies, remind the player to re-summon their orphan.

Warsong Gulch
Allow the other faction to assault the flag, then move as a group to assault the flag carrier. This is probably easiest to accomplish midfield where visibility is good. It's likely that the other team will also have members attempting to complete the achievement, so the flag carrier may even be undefended.

As a courtesy, you could capture the other faction's flag, then let yourself die in the flag room.

Arathi Basin
You only need to only assault bases for credit, not to capture or defend. Once a base has been assaulted move out quickly. With any luck, the other faction will move in to capture it, and you assault again for another quick achievement. Remember, you only get credit for the assaults, not the defense or the capture. If the other team is moving around as a single pack, split up into two groups. Similarly, if the enemy is spread out, you may have better luck moving as a single pack to easily overtake smaller groups of defenders, if there are any at all.

If you want to get this out of the way fast, rush (or ask politely) to be the first on your team to capture stables (Alliance) or the farm (Horde).

Eye of the Storm
This is a hard one because there is only on flag on the map, in the center. Many players on both sides will be vying for that flag. Stand in the middle and keep clicking the flag until you get the "loading bar". You will get interrupted many times, but if you get the flag head for one of your active bases as fast as possible.

Your team only needs to maintain one base for flag captures. Pay attention to which bases you have active so you don't run to the wrong one.

Alterac Valley
You only get credit for this achievement if you capture one of the four towers or bunkers. You must actually be the capturing person to get credit. Best strategy to to run for the farthest towers from the starting point, as the people running with you will drop off to cap the closer towers.

Bugs
During the 2009 event, players who had two Orcish Orphan Whistle at the same time were not be able to complete this achievement with either whistle. This bug may have been subsequently created because of the hotfix to whistles which allowed players to have more than one. If you experience problems completing the achievement while you have two whistles, try using your original whistle versus the additional whistle you obtained from the matron. It is currently unknown if this bug was resolved for the 2010 Children's Week event.