Belgrade · International schools · Est. 2026

Twelve schools. One big break.

Recess (veliki odmor) is a verified, anonymous forum for students of Belgrade's international schools. Real students, invented names. Find people who do what you do, plan things worth leaving the house for, and talk across school walls. A human moderator reads every post before it goes up.

12 school branches 1 shared yard 100% human-reviewed posts 0 real names required EN common language

How it works

Anonymous to each other. Accountable to the rules.

The old anonymous internet had one bug: nothing stopped the worst person in the room. We fixed the bug and kept the mask.

01 / VERIFY

Prove you're a student, once

You register with your school and your school email. One account per person, bound to your device — if an account is banned, that device doesn't get a second one. Your identity is stored sealed and never shown to other users.

02 / MASK

Get a handle, not a profile

The system deals you an anonymous handle — that's who you are here. No real names, no face photos, no follower counts. Your posts build your handle's reputation, nothing else.

03 / PASS REVIEW

Every post crosses the mod desk

Nothing publishes automatically. Student moderators read each post against the house rules before it appears. Slower than a normal feed. That's deliberate.

Branches

Your school has a room. The city has a yard.

Each international school gets its own branch. The Yard is where all of them meet. And anyone can open a new branch for whatever the schools have in common — a sport, a subject, an obsession.

The fine print, honestly

Built to not get anyone hurt. Or sued.

  • Persons

    People are off-limits as content. No posts about named or identifiable students — no photos of others, no "spotted", no exposing. Serbian law makes this illegal; our rules make it impossible to publish.

  • Review

    Pre-moderation where it counts. Posts, events, and branches appear only after a moderator approves them. Comments flow freely — and mods delete violations and suspend the accounts behind them.

  • Sealed ID

    Anonymity with a keyhole. Users never see who you are — but your real name sits sealed in the vault. Threaten violence and two moderators together can unseal exactly one identity for the police. Everyone else stays invisible, always.

  • One shot

    Bans stick. Account and device are banned together. There is no fresh account from the same phone.

From the founders

"We go to these schools. We were tired of twelve student bodies pretending the others don't exist. We'll sign our names when the thing works — until then, judge the yard, not the builders."

— THE FOUNDERS · handles sealed like everyone else's

House rules · v1.0 · August 2026

The rules of the yard.

House language is English — every post and branch works in English first; school branches may run their school's language alongside. Short version: talk about anything — ideas, plans, schools, the city, yourselves. Never about an identifiable person who didn't put themselves in the conversation. Every post is read by a human moderator before it publishes.

Why the law citations? Recess operates from Belgrade under the law of the Republic of Serbia. Where a rule exists because the law demands it, we cite the law, so nobody mistakes it for a vibe. This page is a community document, not legal advice — before launch it gets reviewed by an actual Serbian lawyer.

Welcome here

RULE 01 · ALLOWED

Networking and finding your people

Looking for a study group, a bandmate, a doubles partner, a co-founder, someone who also does olympiad chemistry. This is what the yard is for.

RULE 02 · ALLOWED

Events, meetups, and plans

Tournaments, MUN conferences, gigs, pickup games, movie nights, charity drives. Post it, pin it on the events map, make it happen. You may only pin locations of public events — never a person.

RULE 03 · ALLOWED

School talk — about schools, not students

Compare IB vs A-levels, canteen food, uniforms, which school's football team is overrated. Institutions and teams are fair game for opinion; the individuals inside them are not.

RULE 04 · ALLOWED

Trade, advice, and questions

Textbook exchange, past-paper strategy, university applications, "is anyone else's physics teacher assigning 40 problems a week" (no names). Ask anything; answer generously.

RULE 05 · ALLOWED

Your own story, your own face

You can share your own photos, your own results, your own life — that's your consent to give. You just can't spend anyone else's.

Never publishes

RULE 06 · FORBIDDEN

Posts about identifiable people

No gossip, rumors, "spotted" sightings, relationship reveals, or exposes about a named, pictured, or recognizable person. "Recognizable" includes initials, nicknames, and descriptions everyone at a school can decode.

Publishing personal data or details from someone's private life without consent is unlawful in Serbia regardless of whether it's true.

Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (Sl. glasnik RS 87/2018) · Krivični zakonik čl. 145 — unauthorized publication of another's writing, portrait or recording · Zakon o javnom informisanju i medijima (92/2023) — dignity & presumption of innocence
RULE 07 · FORBIDDEN

Photos or recordings of other people

No uploading images, video, or audio of another person without their documented consent — including group photos where individuals are identifiable, and anything recorded on school grounds.

Krivični zakonik čl. 144 — unauthorized photographing · čl. 145 — unauthorized publication (up to 2 years' imprisonment when privacy is invaded)
RULE 08 · FORBIDDEN

Tracking anyone's location

No posting where a person is, was, or will be. Real-time location of an individual is the single fastest way to get someone hurt, and the single fastest way to get this site shut down. Event pins are for events; a person is not an event.

Krivični zakonik čl. 138a — stalking (proganjanje) · čl. 138 — endangering safety
RULE 09 · FORBIDDEN

Harassment, threats, and pile-ons

No insults directed at individuals, no threats (even "jokes"), no coordinating dogpiles, no encouraging anyone toward self-harm. Zero tolerance, first offense, permanent ban, and where the law requires it we report it.

Krivični zakonik čl. 138 — endangering safety · čl. 170 — insult · defamation carries civil liability under Zakon o obligacionim odnosima
RULE 10 · FORBIDDEN

Sexual content — any, at all

Much of this community is under 18, so there is no "adults-only corner": no pornography, no sexualized content, no requesting or sharing intimate images. Intimate content involving a minor is a serious crime we are obligated to report immediately, including "consensual" sharing between students.

Krivični zakonik čl. 185 — exploitation of a minor for pornography · Zakon o posebnim merama za sprečavanje vršenja krivičnih dela protiv polne slobode prema maloletnim licima ("Marijin zakon")
RULE 11 · FORBIDDEN

Hate speech and discrimination

No attacks on national, ethnic, religious, or any other group identity. Twelve schools means every background in one yard — that only works one way.

Ustav RS čl. 49 · Krivični zakonik čl. 317 — incitement of national, racial or religious hatred · Zakon o zabrani diskriminacije (22/2009, 52/2021)
RULE 12 · FORBIDDEN

Drugs, weapons, and other illegal trade

No selling, sourcing, or promoting drugs, alcohol to minors, weapons, or stolen goods. No posting leaked exams or selling academic fraud — that one gets you expelled before it gets you banned.

Krivični zakonik čl. 246 — unauthorized production and circulation of narcotics
RULE 13 · FORBIDDEN

Impersonation and ban evasion

No pretending to be another person, a school, or a moderator. No second accounts, no returning after a ban from another device. Discovered evasion re-bans permanently and retroactively removes everything you posted.

How the platform holds the line

MECHANISM 01

Pre-moderation for posts, post-moderation for comments

Every post, event, and new branch enters a queue and publishes only after a human moderator approves it. Comments publish instantly — reviewing each one would drown the desk — but moderators sweep them continuously and can delete any comment on sight. Approved posts can also be taken down at any time if they turn out to break the rules. Rule-breaking comments escalate: deletion, then suspension (3, 7, or 30 days), then a permanent device-wide ban. Every suspension can be appealed once — the appeal goes to the mod desk and is reviewed like any other decision, and moderators can lift a suspension at any time. Rejections and deletions always cite the rule.

MECHANISM 02

Verified but sealed identity

Registration requires your legal name and surname, your school, and your school email, and binds one account to one device. Other users only ever see your handle — but the vault means anonymity never equals impunity: post a threat of violence against a person or a school, and two moderators acting together unseal exactly one identity, log the unseal, and hand the case to the school and the police. Outside of that, sealed data is disclosed exclusively when Serbian authorities lawfully require it.

Data handled under Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (87/2018), GDPR-aligned · minimum data, no sale, no ad profiles
MECHANISM 03

Reporting

Every post carries a report button. Reports about safety — threats, self-harm, anything involving a minor — jump the queue and reach a moderator within hours, not days. Serious cases go to the national platform čuvamte.gov.rs and, where required, the police.

MECHANISM 04

Agreement

You can't post before confirming — by explicit action, once, at registration — that you've read these rules and accept them, including that moderators decide what publishes and that bans are final. That confirmation is logged with a timestamp.

MECHANISM 05

Age groups

At registration you declare your age group: 13–15, 16–17, or 18+. Some branches and topics are restricted by age — an 18+ branch is invisible territory for younger members, and content aimed at younger students is protected from adult contexts. Your age group is never shown to other users. Misstating your age is treated as impersonation: permanent ban.

Aligned with Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (87/2018) on minors' data · ZJIM provisions on protection of minors
MECHANISM 06

House language

English is the working language of every shared space — it's the one language all twelve schools have in common, and moderators must be able to read what they approve. School branches may run their school's language alongside English. Posts in other languages elsewhere are returned, not punished.

Registration

Which school are you from?

Your real name and school email go into a sealed vault — no other user ever sees them, but they exist. Anonymity here protects you from your peers, not from consequences.

Sealed at registration. Unsealed only by two moderators together, only for threats of violence or when the law requires it — every unseal is logged.

We email a 6-digit code to verify it's yours. The address is stored sealed, used for nothing else.

Decides which branches you can enter — some are 18+ only. Checked against school records when challenged; lying about age is a bannable offense. Never shown to other users; moderators can see it.

Recess runs in English — the one language all twelve schools share. School branches may use their school's language alongside it.

Fill in your name, surname, school, age group, and a school email that contains "@" to continue.

Already have an account?

Wrong email or password.

Logged in.

Settings

Signed in as ·

Profile picture

Shown next to your handle in the forum, DMs and friend lists. Rule 07 applies here too — photos of other people without consent get removed and sanctioned.

?

Change nickname

Your handle is how everyone knows you. Once a week, letters, numbers and dashes only. Old comments keep the new name.

Change email

Your login email — currently . We send a code to the new address to prove it's yours; your password confirms it's you.

Change age group

Once every 30 days. Mods can see your age group; lying about age is a bannable offense.

Change password

General

Theme
Who can DM you
Friends always can. "Friends only" blocks new message requests.

Log out

Signs this device out. Your account and handle stay.

Open invitation

Your school isn't here yet?

Recess started with twelve of Belgrade's international schools — but the yard has room. We welcome new schools into the community. A school that joins gets its own branch, its students register with their school email, and everyone gets the same sealed-identity protection and the same four rules.

Ask for your school below — no account needed. A human moderator reads every request; if it fits, we add the school to the join list, open its branch, and reply to your email with the details.

Request your school

We only use this email to reply about the request. It is not an account and nothing is published.

Friends

Find people by their nickname. Friends can DM each other directly — everyone else lands in message requests first.

Messages

Private between the two of you — moderators cannot read DMs. If someone crosses a line, report that message: only the reported message reaches the mod desk, nothing else.

The Yard

r/the-yard

Where all twelve schools meet at once. Cross-school everything: find people, plan things, argue about whose canteen is worst.

PRE-MODERATED FEED — every post below was approved by a human moderator. Median review time today: 22 min.

Events map

Things happening. Places, not people.

Organizers pin their own public events — tournaments, conferences, gigs, meetups. Tap a pin to see the event. Pins mark venues and only venues: the map never shows where a person is.

live map · organizers pin events themselves · pins mark venues, never people

Pin an event

Anyone can propose one. It publishes after the mod desk confirms it — venue included. Public venues only.

Named sign-ups mean you know who you're meeting. Open fits big public events.

No pin yet — press "Place pin", then click the spot on the map.

Title, date, venue, and a map pin are required.

Submitted — your event is in the moderation queue. It appears on the map once a moderator confirms it.

Mod desk · moderators only

Nothing publishes until someone here says so.

The queue below is what pre-moderation looks like from the inside. Approve sends a post to its branch; reject returns it to the author with the rule it broke. Every decision is logged.

4
pending review
126
approved this week
9
rejected this week

queue clear — the yard is quiet ✓

Published posts

Approved something that turned bad — or a post aged into a problem? Take it down here. Deleting removes the post and its comments from the branch; the author is notified with the rule. Suspend the account when it's a pattern.

Live comments — post-moderation

Comments publish instantly — reviewing each one would bury the desk. Instead they land here as they appear: delete what breaks the rules, and suspend accounts that keep doing it. Deletions and suspensions are logged like everything else.

Member registry — sealed identities

Every handle maps to a real name, school, and verified email in the vault. Names stay masked even for you — unsealing one requires a second moderator, is written to the audit log, and is reserved for threats and lawful demands.

Community branches

Approved a branch too fast? Close it here. Closing removes it from every rail, locks its threads, and notifies its members with the reason. The action is logged and reversible by a second moderator.