Kiwi students at Otahuhu College up the x-factor with ball proposals

Striking up the courage to ask a girl to the school ball is hard enough.

But today's students are putting their fears aside and going to new extremes that involve dance routines, home-made signs and the classic roses and chocolates in hand.

Prom-posals, or ball proposals, have become increasingly popular particularly in the US, where a programme dubbed Promposal is now a big hit on MTV.

Now the craze has reached New Zealand school gates, with many teenagers capturing extravagant ball proposals on video and posting them online.

At Otahuhu College, South Auckland, they have become a bit of a thing over the past few months.

Otahuhu College head prefects Jasmine Cook and Simili Moala are in a prom-posal video. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Head prefects Simili Moala and Jasmine Cook are among students to feature in a video that has started to go viral.

The pair, who are good friends, decided earlier it would be nice for the head boy and head girl to go to the ball together.

But Simili, 18, wanted to do something unique for his date and knew it would be a first for their school - for a head boy to give a ball proposal to the head girl.

"I thought I'd spark that up. It was the night before and I went and asked my mum if I could use the car straight after school."

He picked up three mates and with the help of his friend Seta Samate and some inspiration from YouTuber John Baik, came up with a dance routine.

The video, which has attracted thousands of views, shows a line of students standing under umbrellas; each boy giving Jasmine a piece of chocolate.

At the end of the line, Simili and his friends start a choreographed dance with umbrellas - before they flick them open to reveal the word "Ball.''

Simili then walks up to Jasmine with flowers and a large photo of the pair, before dropping to one knee to ask her to the ball.

In the rush to get the words out, he mistakenly asks her to the 2016 ball.

"I got mixed up,'' he laughed.

Jasmine, who aims to study Performing Arts at Unitec next year, said they had received hundreds of positive comments.

"I really liked it and enjoyed it. It was different and it was unexpected,'' she said.

Simili, who will study business and law, said some women had said his ball proposal was better than their marriage proposals.

Otahuhu College principal Neil Watson said they had seen several proposals to the school ball, which is in September.

"We've had some boys from some other schools come over and serenade some of our young women too, so that's quite fun."

Watson said the proposals had also been a hit with staff, who were scared their own partners would have higher expectations of them after seeing the videos.

Asked whether he was ever that romantic in high school, he laughed: "No. We were never that clever.''