THE major rite of passage for young people used to occur when they reached the age of 21 and were given a key to the family home. That practice faded and died when the age of majority was lowered to 18. Now another coming-of-age ritual – which unfolds even earlier in people’s lives – is an established part of Island life. This rather grand and spectacular event is the school prom.

Getting a key cut and handing it over to a new adult was never an expensive business, but proms are a different matter entirely. Girls dress up in expensive finery and boys do much the same, vying with each other to make the biggest impression.

There is, moreover, another element of this alternative to more traditional school dances. It is essential that students arrive for the big night in some sort of luxurious or incongruous form of transport. Cadillacs and Bentleys are par for the course; sofas balanced on JCB diggers, horse-drawn carriages and even ice-cream vans are among the more unusual conveyances.

So whom can we thank for the arrival on Jersey’s social calendar of this ritualised display of extravagance, conspicuous consumption and one-upmanship? The USA, of course, where the school prom has long been a feature of the academic year. Thanks to the influences of film and television, the prom has successfully crossed the Atlantic and has now settled in nicely here as a resident species.

However, if parents are inclined to grumble about the expense of kitting out their offspring in lavish ball gowns or flashy dinner jackets, only confirmed curmudgeons would say that all the effort brings no rewards. If the pictures published in today’s celebratory JEP supplement are any guide, students relish every minute of these dressy celebratory occasions, which also provide an ideal opportunity for young people on the verge of adulthood to let their hair down in controlled conditions whose formality harks back, remarkably and hearteningly enough, to a more innocent era.

Other American imports – such as Halloween trick or treat blackmail – have added little of merit to British popular culture. School proms, on the other hand, are at least harmless and at best major enhancements of the whole educational experience. Killjoys might still say that we ought to grow our own customs, but in this case we can safely ignore them, welcome the phenomenon of the prom and encourage our students to make the most of all that their all too fleeting teenage years offer, including their unforgettable first night of the proms.