The way we learned it, you start with no pole high jumping, then when you're good at that, you get the pole. We once did a highjump knockout, I got a really high score but then the teacher said "class is over" so didn't get my much-deserved win. Think she hated a fat kid succeeding at sport

In my school, at least as far as I saw, there was a vaulting pole, but it was never ever used while I was there. Though I was utterly useless at high jumping, so maybe all the pole vaulting took place in a separate social centre to mine.