Students at Cowes Enterprise college went on strike this morning in protest at the proposed cuts to teaching staff at the school.
OnTheWight was called from the site and told:
“Students at Cowes Enterprise college have taken it upon themselves to go on strike this morning.
They attended registration, then proceeded on to the schools field. The majority of the school’s students are out here.
They’re holding a strike in protest of the new staffing structure – the cuts (the details of which OnTheWight released last week) that are being made.”
Update 11:00 We’ve been to the school, but have been kept off from speaking to the students, as are the handful of parents who are being supportive from the sidelines.
It was all very peaceful, with blocks of teacher distributed around trying to make sure there’s no trouble. Police and Fire (see below) did attend, but left quite quickly.
It’s very difficult to judge how many students are involved and they have spread out across the fields. It’s safe to say that there were at least 200+ pupils there.
When the school’s Principal (who announced recently that she was going on maternity leave) came out to the field, the students started chanting, “Save our teachers!”
As OnTheWight left, at about 10:30, the teachers had asked the Sixth Formers to gather the students back into school.
When asked, the teachers declined to speak.
Small fire
10:03 – The Isle of Wight Fire brigade was called to Cowes Enterprise by neighbour after two pupils set fire to their shirts at the students protest. They left fairly quickly.
10:30 The Fire Brigade told OnTheWight that they had attended, but their didn’t carry out any action as the a member of staff had extinguished the small fire (smouldering shirts) before they arrived.
This ‘selfie’ below with fire fighters as they made their way across the field was shot by Cowes pupil Jonathan East,
@iowcponline @onthewight pic.twitter.com/uiiqqw0cnp
— Jonathan East (@doin_ur_mum) April 4, 2014
The fire fighters were cheered and wolf whistled as they left the site.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Harry Sinclair
