Protesting Leeds school pupils have spoken out about why their new toilet policy makes them feel “angry and sad”.
Farnley Academy pupils have demonstrated against the secondary school’s toilet policy outside the school grounds at the beginning of two school days, with a third planned on Wednesday (March 1) after the teacher’s strikes have taken place.
Disgruntled parents and pupils are "disgusted" with the policy which they believe is "taking away their human rights". The new policy requires that all but one of the toilets are locked during lesson time, and pupils have to get a note to enter the sole open toilet where a member of staff stands guard.
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Pupils have told Leeds Live how each protest has been organised using Snapchat and word of mouth for those not on the social media app. There’s currently about three groups set up on Snapchat, since each Snapchat group has a limit of about 100. So it’s estimated about 300 of the cohort are in the groups.
Headmaster Chris Stokes has hit out at "abhorrent comments" from adults which he claims includes " threats of violence towards members of staff, myself included". This morning, pupils waved banners which said 'Human Rights' and 'It's our right to have a s***', along with chants of 'human rights'.
The police were called to the latest demonstration following “behaviour concerns” but pupils claim they were peacefully protesting. They’ve said three police cars arrived and officers were guarding the school gates at one point. A parent has described this whole scenario as “heavy handed”.
'Angry'
Year 9 pupil McKauly Hennessy, 14, spoke about why the toilet policy has made him feel so “angry and annoyed”. He said: “If I need the toilet, I need the toilet! It goes against our human rights because if I was sat at home then I could just go, same for the teachers.
“I’m not being funny, if I was going to the toilet for two minutes then I’m not going to fail my GCSEs! The school response has not been very good as they’re just passing us off, it’s annoying.
“It makes me angry because he [Mr Stokes] is just not doing anything about it. I think pupils should go out there and do it [continue protesting] and not listen to teachers.”
McKauly’s mum Natalie said: “I think it’s disgusting, Mr Stokes issued a letter last night which basically said it was the senior leadership team for putting this rule in place, basically passing the blame on to someone else.
“And then apparently there’s been threats to staff and things like that, but I haven’t seen anything of the kind. Whether he’s blowing smoke, I don’t know.”
According to Natalie and another parent, the school told parents that protesting children would be excluded if they entered the school following the demonstration, so many of them decided to return home instead.
Natalie said: “They said anybody who went through the school gates would be instantly excluded. So McKauly came home for about 9.30am.”
Natalie added that protesting children were told if they were to enter the school, then they’d be excluded.
'I just want to go to the toilet!'
Yea 8 pupil Olivia ‘Libby’ Paine, 13, said: “All we want to do is just go to the toilet. It makes me feel angry and sad because I just want to go to the toilet! It’s not like I’m going to do anything.
“For the protest, all I knew is we were going to meet in one place and we’d stand there. I didn’t know what I was expecting, now I come to think about it, it felt natural to protest. I’d learnt about it all in school, how to do a peaceful protest.”
Libby’s mum Sonya said: “All I want for the kids is for them to uses their voices. It’s not easy for a child to stand up to an authority figure.
“So if they feel that strongly and they’re standing up for what they believe in, that makes me feel proud but disappointed it’s had to get to this point. I think the toilets are symptom of more that’s going on.
“With the police, considering the pupils were not aggressive and just being peaceful. I feel the response is heavy handed. The kids were legitimately saying they weren’t happy, voicing their concerns.”
The Farnley Academy and The GORSE Academy Trust was asked for a comment.
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