3 November 2021
We are aware that some parents have asked of the Trust and Priory School’s position on climate “strikes” and the upcoming COP26 event this Friday.
“Whilst we encourage our young people to be ‘game changers’ and develop a wider understanding of the world around them, we are responsible for the safeguarding of our students and act ‘in loco parentis’ for them until the end of the school day. Additionally, unauthorised absence and missing important learning time is disruptive to teachers and disadvantageous to students’ learning, particularly given there has been so much time lost to Lockdowns. Therefore, we do not support students walking out of school, ”on strike”. We understand and applaud the strength of feeling on this issue; however, there are plenty of ways in which young people can get involved without impacting their schooling.”
However, given that this is such an important issue Priory School will send a representative group of students to the protest, as we have done on previous occasions. If parents are keen for their child to attend individually then they need to submit a request in writing to me, no later than 6pm on Thursday 4 November 2021. Parents will then be taking responsibility for their child when they leave our premises.
I must stress that this is one of many climate events running in the days to come that we can encourage our children to engage with, without removing them from lessons.
https://portsmouthclimatefestival.org/events/
Students will need to be in school for lessons in the morning and will be given permission to leave at 11.30am. We will not expect them to return to school afterwards.
I will meet with any students who have permission to attend on Friday morning to provide expectations of conduct. We do acknowledge that this is potentially the greatest issue of our age and we understand it is important to find ways to balance this support without impacting lessons.
Kind regards
Stewart Vaughan
Headteacher
