14 DAY TRIAL // A 14-year-old schoolboy has been suspended after organizing a protest on the playing fields of his school in Blackpool, Lancashire, because he wanted more homework.
Aaron Parfitt decided to lead a mass walkout because he was concerned about the standard of teaching at his school. The unprecedented mutiny took place last Wednesday and involved about one hundred pupils attending Bispham High School in Blackpool.
Among the student's complaints was a high turnover in staffing and lack of sufficient homework to help him with his maths.
“I did it because I needed some attention for them to listen. I failed my maths exam in school and I was really worried because I just wanted to make sure I was able to do the work properly,” the boy said, according to the Express.
“We’ve had loads of different teachers and we weren’t getting enough homework,” he added.
Before staging the protest, the boy contacted Ofsted and Blackpool Council in an attempt to solve the problem, but after seeing that no measures were taken to improve the quality of teaching, he decided to arrange a protest in the schoolyard.
The teaching standards at Bispham High School were also criticized by Ofsted inspectors, who labeled it as “inadequate.” Last year, the school was threatened with closure and put into special measures due to its “mediocre teaching.”
However, the school's council disapproved of Aaron's initiative and as a result, he was excluded from lessons for two days, much to his mother's indignation, who said:
“I'm absolutely fuming they've excluded him because he's doing the best he can to get a good education. He was only trying to stick up for himself and his mates and then he gets told to stay away from the school for two days.”
The acting head teacher Deborah Hanlon-Catlow admitted the school was going through a “challenging time,” but said the entire staff is working hard to improve standards.
“This is undoubtedly a challenging time for the school. However, with support from Blackpool Council, we continue to work to try to improve teaching standards, behaviour, attendance and punctuality,” the head teacher said, cited by the Independent.
Parents are worried that their children are not getting a proper education and say that they come home with hardly any homework. They also fear that the lack of consistency due to the big turnover of teachers might have a negative impact on the pupils.