Students from across Haringey and Enfield are taking part in the actions to defend their futures from the ConDem's attacks in the form of rising tuition fees and abolition of the EMA. One local school student writes about her own experience of the protests on the 24th November:
School walkout and protest in Hornsey:
On Wednesday 24 November along with around 30 students from my school, I participated in a walkout and attended the student demonstration in Whitehall.
For those of us who managed to escape through the school gates, whether it was down to parental consent or sheer luck, we were later faced with the challenge of escaping the police at the demonstration that day.
We arrived at the demo to find it already kettled. Disappointed, we circled to find another way in, only to find ourselves being sucked inside along with a crowd of others by the police.
Nine hours later, shivering, with freezing fingers, and wishing that I'd brought a coat with me, along with the rest of the protesters I was finally let out.
As a schoolgirl under sixteen, I had been given the option to leave a few hours earlier, but my other 'under-age' friends were told by the police that they couldn't, because "schoolboys are not being let out".
Apparently, telling a police officer that it's against the law to discriminate because of gender isn't the best way to get yourself and your friends out of a kettle.
If the police really wanted to prevent further damage to public property, as they claimed, they wouldn't detain hundreds of angry teens in one street, fuelled by anger and armed with lighters.
Maya Holmes-Hartley (school student aged 15)
Socialist Party and NUT National Executive member Martin Powell-Davies has called upon teachers to defend school students who take similar actions - see his blog post here
