Mass canings after pupils stage demos and sit-ins nationwide

More than 100 pupils were caned after walk-out protests across England in 1978

BACKLASH!

Demo pupils caned

PUPIL power took a beating yesterday – from teacher power.

Headmasters at three schools used their canes to end the Great Classroom War.

And last night one hundred pupils were nursing more than their grievances over going without school meals.

Forty-nine boys and girls were caned on the hand at Polesworth Comprehensive School in North Warwickshire after they barricaded themselves into a classroom and wrecked it.

Another thirty boys were caned at the Tudor Grange School in Solihull, Birmingham, for joining a demonstration by another school.

Four girls and twenty boys were given two strokes of the cane on the backside after barricading themselves into a classroom at Royds Hall Secondary School, Huddersfield.

The girls were punished by a mistress, and the boys by the headmaster.

Headmasters at other schools cracked down by suspending pupils. At one school in Sale, Cheshire, parents were told they would have to guarantee their children’s good behaviour before they could be allowed back.

But one kids’ strike was settled with a compromise.

Agreed

Pupils at Toothill comprehensive school at Bingham, Notts, went back to lessons after teachers agreed that the youngest pupils should have school meals.

In other parts of Britain the Great Classroom War went on. At least four schools were closed by demos and sit-ins – with the pupils defiantly singing, “We shall not be moved.”

In the Midlands education chiefs accused “political extremists” of distributing leaflets in a bid to whip up the pupil power revolt.

“There is no doubt they are now cashing in on the tension to create explosive situations,” one said.

As published in the Daily Mirror, 17 March 1978

Picture credit: Sting Pictures

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