Does anybody else think we did the right thing by creating out own leavers day?
This is the article that was published in the keighley news and some comments on the website, it should give you the whole story.

"Pupils protested at the gates of Oakbank School "outraged and heartbroken" after their leavers' day was cancelled.

Year 11 students had spent weeks rehearsing for an end-of-year assembly only to be told at the last minute that it had been scrapped.

In an explanatory letter to pupils, the cancellation was said to be to provide an extra study day.

The Keighley News was contacted by outraged pupils, parents and teachers who were under the impression that a threat of trouble had led to the cancellation of the pupils' leavers day last Thursday.

One letter said: "Unfortunately these pupils will not be celebrating the right of passage that is the last day of school with their friends and teachers.

"For all those honest, hardworking kind, charismatic youngsters that make up 99 per cent of the pupils in question, I am truly sorry.

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"It seems the message has gone out loud and clear: good behaviour, hard work and respect don't pay. The minority will be allowed to spoil things for the majority."

Riled parent Karen Harrison said she was "absolutely disgusted" with the way her daughter Laura and her fellow classmates had been treated.

After making a complaint to the education authority, she said: "To be told 15 minutes before the end of school no last day tomorrow' is appalling.

"The last day of school is like the fist day of school, it is equally important to have closure to their education and he has taken it away from them."

But head teacher Chris Thompson said the leavers' assembly had been delayed so exams were not disrupted.

He said: "They are doing exams and they have their prom coming up. What we have done is rearrange the final assembly. Exams started a couple of weeks ago and are ongoing for the next few weeks so we have rearranged the assembly for June 2."

Josh Lockley, 16, said: "I have got all my revision done for this week because I knew we were having a leavers' assembly, just to be told by one of my teachers we are not going to do it.

"I am really, really annoyed, people have been rehearsing for this for months."

Towards the middle of the day the protestors had moved from the side of the school to the front entrance before being moved on by police community support officers.

Daisy Dookes, 16, said: "It feels like the last five years have been taken away from us, we are going to prove that they cannot do that, and we are going to make our point by shaming our school."

The year 11 pupils hosted their own leavers' assembly instead on nearby playing fields."

What was the "threat of trouble" Cat?

There was to be 'a group of children' who were going to cause fights or "batter" anyone who came to school in non-uniform.

However if our headteacher knew of the threat then he must of know who the group of people were and could have just stopped them from coming to school.

i for got to put the comments from parent etc. on my first post so here we g. Some of them are a bit longwinded but i'm sure you'll get the idea.

Posted by: Lisa, Keighley on 9:14am Thu 29 May 08
After seeing the bad attitude and hearing the language that came out of some of the girls complaining about not having a leaving day on the bus the other day, I'm not surprised the school didn't want to recognise they'd attented! I can only hope my girls dont come out of that school with mouths like that. And the amount of makeup they get away with...


by: Little Green Man, Mars on 1:29pm Thu 29 May 08
SO playtime was cancelled, stop whining and get over it.

Posted by: Catherine, Keighley on 4:24pm Thu 29 May 08
Can i say i was on one of the students at school on Thursday last week. We weren't there to whine about 'playtime' being cancelled we were there to make a statement about how we wanted a leaver's day and cancelling it 10 minuetes before the end of the day on wednesday wasn't really the right thing to do. We were upset about the whole thing and after the performing arts department had spent weeks creating drama, dances and music for the assembly tempers were a little sore as i'm sure you can imagine. Can i also state that not all girls in yr11 are foulmouthed and wear immense amounts of makeup most of us are polite it is a minority that are nasty.

Posted by: georgia, oxenhope on 12:40pm Fri 30 May 08
well said catherine i think the whole situation was appualing and as a year 11 pupil i cant express enough how much effort went into that day and to have it taken away from us without any proper explanation was just rude. Our own head teacher couldn't even deal with the after effects and sorting out the problems that occurred afterwards because he went to go watch a football match and left the 100's of crying pupils to be dealt with by other members of staff who didn't even agree with that was happening. Oh and lisa who you actually have such a closed minded opinion about Oakbank pupils then why are you letting your girls attend the school?!

Posted by: tracy, keighley on 12:40am today
As a parent of an Oakbank student I would like to make a few comments. Chris Thompson is a fool, not only has he managed to upset and anger students and parents, he has and continues to, contradict himself. In a letter mailed to parents after the 'protest' took place he cited exams been held as an excuse to cancel Leavers Day. He has now re-arranged this day to 2nd June. There is a Maths exam that day which I would have thought the majority of students will be sitting as it is a core subject - will any re-arranged celebration not effect this? He has also finally admitted to a threat of anti social behaviour from a 'small number of young people'. If he knew of the threat and the amount of students involved then he must have known who they were. Why did he not prevent only those students from attending school instead of all the students? He has also stated that the Leaving assembly will take place on the 2nd June as part of the re-arranged celebrations; yet the students involved have not been directly informed that they can do this or been given any opportunity to rehearse. Although it is better than his original suggestion of recreating it at their prom, it would have been amusing to say the least watching the students perform what was to be an enthusiastic piece in evening dress and tuxedo!!! Chris Thompson has treated the students in a disgusting and degrading manner and all he has proved is that he doesn't trust his students to celebrate in an appropriate way. The students themselves proved him very wrong when they gathered at school to celebrate the Leavers Day. I believe that the only 'anti-social' behaviour displayed was when he came to the top of the drive to try and disband the students and they had a rousing chorus of [bold] THOMPSON IS A W*****[/bold] which to be honest is a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

Posted by: Lisa, Keighley on 9:19am today
Georgia - when your choice is Oakbank or Greenhead, you pick the lesser of two evils. As for the "parent" above, I'm shocked that anyone could condone that kind of language coming from school kids. I'm not closed minded, I'm just a good parent - I wouldn't let my children get away with that kind of language, especially towards a person of authority, no matter how fed up they were. Why not teach them the grown up way to protest, rather than condoning bad behaviour? No wonder there's so many chavvy foul mouthed kids around nowadays with parents who let them get away with blue murder! I'd be ashamed, not praising them, for shouting that kind of language to a teacher!

Posted by: ToyKen, Keighley on 1:43pm today
Well put Tracy. I like many other year11 oakbank pupils will deerly respect what you have just put. But Lisa, I completely disagree with your comments. You speak of the language used, by a minority and now you acting on the prejudice you hold to discrminate against the majority, is this the attitude you teach your children? Chris Thompson might be a person of authority, but is it wrong for the year group to disagree with his decision? Is it so wrong that everyone in the year group placed all the hatred they had of particular people to join together and fight for what we all agree on? You say "Why not teach them the grown up way to protest, rather than condoning bad behaviour", were you there when this protest was going on? No. Were the police there? Yes. And as you have utter respect for those in authority I can tell you what the officers were saying. They disagreed with Chris Thompson, they said they could not do anything because of the pacifist way we protested, we signed each others shirts and took pictures and tried to have a last day of school. A small minority may of acted a bit outlandish, but that does not mean the 90%+ of us this. The amount of bad press that teenagers get about stabbing each other and now that we work together and cooperate, we stil get bad press, oh hang on a minute, we didn't. Did we? The Keighley news did not potray us in the wrong way, you did. And you are a minority as I am trying to express. Now let me move on to say that the way the headteacher did this act was horrible, 15 minutes before the end of Wednesday he came around and gave us letters, not explaining anything only that our last day was over. And the rest I need not to say as Georgia has already said that. And rightfully so as Catherine said many of us had been rehearsing for weeks on end for the leavers assembly. Unless Chris Thompson can turn back time, he cannot gain any respect back from angers pupils, as well as parents and surprisingly teachers. When your daughters reacher year 11 and they have their last day of school you will see the excitement they have.Then and only then can you try and comprehend what we feel. And even so it will be difficult because you will never be in that situation. So please stop whining about make-up and bad language and look at the bigger picture, look at the majority that did right and stood up for what we believed in, also doing it in the right manner, because frankly we are the future and if we can never stand up for what we believe in, who can? Aamir Hassan Year11 Pupil, Oakbank School

Posted by: Lisa, Keighley on 1:59pm today
Your lack of regard or respect for adults shows in some of your posts. Catherine is the only one who's replied in an adult and respectful manner - good on you girl I completely agree that the kids would and should have been upset. But at no stage is that an excuse for swearing and acting in a threatening enough manner to necessitate a police response. That is shameful behaviour, and proves that some of you need to grow up quite a bit. I'm well aware there are good children at the school (after all, my kids go there and dont feel the need to abuse their teachers), but you've shown your true colours (as have the parents who've responded) by justifying this bad language and behaviour. By all means voice your disgust, but do so in regular respectful language - calling someone a "w*nker" wont get you anywhere other than detention (I would hope!). When I was a kid (not that long ago I might add) had I called my head teacher a "w*nker", I'd have been expelled. Think yourselves lucky you just missed out on a bit of a party!

Posted by: georgia, oxenhope on 2:54pm today
Lisa there are more than just two schools that your children could have atteneded. If they worked hard like i did they could have applied to go to skipton girls which i did pass to get into. However i choose to stay at oakbank for personal reasons which isn't relevant. But do not give the excuse that you had oly two options when you did not. I do not agree with people calling Mr Thompson a W***er and i dont recall hearing any of that but then again i as taking an exam at this point so im not sue. But its obviusly very clear that you have a very sterotypical view on teenagers now a days and the word chavvy shows this. I feel kind of degraded because i know that im not stupid and common and i do try hard at school and there are parents like you who are telling us that the majority of us are. And thats not true. I merely stood up for what a believed and we all hosted our own leavers day with no problems from police and just wnated to say a proper goodbye i dont understand what was wron with that and why you've felt the need to bad mouth us as a whole. Can you not see that there will always be good and bad people everywhere and i think the good people at least desreved a proper farewell?

Interesting post. I live in Saltaire but hadn't heard anything about this.

Its funny how most adults expect people of Year 11/12 age to act as adults but are then shocked and appalled at the backlash (which seems to have been for the majority of pupils quite reasonably and calm) when they treat them like children by giving no useful explanation of their actions.

As we all know anger is most quickly kindled in those who feel they have been treated unjustly which they do appear to have been in this case.

Obviously its going to be an excuse for the idiotic minority to play up but if the police felt there was a threat they would have dealt with it.

As a Communications manager its very clear what happened here and the Headmaster appears to be to blame for not clearly explaining the situation. If he had explained that he had been put under pressure by the Powers that be to cancel the day due to the threat of violence i'm sure many more pupils would have understood (even if they didn't agree) and maybe not reacted in this way. If however it was his decision alone then he really needs to go on an effective communication course.

Can i also just say that Teachers and schools (in the current climate) almost certainly have their hands tied behind their back when it comes to unruly pupils.

Unable to restrain or remove from premises for fear of legal or physical reprisal is a big wall currently so don't judge the teachers too harshly on this one.

Unfortunately its the 'bad' kids who usually have the bad parents who love to throw law suits around for the smallest things.