![]() ![]() Others slipped out of the gates or into their cars, clearly intimidated by the mob.Įver since someone tipped us off about the protest on Tuesday, we’ve been trying to build up a picture of how so much animosity has built up between a group of parents and the teachers at this Manchester primary school. A few weeks before the protest, over 300 Birchfields pupils were reportedly taken out of school for three days and parents were threatened with fines by Manchester City Council. Some of the teachers stood at the gates, as if they wanted to show a bit of defiance. Horns were blasting as cars went by and the protestors laughed and chanted and shouted as more staff members appeared. Some of the high schoolers joined the parents in chanting “Shame on you” at the primary school.īy this point, the situation had become frenzied. The street and the road became more crowded. Children poured out onto the street and stopped to watch the parents chanting. MEA Academy, the secondary school opposite Birchfields, had started to let out. “Stop recording,” said another man without much conviction - after all, half of the crowd was recording too. One of the teachers appeared to be filming the protest. “Shame on you!” one man shouted aggressively, directly at the teachers. Then two teachers came out of the school and the crowd shifted closer, now standing right on the curb. Younger children who were being held in their parents’ arms as they protested plugged their ears with their fingers to protect themselves from the noise. Parent protesters outside Birchfields Primary School, in Fallowfield. One man, nearer the gates, wearing a cap and shorts, got up against the school railings: “Miss Offord, come out!” He started to shout the name of the headteacher into the megaphone. “Say her name,” one mother told the man with the megaphone. ![]() “This school exposes kids to graphic sexual content,” another. “This school can’t be trusted with kids,” said one. One parent, in the spirit of a maths lesson, laid out an equation: “graphic mat3rial + innocent young children = hypersexualisation.”ĭown the road, two men displayed placards to passing traffic. The parents held placards reading “too much, too soon,” and “stop sexualising our children”. One man, using a megaphone, led the chanting in call and response: They were there to pick up their children from Birchfields Primary School, but also to stage a protest about what goes on inside. On Tuesday afternoon, just as the school day was coming to an end, some 100 parents gathered on a leafy street in South Manchester. ![]()
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