A West Somerset College student has given an account of Monday’s walk-out at West Somerset College in Minehead.

The student, whose name is being withheld to protect his identity, said: “We have told the teachers and our head of the school many times that we don’t agree with these rules as they are very unfair to us. However, the head-teacher chose to ignore this so we decided to protest.

 “We protested because we have a thing called ‘three-minute warning bells’ which if we don’t make it to our class in time we get a sanction, which is impossible to make if you are in your tutor rooms or your first lesson is the other side of school that’s at least a five-minute walk.

"Our school is also very low with sexual assault punishments - a male student last year sexually assaulted over 15 girls and boys at the school and never got fully punished.

 “Another other problem that we protested against for is getting searched in the mornings before tutor. They would check us for any hoodies, non-allowed piercings, rings, jewellery etc. but the main problem with this is that we can’t wear plain black hoodies under our blazer with no logo.

 “Sure we can wear the school hoodies and fleece but not everyone can afford it with the prices of them around £50-£100, making it very hard to get an affordable hoodie or fleece. 

“So far, three students have been expelled, and over 70 students have been given isolation. This was our whole school joining in to start with, but they haven’t isolated everyone, just the people that they could see. The school has to realise that they can’t ignore all of us forever.” 

Up to 70 students are understood to have been suspended and a number expelled after the walkout on Monday.

In a letter to parents, college head-teacher Nikki Doughty blamed the disturbance on a national trend instigated on social media encouraging students to refuse to attend lessons, protest and cause vandalism.

She said that West Somerset College was the latest of over 50 schools to be affected in the last week.  But parents and students who contacted the Free Press claimed that tension over the punishment system had been building up over the past few weeks and that students felt that no-one listened to their grievances.

Read more on this story in this week's West Somerset Free Press