Schools against war Advice page

Legal advice for those threatened with suspension and various sanctions

The Schools against war group is currently seeking legal advice for all those faced with harassment and sanctions by their schools for walking out. We urge all our members and supporters to send in reports of any harassment known and also to take round the petition in their schools against this bullying. The petition can be downloaded here.

A beginners guide to stopping the war in the school

We are all beginners at building opposition to war in the schools, this is just a small guide to walkouts, building meetings and the like.

How to build a group

1. Take around the anti-war walkout pledge. Those that sign that will almost definitely want to get involved in building for it.

2. Organise a meeting in the school, this could be held in a sixth form centre, a spare class room or what not.

3. Inform friends and others about the meeting.

4. there is no 4, that’s your group. Now you should start building for actions on one sort or another.

Building for a walkout

1. Handout leaflets and flyers, these can be downloaded from the website, or better still, design your own flyers in art class or something.

2. Address classes and assemblies, just tell a teacher you have an important announcement to make and just rip it!

3. Take round the walkout pledge. On march the fifth this proved to be a powerful tool. It can help gage where people are at in your school and can also be used to sign people up to the schools against war group.

4. For 5^th year and under organise consent forms, these can be downloaded from above, but ask the school to organise them.

The walkout itself, what to do

1. Either in the lunch area or where people congregate get up and make an announcement. When doing this show your anger, make it as passionate as possible. Get others in the group to do the same elsewhere around the school.

2. Assemble a sizeable crowd at the front door of the school and walk to the front gate, or the gate to the busier road.

3. Make a speech at the gates. Talk about why you are doing this, on the need for other actions. And ask others if they want to speak. Cause of the lack of megaphones people will have to shout.

4. Start chants as well. At St Dominic’s this worked wonders on March 5^th.

5. If you feel confidant enough block traffic. On day x there we want marches coming into the city centre from every quarter of the city. Organise some sensible people to steward yourselves down.

6. When marching try and go past other schools, if we build a critical mass then the mood will be electric. IF schools haven’t got protests argue with students to come out!

A small guide to speaking. 

At least one person from each school will have to address the demonstration. Speaking can be quite daunting; here are a few tips that have helped me in the past.

1. Plan what you say… scribble down a few notes on a notepad before hand.

2. Practice what you are going to say, either in front of a mirror or in front of friends.

3. When speaking, remember that you are speaking to people who haven’t heard all that many arguments against the war, you have something to say that these guys haven’t heard before.

That’s it, enjoy the walkout and don’t forget to send back details to us so that we can do a great press release and tell other schools how everyone got on.