Tower and Town, November 2021

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Dear Teachers

We want a change. For years, you have ignored us, forcing us to do exactly what you want when you want and giving us detentions if we do not follow your orders. What happened to our freedom? You teach us about democratic socialism, telling us how important it is and promoting it, yet you silence us and stop us from having any sort of belief which goes against yours. You explain how awful totalitarianism is, but you decide to run the school in the same way as many totalitarian leaders. What happened to school being a safe place? What happened to our happiness?

We want a change. Though it makes sense you make us learn all the subjects to begin, don’t you find it unjust how you obligate us to take Maths, English and Science for GCSE? At this age, most students know vaguely in which direction they want to take their life – whether that’s becoming a scientist or an artist – but you still force us to take the subjects you think are important, even if the pupil in question does not. I’m not sure about you, but I know quite a few people who excel in the creative subjects such as Drama, D.T and Art, and struggle immensely in the more academic lessons like English, Science and Maths but are still forced to take these subjects for GCSE. They then waste precious time in which they could be learning more about their preferred subjects practising the subjects they could not care less about. Does this sound fair to you? Teachers, though you may find these lessons important, not all of us do. Give us power. We want a change.

We want a change. Everyone says school is vital to learn social skills and meet others our age, yet now we have barely any time to socialise with others. Not only are we severely punished for speaking in class, but lunch has recently been shortened to 50 minutes instead of 1 hour. This means that at school, we only get one hour and ten minutes of time to speak. Don’t you find this wrong? As well as this, you have split us into purple and white band – we only really see half of our year group! And if you thought it couldn’t get any worse, listen to this. You give us homework everyday which prevents us from having any sort of social life outside school! Can you believe it? Do you not realise how detrimental this could be for our futures? After all, if we have no experience in speaking to others and meeting new people, how are we going to get anywhere in life? We want a change.

So teachers, if you’re still listening, please take what I said into consideration. School should be a place where we feel untroubled and free. Right now, it’s a cage which is home to all our worries.

We want a change.

Give us a change.

Zoe Zebedee, Year 9