Pupils in Fitzalan High School, Cardiff, were told that they were not allowed to ‘take sides’ over Israel and Palestine on campus, and that half of any money raised for Gaza would have to go to Israel.
The students were told via a PowerPoint presentation in class that they also would not be able to hold flags or banners at a Palestine solidarity protest on campus, or put up posters in the school.
The directive came after some pupils had put up posters in communal areas and year 11 students had emailed their head of year, asking for the school to take a stand for Palestine.
Any posters that had gone up were quickly taken down, and pupils were told that they were not allowed to engage in pro-Palestine solidarity and had to remain neutral on the issue when in school.
The school said they would allow students to raise money, but not in the way they had proposed, and any money raised on campus would be split equally between Palestine and Israel.
This idea was rejected by pupils, who decided to raise money independently of the school.
A protest was also held, with one parent saying the school did allow prayers and some short speeches and slogans. The protest was held in the pouring rain, and because of Covid restrictions, only involved GCSE students in year 11, of which over half turned out.
Two parents of year 11 pupils spoke anonymously to voice.wales about the situation, but no students wanted to be interviewed for fear of being identified.
“The children of Fitzalan high school were disappointed that their high school had not said a word about what was happening in Palestine,” one parent said.
“So the children decided to make posters and do face paints to fundraise, and to show support for Palestine. But instead they were told they couldn’t hold a protest and no posters were allowed to be put up showing support for Palestine.”
“They did agree to fundraising,” said the mother. “But said the amount they raise will be split between Palestine and Israel, which students were very angry about.”
The parent said her daughter and friends went ahead with their plans for a protest and “hanging Palestine flag posters up around the school, which got removed by teachers.”
The school said they had to take all pupils’ views into account, and it would be wrong to take sides, but the parent said that the school wouldn’t “listen to the children’s concern of being human and speaking up about [Israel’s] wrong doings.”
The mother said that year 11 pupils had written to their head of year about supporting Palestinians, and especially people in Gaza being bombarded by the Israeli military, but received no response.
But soon after, pupils were shown a PowerPoint presentation in class, saying that they couldn’t take a side in school and any money raised would have to be split.
“They didn’t name any charity specifically, and the students were not happy,” said the parent.
The mother, who was talking to her daughter during the interview, said that over half of year 11 pupils were in support of the action, and that the response of the school had only made them more determined to take action.
“It will make them more angry, more outraged and make them call the school out for being unfair and siding with the wrong side.”
“Students didn’t want their money to go to Israel so the kids did their own thing and gave to other charities.”
“They went ahead and put posters up, did Palestinian flag face paint, henna and marched through the school wearing Palestine flags,” she said. “Then they were shut down by the school teachers.”
The parent said her daughter and her friends rejected the ‘two sides’ narrative:
“Israel is not the one who is being tortured, killed, having their houses forcefully taken off them, being woken up in the middle of the night for searches and arrests for no reasons, they are not living in a war torn area,” the parent said.
“The Palestinian have no access to water, clean food, medicine, nothing. Children are being detained by Israeli soldiers for no reason. They are being killed.”
The mother said that Muslim students are unfairly targeted if they engage in political activity, especially over foreign policy.
When it comes to politics affecting Muslim communities, she said schools in general “like to take a step back and not intervene or support the students who feel strongly about something.”
“When it comes to politics, they back down,” she continued. The school has a large intake of Muslim pupils.
Another parent of a year 11 who spoke to voice.wales said that some year 9 pupils had also put up posters, but these were quickly taken down and confiscated as well.
“And then other students started talking about what they could do,” the second parent said. “Certainly, the year 11 had a very active WhatsApps group and they had planned to do a fundraiser, and put up some posters.”
“The next day, there was a PowerPoint put up in all of the classes in the first lesson,” they said. “And the PowerPoint slide was where the students were told that they were not allowed to express their opinions on the Palestine conflict. And it was clear to the students that it was about Israel and Palestine. And they were told that they had to be neutral.”
The parent said that their child had pointed out that the school had quite rightly taken a view of Black Lives Matter, and had actively supported it.
“So it is clear to the students that this neutrality has been brought in specifically for the Middle Eastern conflict,” they told voice.wales.
They went on to say that the school also sent a message out to parents via the school messaging service which had a generic message about sending money to a charity working with both sides.
“The students were very angry, because they felt that this was not a neutral conflict. This is not a war. This is an extermination, I think was what [my child] said.”
The parent added that it was “quite uncharacteristic for the school” to take such a hard-line view and that it could have come from higher up. “They’re normally much better than that.”
“They’ve been really good on BLM and stuff….And they do a lot of work promoting diversity in sports, they really do work really hard with that.”
Fitzalan High School did not respond to a request for comment.
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