We hear relatively little about acts of collective, organised student resistance these days. Anyone who went to school should know it’s not true, but the absence of stories of student discontent might suggest schools are generally ok places to be.

When details of the Pimlico Academy students’ campaign were reported throughout late 2020 and early 2021, it felt particularly impressive and exciting, partly because it also felt rare. Was this really the case? Or were student-led campaigns in schools just not very widely reported? The answer's a bit of both. Significant organised action against school policy is pretty rare because of the punitive culture of most schools and the effectiveness with which they squash collective dissent in its very early stages. Either that or they instil enough fear in students for acts of rebellion not to start in the first place. On top of this, when students do take direct action and realise their collective strength, they embarrass the school leadership and challenge its authority. Leadership respond with punishments, do their best to keep details of events within the school walls, and try to pretend that nothing ever happened.

If word does get out, it doesn't seem to travel far. Why should there be any lack of interest in organised political action taken by young people? It takes place in very disciplinarian contexts, often by people in the earlier stages of politicisation, who also have a lot to lose and not many precedents to follow and learn from. These actions clearly provide formative lessons in political organising, and many succeed in their goal of liberating aspects of their school lives and those of the people that follow them. There are things we can learn from these examples and the more they’re shared, particularly with the masses of pissed off young people in this country, the more likely they are to be replicated and developed.

Documenting such struggles is nothing new and I was pointed to a number of archives and articles which chart historic student strikes and walk outs. I'm sure there are others, (let me know!) but these are well worth a look.

https://libcom.org/tags/school-students?page=1

https://libcom.org/history/timeline-uk-schoolchildrens-strikes