Consent from the parent/guardian of this student has been obtained prior to the publication of the letter.
Letter – Tuesday 9th September 2025
“You have probably had various emails informing you of Cowes Enterprise College’s switch in rules which has been labelled as a ‘prison like regime’. As a student I strongly agree with this statement, and would like to explain some of the harsh, and in my view harsh and unreasonable rules we are being subjected to.
“In the mornings all students must file in through the side gate between the times of 8.25 to 8.30 We are required to stand silently in lines, feet apart on spray-painted marks holding our bags to ‘create more room’ During periods 1,2 and 5 music plays to get us to classrooms and if we don’t arrive in time you will be issued a detention. Detentions used to be in different levels, extending the time of the punishment, according to the severity of the violation. To my observation, the school leads to detention of equal times, which therefore means talking in class has the same severity of a detention as someone who called a peer a racial slur. If this is true I find it unfair and unequal.
Article continues below this advertisement “During break and lunch we are confined to the netball courts where we are not allowed in groups larger than six. In the netball courts children aren’t allowed to run around, play football or play with the chairs. This could be viewed as reasonable yet no alternative entertainment is offered, this forces us to sit or stand and do nothing the whole of lunch and break.
“Personally, I think the most random rule is when given an award or a shoutout, you are not allowed to applaud, we must wait for a teacher to clap twice before the students clap twice and this is the applause the student gets. The reason we can only clap twice is to ‘stop unnecessary clapping.’ When in reality it reduces the moment of recognition.
“All the rules are terrible but what is the overall effect? I have noticed children stop drinking to avoid using the toilet as they have made them extremely inaccessible. Students are eating less as food choices have become limited choosing between a sandwich, vegan sausage roll or main meal. If none of these appeal, the alternatives are cake or salad. Whereas compared to last year there were chips, sausage rolls, pizza, chicken; proving the food has declined
“Snacks are also harder to access as they only offer a tiny cart for the whole school. The queues are so long that many students, including myself, give up. Sometimes meaning I will go from dinner one night to lunch time if I forget breakfast- over 18 hours-without eating.
“The school has also become unsafe because children are now rushing to classes and pushing others aside to get to lessons before the music runs out. Furthermore, because there is only a five minute window to get to school, students crowd the same crossing points;creating unsafe conditions. Likewise those waiting outside of the side gate often end up standing on the road from the lack of space.
Article continues below this advertisement “I also believe these new rules are to improve their GCSE and A-Level averages, but what it effectively does is pushes down the potential of those working at a higher level and leaves behind the children who find school hard; ultimately setting them up to fail.
“I was a resilient, smart, hard-working girl. I followed the rules and tried my hardest in everything, but this first week back was awful, the injustice and extreme rules has affected me to feel anxious and caused me to already miss a day. Many of my peers have had similar experiences to me. If students attempt to protest, they are punished with private assemblies and detentions-even when the protests are peaceful.
Sounds like a bizarre cult not a school ,
Animals are treated better in Kennels.
The Council should shut this inhumane Draconian
Sh*thole down.
What a disgraceful state of affairs. All because ( so I have heard) that some degenerate(s) spread excrement over the walls and a pair (?) of students were caught ‘having sex’. This reminds me of acts from WW2 when many were executed as retribution for the act of one or two..
I suggest that all parents invite everyone they know, to go and hold a peaceful protest of their own.
If this is not successful, I would suggest that as many parents as possible, go and queue up at the relevant authority, and demand their children are immediately offered alternative school options, along with free transportation to the alternative school, due to the reason they need relocation, because there are no “suitable” educational facilities closer.
My heart goes out to this well written and respectful young lady and her peers.
By the way, I am afraid this is MUCH worse than the UK prison regime. It appears prison inmate’s have more human rights than your children.
They are being held hostage to dictator like leadership being ordered to achieve impossible goals. That is before they even get to the class room!
These are your children. If the school gets away with this abuse, think how it will be for your darling grandchildren in the distance future….. Or not so distant if all of the children are being set up to fail. What is the point of them even trying, if the regime is tougher than the lessons? They will drop out of school, not because the education was too hard. But because the school was too hard for young people that are struggling with changing from children to adults, without making growing up embarrassing because they are not even allowed to see to their most basic and natural human NEEDS.
Stop this child abuse NOW!
Mental abuse, is still abuse. Being denied the basic rights of using a lavatory, is not even something they do in prison.
Having time to eat, is allowed in prison.
Having exercise time is allowed in prison, even for the worst and most dangerous prisoners, who need to be escorted by minimum of 4 guards.
Can you imagine your child being sent to an adult prison? There would be uproar.
Yet sending them to a school that is worse than prison, barring one thing. The school, at the moment at least, let’s the pupils leave…. After several unjustified detentions and private assemblies (what ever they are.. just an alternative name for abuse I suspect)
If the parents do not take serious action to stop this, prison will be a piece of cake for them. When prison is a piece of cake, there is no punishment, to keep them abiding by the law.
Do these silly little “teachers” not see that? They are their to learn. All you are teaching them is, “being late because you have been bullied and beaten down and had their shoes stolen, makes you an equal or worse person than the ones that beat you down and stole your shoes, because you are in the same detention as they are! More likely, they have been given a warning and bunked off school early.
2 claps? But not until a teacher gives 2 claps? I have never heard of such a bunch of clap in my life!
I guess this is where all the teachers that nobody else will hire, go?
Any decent teacher worth the name, would be standing with the children, demonstrating the right to peaceful protest.
2 claps? I hope you can watch the head dictator and give a world record clap as they get arrested for such abuse of the most basic and necessary human rights.
SHAME ON YOU.
Normal school duscipline is that you go to the toilet before class. If you can’t manage to attend a class without dashng to the toilet you must have a condition that needs medical investigation
Is this going to be the cause of mass mental health issues for these children ? My grandson, who goes there, is already a very nervious, anxious child.What will become of him ? Self harm? Or worse ????
The fact they invited parents of soon to be year 7’s to visit in Mid July and presented the wonderful cafe & food options available, sports pitches for a wide range of activities & after school clubs but then just 6 weeks later went and delivered something completely different is a disgrace and needs resolving immediately
Technically I imagine that would amount to either a breach of contract or breach of advertising.
Sounds like the power crazed head has been watching to many episodes of squid games , what happens if all the pupils do not make the classroom before the music stops , that’s a lot of detentions
Sounds like discipline to me.
Too much cotton wool namby pamby B.S which is why the ‘little darlings’ were so poorly behaved.
I had ex military among my teachers back in the day, bloody brilliant! Very strict, but you gave them respect, you got it in return.
To all those moaning, get a grip, myself and many others are fed up with entitled brats that have no respect for society, or those people in it.
Go in the forces, you will learn discipline, rules, and a way of life that sets you apart from others.
Stop moaning, it’s been done for a reason, feral brats that havnt been shown good parenting, and teaching staff fed up with having to deal with the daily abuse, why should they go to work and be abused physically, verbally, and mentally?
Well said.
This regime sounds like it had certain similarities to my own school experience, the only difference being that they were still allowed to cane us. But I am 62 and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and I thought schools were happier places. If children spend their whole lives worrying about not breaking rules and making sure they comply with the nonsense their education is going to become a secondary goal. Of course kids need rules and boundaries and of course there have to be sanctions if those are broken but to make those rules the defining point of the establishment and their compliance the most important thing the kids do is to miss the greatest opportunity to influence their lives that these young people are ever likely to have. I still look back on my school days with fear and loathing and throughout my entire working life, if ever I was having a bad day I would think “never mind, at least you are not at school”. I would hate to think that all these years later kids will still leave school thinking that.
The kids should refuse to go and their parents should support them. This is the way.
“If you tolerate this, the your children will be next.” And here we are.