Worksop: Outwood Academy Portland defends decision to suspended pupils for wearing charity badges

Several pupils were suspended last week for wearing the badges on their blazers.

Some youngsters had only recently lost relatives to cancer and wanted to show respect and support to the charities that had helped them.

The school says pupils are free to wear the badges on their bags and outdoor coats, but not on their blazers.

A spokesman for Outwood Academy Portland said in a statement: “Outwood Grange Academies Trust has a proud record of supporting charities and encouraging each student to take part in charitable activities. Our trust actively supports the Help for Heroes charity amongst others.”

“There are some students who were wearing five or six badges, some that include football, music or fashion, on their lapels and we feel this detracts from the drive to support individual charities.”

“We organise a number of charity events throughout the school year which are highly successful in raising the profile and the importance of many charities.”

“Students are given the opportunity to show their support for charities at particular times of the year to coincide with national or international appeals which often includes students wearing a particular badge, poppy, bangle or ribbon.”

“To highlight the importance of these activities we ask that students refrain from wearing them throughout the year; a poppy, for example would lose its impact if it just became another badge.”

“However we are more than happy for students to wear multiple charity badges on their bags or outside coats as this does not form part of the uniform.”

The spokesman added that on Friday 31st January, less than 10 students were excluded for refusing a reasonable request but not all necessarily relate to the refusal to remove non-uniform badges.

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