300 pupils are suspended in exam day ‘riot’

MORE than 300 London students were suspended from Europe’s biggest Jewish school after a pre-GCSE “muck-up” day descended into a near-riot.

All Year 11 pupils were escorted from the JFS campus in Kenton, north-west London, and sent home at lunchtime yesterday when traditional end-of-lessons high-jinks got “out of control”.

Flour, eggs and dead chickens were hurled around classrooms and corridors and stink bombs set off before the ye a r g ro u p we re suspended and ordered off the premises. Dozens then gathered in neighbouring Linsay Park to continue the mayhem, spraying one another with foam and pelting eggs.

Police were called at 1.15pm when a number of pupils, their faces covered with scarves and balaclavas, broke through a 7ft security fence to get back inside and reportedly began aiming fireworks at the building.

The chaos came the day before Year 11 at the 2,100-pupil school was due to begin study leave for GCSEs, which begin next week. Some parents were outraged by the mass suspension but pupils in other year groups today said teachers had no choice.

One pupil said: “It’s a ‘muck-up’ day that happens every year just before the GCSEs. The Year 11s started throwing flour and eggs around, there were stink bombs and one boy set off a rape alarm. Then some started throwing dead chickens around the school, which aren’t kosher.

“The teachers couldn’t go round picking out the trouble-makers, so they had to send the whole year home.”

The pupil added: “I think some of them won’t be allowed to take their exams here next week.”

Another 16-year- old student said teachers had over-reacted, adding: “We were very confused at first, because we didn’t do anything wrong. They chose to take it out on the entire year. Some of us couldn’t get home because we need the school buses.”

But a parent whose daughter is in Year 11 said “I want my children to be safe, and if that was the only way to calm the situation, the school was right to send them home.” Parents received an email from headteacher Jonathan Miller last night saying the decision to suspend the pupils was taken “with deep regret” and because of “inappropriate behaviour by a sizeable group of students”. He added: “After considerable efforts to target sanctions to specific individuals, the scale of disruption caused dur- ing the morning left us with no choice but to follow this course of action.”

A Met spokesman said: “Police were called to The Mall in Brent at 1.30pm yesterday to reports of disturbance involving pupils at a school. There were no arrests. The officers left soon after.”