On Saturday, about 50 parents and children from Downhills Primary and other
local Haringey schools had a ‘carpet time’ in Carpetright, Tottenham Hail to
protest against the Secretary of State’s attempts to force our school
(and at least one other Haringey primary) to become an academy sponsored
by Lord Harris. Lord Harris has donated millions of pounds to the Tory
party and is described as a ‘close friend’ by Prime Minister David
Cameron; he made his fortune selling carpets, not educating children.
We thought that if Lord Harris wants to take over our school, we should
take over his shop for a short while. The children listened to the
story of ‘The Magic Carpet Seller’ who came to realise that children
cannot be mass produced and manufactured in the way that carpet can. We
left the shop after ‘carpet time’ and assembled outside to sing our
campaign song ‘Save our school’. Thanks to Hazel Gould for writing the
fantastic story and Andy Graves for the illustrations.
