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Posted on July 2nd 2015
Minute's Silence - 12 noon, Friday 3 July
Please note that for a short period at 12 noon on Friday 3 July no phones, nor the gate buzzer, will be answered whilst we observe the national minute’s silence. We thank you for your understanding.
As an academy, we are going to stop collectively tomorrow at 12 noon and observe a minute’s silence in remembrance of those who died last Friday in the Tunisia massacre and also to remember other such atrocities. Before the silence, staff will read the following to their classes.
This is a script which all staff will read to their classes just before 12 noon.
We are going to stop what we are doing in a moment and have total silence for one minute. People all over Britain are doing this today to show their respect to the families of the people who were murdered in Tunisia last week.
Thirty-eight people were shot by a terrorist whilst they were on holiday on the beach. Most of the people shot were British people. Sadly, events like this are becoming increasingly common with other dreadful acts having taken place in a range of countries recently. We describe these events as ‘atrocities’.
In assembly with Miss Young next week you will also be hearing that next week is the 10th anniversary of some dreadful bombings in London, where 52 people died when suicide bombers detonated bombs on tube trains and a bus. We believe that acts of terrorism like this are evil and that they are always wrong. It is always utterly wrong to do harm or cause death to somebody else. Always.
We don’t always agree with each other about everything as individuals nor as countries, nor as religious groups. However, all religions teach the need to show respect to others and no religion teaches that violence against others is right. We are entitled to disagree about actions taken by others but never to cause harm to others as a result of our views.
The people who commit these dreadful acts may think they are doing this in the name of their religion, but they are not. Islam does not teach violence.
There are many people who are now grieving, who cry every day, because they will never see members of their family again as a result of what this man did in Tunisia last Friday at exactly this time of day. We want to be totally silent now to show that we stand with them and stand against violence.