CLIVE SMITH: Union protesters should not be hanging around outside school

They are up in arms about the redundancies of five non-teaching staff due to take effect in January.

And now they have another beef; with the pupils, who have apparently been stealing their signs.

They said ‘parents should be concerned about this sort of behaviour seemingly endorsed by the school’.

Not me, I’d be more concerned about a load of strangers standing outside school disturbing children and parents as they go about their day.

Are you even allowed to hang about a school like this? I want to see their CRB checks.

These people spend too much time standing around being bone idle thinking up all sorts to moan about.

It’s almost as if they think the headteacher has called his staff in to a meeting and got them to instruct the pupils to go out and steal the signs.

They say their protest is to ‘raise issues with parents and the local community and not to disrupt the education of pupils’.

Disrupting pupils is exactly what they are doing. I’m sure most of the community is fed up with them.

The headteacher runs the school as he sees fit. It’s not nice but people are made redundant all the time.

I’m sure they wouldn’t have lost their jobs if it were not warranted.

At the end of the day the school has to stay financially sound for the benefit of the pupils. If jobs have to go for this to happen then unfortunately they will.

I’m sure the people who work with the school minibus service do a sterling job but as a parent you wouldn’t want your child to miss out just to keep them in work.

You can say that’s selfish, but I’m sure you’d soon be whining if the school couldn’t provide the best education possible.

The protestors even called the police because some children ‘stole’ their stupid placards. Ridiculous. The police have got better things to do.

Anyway, praise points all around to which ever house manages to ‘collect’ the most placards at lunch time!

HANDBAGS AT DAWN AT FRATTON PARK

Following on from a small piece in my column the other week about applauding opposition players at Fratton Park, there were even more talking points after the last home game.

This time there was plenty of bed-wetting from large swathes of fans about a few people who ran on to the pitch towards the Oldham section.

There were even Pompey fans taking to Twitter to apologise to Oldham supporters on behalf of all Pompey fans.

Get a grip! It was handbags at dawn at best.

I bet half the people having to wash their bedding were on the pitch at Notts County last season.

LILY-LIVERED SPIDERMAN ABOUT THE HOUSE

We’ve had warnings about an invasion of spiders expected to invade our homes in the coming months.

I’d usually take these things with a pinch of salt as just a bit of sensationalism.

But as I plodded to the kitchen to make a cup of tea the other night, out of the corner of my eye I spotted something appalling.

I like a David Attenborough documentary and I can tell you this was a South American Goliath Bird-eating Spider. A quiet hideous specimen.

As the man about the house you will be pleased to know that the missus was duly dispatched to rid the house of the hairy beast.