The students had been celebrating their last day before peeling off for study leave ahead of their GCSEs.
The messages written on each other’s shirts were well wishes and words of good luck before the revision period began.
However, in a move which shocked both students and parents, the school’s headteacher opted to send them home.
The head said it was to stop their “negative behaviour” from escalating.
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In the letter, headteacher Chris Smith said there were a “small number of year 11 students who arrived at school wanting to celebrate their leaver’s day by engaging in shirt signing and disruptive behaviour.”
He added an official leaver’s day had been planned for June, but despite this, parents and pupils were angered about the “pathetic system.”
One parent told The Mirror: “The school is an absolute joke. It’s being run like a boot camp with many frustrated parents. The school has a pathetic, archaic, system in place.”
A pupil who was sent home said: “It was my last official day before study leave. Most schools allow students to sign shirts on the last day, we thought we’d be allowed and started as soon as the school did.”
The pupil added: “Later during form time, the fire alarm went off and we all had to go out onto the field where teachers pulled people out of the liens who had visible writing on their shirts. We were told that our parents were called and that we were being sent home.”
Another year 11 said: “We got told that ‘rules were rules’ and that what we were doing was ‘disturbing lessons’.
“It’s completely unfair what happened – we shouldn’t have been sent home.”
Last year, it hit the headlines when boys were allowed to wear skirts summer as part of its gender neutral policy.
Speaking to the Eastern Daily Press, a parent said: “We have been repeatedly asking year after year for shorts to be added to the uniform.
“This is because girls can currently wear a skirt in the summer but boys have to wear trousers all year round.
“Every summer. boys have found the heat hard to bear and so there have been repeated requests for shorts for both genders.
“Offering a skirt as an option is not gender neutral. It would be gender neutral to offer both boys and girls the option of a skirt or shorts.”
