Kick arms companies out of our schools

Several of the world’s largest arms companies are sponsoring school events providing teaching materials promoting the military equipment sector, with one company even developing a missile simulator for children to play with.

Raytheon, the fourth largest weapon firm in the world, runs an annual competition for kids to build model drones and Thales uses cartoon mascots called Raybot to promote educational tools.

When these companies are promoting themselves to the children they never mention about the deadly impact their weapons are having.

Many of them have profited from war and fuelled atrocities around the world.

Schools are vital to our society and should never be used as commercial vehicles for arms companies. It is time now for arms companies to be kicked out of the classroom.

Arms companies are not targeting schools because they care about education. They are doing it because they want to improve their reputation and normalise their appalling business.

Staff from BAE Systems, whose weapons are currently being used in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen (pictured) visited 420 schools across Britain last year and the company even deployed CBeebies presenter Maddie Moate to promote the company at events. We must be able to do better than this.

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme