The headmaster of a UK school has been forced to deny “rubbish” rumours that pupils are allowed to identify as animals and provided with litter trays. Patrick Earnshaw, head of Highcliffe School in Christchurch, Dorset, hit back at what he described as misinformation circulated through Facebook groups in a newsletter recently sent to parents. Writing under the headline, ‘Litter Trays: Facts vs Social Media’, he denied that pupils at the comprehensive secondary school were allowed to identify as cats and dogs and use litter trays provided by teachers onsite.
Furries are a community of people who dress up and identify as anthropomorphic animals, with the individual character they roleplay as known as their “fursona”. “It has come to my attention that some Facebook groups associated with the school have engaged in a thread about Highcliffe students being allowed to identify as cats or dogs and litter trays being made available in the school for them,” Mr Earnshaw wrote.
“It was not true 18 to 24 months ago – the last time school-related social media went off on one about this – and is not true now.
“We do not let students self-identify as cats and dogs or any type of animal and we do not provide litter trays in corridors or indeed anywhere else.”
A parent at the comprehensive told the Advertiser and Times: “Obviously someone has started a rumour about it which isn’t true. Both my kids are at the school and they said it’s rubbish.”
Mr Earnshaw also suggested that the false information could be linked to confusion over which school was featured in the recent series of Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire.
The docu-series, which follows students and teachers at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury, showed staff members discussing a pupil who identified as a furry and “dressed as a fox” on school grounds.
“I can only assume some people may have mistaken us for the content of a recent episode of Educating Yorkshire,” he concluded.
It’s not the first time a UK school has been forced to deny that students are involved in the furry community. In 2023, a Scottish secondary school had to rubbish reports that its pupils were identifying as cats and defecating on the floor after teachers refused to provide a litterbox.
Rye College in East Sussex underwent a snap Ofsted inspection in the same year after reports that a teacher called a pupil “despicable” for refusing to refer to her classmate as a cat. The school maintained that no children identified as a cat or any other animal.
Highcliffe School declined a request for comment.