THE CHAIRMAN of governors at a Winterbourne school has criticised police for "playing up" a rivalry between schools.

As revealed in last week's Gazette, police said they had stopped a planned fight on Friday, October 12 between teenage gangs, believed to be from The Ridings High School, Downend Secondary School and Filton High School.

Police said the motive behind the fight was a "strong rivalry" between students from the schools.

But the chairman of governors at The Ridings High School, Mike Hayward, has hit back at the claims, insisting that no such rivalry exists.

He said: "The management team at the school is very concerned about the allegations made by the police that 'strong rivalry' between students of the three schools was the cause of a planned organised fight.

"The police made these allegations without discussing them with The Ridings first, which we do not think is fair or reasonable.

"The first we heard of the alleged fight was in fact from the press.

"Indeed, by making such allegations public, the police are likely to incite problems that are not actually there.

"To our knowledge there is no more than the usual teenage competitive spirit between these schools.

"The vast majority of students at The Ridings are well behaved, law-abiding citizens and we are constantly being congratulated on their behaviour, for example when they show parents around on open evenings."

Mr Hayward said the school would continue to actively listen to its students and to keep the police informed when any problems are suspected.

Chipping Sodbury Neighbourhood Policing Inspector Caroline Howard said the police were working closely with all the schools to try to calm tensions and stop any future organised fights.

"Whenever we get the first sense of anything like this we work very closely with the schools, the headteachers and parent and teacher groups to try and stop this kind of activity," she said.

"There were three groups from three different schools and that suggests to me that it might have been rival gangs.

"This kind of rivalry has been going on since the 1950s but it is the prevalence of the weapons which worries us."

She said that police also prevented another organised mass brawl between rival school gangs in Frampton Cotterell on Friday night.

Parents of pupils at The Ridings High School in Winterbourne, Downend Secondary School and Filton High School tipped off police that youngsters were planning to meet for a fight in Crossbow Park.

Unlike the previous week, when officers discovered a lump hammer, a baseball bat and metal poles in the hedges, no makeshift weapons were found this time.

Insp Howard said: "We were given more information from parents this time and officers pre-empted this fight by making visits to the schools and talking to the headteachers.

"We asked staff to keep their ears to the ground and this time we found a large group of teenagers but they were quickly dispersed."

She warned parents to make sure they know where their children are and what they are doing to help avoid any further arranged fights.

The force's schools liaison officer has been called in to help at the three schools.