SIR — In response to Jim Butterworth's letter regarding the situation at West Somerset College and the subsequent actions on social media (Free Press November 21), we feel compelled to give a student perspective on the issue. We feel we are being belittled and devalued for the views we give, due to the fact we are students and do not, we quote "have life experiences". As Mr Butterworth states, "a number of sixth form students were prepared for debate". This is true - at last count a total of ten students had placed their heads above the parapet and voiced their views on the matter at hand. Bearing in mind the current cut-throat atmosphere amongst the Raising Standards Discussion Group and original hostility received, that is an admirable and brave thing to do. However, this supportive comment was unfortunately followed by "we were also subjected to a barrage of inflammatory remarks designed to disrupt". This comment, not only unfair, fails to mention the fact that it was in response to a comment stating they found teenagers "irritating" and numerous other insults towards our age group - a post which was suspiciously removed after the outrage it caused. Despite that post, we feel strongly that we were articulate, polite and, regardless of the shared belief amongst administrators on the page, had valid points based on college experience. As students of the college, we hold a better insight into the inner workings and day-to-day life at the college than several members of the community. No-one can deny the real facts, but some of the "facts" are based purely on speculation, many of which we can clarify as far from the truth. Throughout this situation we feel we've both recognised the faults within the college and been open-minded about change, whilst the campaigners have not. Instead, they were insistent on naming individuals within the college and publicly speaking badly about them (we like to think of it as bullying as that is what it would be considered in school). Repeatedly, many individuals, students and parents alike, found that the administrators of said page had been removing students' posts based solely on the fact they had differing points of view to theirs and tried to claim it was "trolling" to justify their reasons for deleting the posts. All our intentions were, which we think we achieved eventually, to highlight the fact the college is not all bad, and in order to improve the college recognition needs to be given to the positive things. Anybody could identify that there are key issues that need attention, yet many of these issues have been long-standing, prior to Mrs Comber's arrival. With the rapid action now being taken by the senior leadership team, we believe these issues will be solved. As a community, we should try and support the college with its current leadership as opposed tp the small out-spoken minority who are actively trying to tear it into the ground. West Somerset College is improving, and quickly, with the action plan to rectify the issues being very comprehensive. However, in spite of this negativity, there has been progress on the Facebook page. With an apology from an admin member for his generalisations about teenagers, and a parent politely asking us for our opinion, we feel that we have made the first steps in improving attitudes towards student opinion and its value, and also the harshly negative view held towards the college. We have recently created a West Somerset College support group on Facebook since being deleted from the Raising Standards page; we've had many messages supporting our cause, and also over 100 likes in just two days. This shows that there perhaps are many more who share our view but were too scared to voice them previously. From the actions of the Raising Standards Discussion Group, it is clear that the individuals hold no accountability or credibility, which even in our unprofessional opinion is vital when trying to secure change, especially on an educational level. The large majority of students only want to bring an end to the narrow-minded, often condescending and superfluous comments as well as the discussion group which has caused endless disruption within the school, because, at the end of the day, we're all fighting for the same thing - the improvement of education. Shannon Collings and fellow sixth form students, West Somerset College.