13:24

As school strikers poured into George Square around lunchtime following a march from Glasgow Green, organiser Nancy Baijonauth, 16, declared the protest the biggest yet in the city since the protests began. “It’s really great. It felt like at the start people were hesitant, maybe because they felt nervous and that they couldn’t make a change, but now more people are joining in.”

While she welcomed the Scottish government declaring a climate emergency, she said that this was only the first step. “We can’t pat ourselves on the back, we have to keep moving,” she said. The protests would keep going, she added, but there needed to be more education, with activists going into schools to talk to pupils directly.

Fraser Haughey, 8, briefly took the microphone at the front of the rally to declare that “all children have the right to a future”. Fraser had come to the protest with his mother and sister, from Cambuslang, south-east of Glasgow, and said that he hoped politicians would pay attention to the children’s voices.

Madeleine Carlin, 13, was attending with her mother and two-year-old brother, as well as school friends from St Andrews high school in Coatbridge, east of the city, and said that she was attending “because we’ve only got 12 years until the damage is irreversible”.

“Our message is that we need to stop ignoring this. It’s our generation and the one after that who will have to deal with the consequences.”

It’s also worth pointing out to adults concerned about pupils missing school that many schools in Glasgow and surrounding suburbs have an in-service day today because of the bank holiday, while senior four to six pupils are still at the tail end of their study leave.