Participants marched from Cessnock High School to Cessnock MP Clayton Barr's office to demand government action on climate change.

It was part of an international movement of students who chose to leave school on Friday to call for urgent action to move beyond fossil fuel projects.

Organiser and parent Kaitlyn Williams said the main message of the local march was opposition to the proposal for a coal-fired power station at Kurri Kurri.

She said it was difficult for many students to take part in the strike as they had to be signed out of school by their parents.

But Ms Williams did just that for her child, saying she wanted her kids to have "a good future".

"We're already suffering the effects of climate change now," she said.

"They [young people] inherit the legacy of what we leave them."