howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times
Religious extremists are exploiting lax home education laws to expose children to hate-filled material at scores of unregistered “schools” and secret teaching groups. Extremist texts seized from illegal schools allege that homosexuality is an “abomination”, that sodomy is punishable by death and that a wife cannot “refuse sexual intercourse without sound reason”. Boys and girls could marry once they reached puberty, one document seen by The Times states. It also blames rapes on the way women dress, saying: “If a sweet thing is left uncovered, swarms of dirty creatures are liable to prey upon it and corrupt it.”
At least 350 unregistered schools have been set up across Britain, according to Ofsted, the education regulator. Experts say they have been fuelled by a surge in home-educated children whose number has risen by almost 50 per cent in five years to at least 33,000.
While these schools can technically be inspected by Ofsted, at least 80 smaller “teaching groups” have been set up, often in warehouses and above shops, and are outside its control. “I have huge concerns about unregistered schools and the lack of regulation and inspection,” Robert Halfon, head of the Commons education committee, told The Times. “Any school of any kind shouldn’t be unregistered. There shouldn’t be room for grey areas. Even if they have less than five pupils and are open less than 18 hours they should be inspected and registered.” Mr Halfon, a former education minister, said he was supportive of parents who choose to teach their children outside school but his remarks will inflame thousands of responsible home educators who fiercely guard their independence. Children are home-schooled for an array of reasons and most are thought to be receiving an adequate standard of education.
Ofsted has issued warning notices to 50 suspected unregistered schools, 38 have closed or ceased to operate illegally and 12 are under criminal investigation. However, more than two years after Nicky Morgan, then education secretary, ordered the prosecution of the founders of 18 illegal schools, no case has reached court. Sources at Ofsted suggested evidence had been passed on but no action had been taken by prosecutors. Ofsted has spoken of frustration at its limited powers. The Times obtained five extremist books relating to Islam, including Dos and Do Nots of Islam and The Islam Way of Life. One was by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born extremist Muslim preacher who has been banned from Britain. Concerns have also been raised about illegal Christian and Jewish schools. Izzy Posen, 23, who went to “ultra-orthodox” illegal Jewish schools in Stamford Hill, north London, from the age of seven, said that he was not taught English until 13. “They have a suspicious view of secular subjects and besides the lack of education, hygiene levels were atrocious,” he said. “There was corporal punishment, no methods were off the table but it was usually a big wooden ladle.”
Guest 1713- Registered: 14 Mar 2016
- Posts: 110
The joys of going multi-culti
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Bit of a hobby horse of mine as when I lived in area with a large Muslim presence there were Saturday schools where children had to learn the Koran in Arabic even though their main language was English whilst their mates were out playing football or whatever kids do on a Saturday. The same issues apply to other fundamentalist religious schools which should all be disbanded in my view.
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Guest 2507- Registered: 5 Mar 2018
- Posts: 2
Many of these children have been enrolled in unregistered and illegal 'schools' which operate without inspection or sanction. A large percentage of these schools are faith schools.
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
Wasn't there some weird christian school up at Whitfield not long ago, with staff that hadn't been adequately safety checked and an unbelievably bad Ofsted report ? Not the same thing at all, and was of course not a 'fundamentalist school, the head said so, mind you he also said that the inspections were going well. Seems its a christian pre-school now. I wonder if they teach creationism ? Worrying ?
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
Ties in with the post on religion quite nicely, theach them all sorts of weird 'facts', like creationism, and censor stuff from the real world that doesn't suit their particular world view. This particular faith has people imprisoned in Germany for 'holocaust denial', then removes text from GCSE text books, becoming 'homosexual deniers' or 'kissing in public deniers'. In case you hadn't guessed, I despise the hypocrisy of religions.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times.
As speechwriter to the prime minister, it was the comment I dreaded most. While perusing a draft of the latest speech I had written, some wise head or other would make the inevitable suggestion: “What this needs is a really powerful passage on British values — y’know, what makes this country great.” A flutter of nods and off I would be sent to arouse the nation’s patriotic sentiments in a way that would have had Lord Haw-Haw repenting and bedroom jihadists breaking out the Union Jack bunting.
How to distil the essence of Britain into a few lines? Desperate, I would resort to lists: the Beatles, Shakespeare, queueing, D-Day, Bobby Moore in ’66 . . . might these do to conjure British values? No! Far too white, too twee, too male-centric. Offence-proof words were required. Eventually we would end up with the same old beige values of tolerance, democracy and the rule of law. The official definition of British values is always a pointless exercise and yet this, apparently, is what’s needed once again to bring the nation together. At this week’s cabinet meeting Theresa May told ministers that as part of the government’s new Integrated Communities Strategy schools dominated by pupils from a single race or religion must teach “pluralistic British values”.
This can be filed under Whitehall baloney for several reasons, not least because there is already a requirement to promote British values in schools, introduced in 2014 following the Trojan horse allegations. It is risible, too, because the very notion of “teaching” British values via macaroni-and-glue tributes to Magna Carta will inspire nothing but boredom in the nation’s young. Yet what makes it gold-plated baloney is that while the government proposes the teaching of values to help pupils understand “different ways of life”, it has also expressed a desire to see schools further segregated along racial and religious lines. In a recent interview the education secretary, Damian Hinds, suggested that he was in favour of ditching the 50 per cent cap on religious admissions to new oversubscribed faith schools. In other words, he is in favour of more faith schools being able to select 100 per cent of their pupils on the basis of religion: more mono-religious, mono-cultural schools.
It is possible that the Catholic Hinds, who was educated at a Catholic school and whose office has received a donation from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has the wishes of the Catholic church in mind. Despite the fact that the Catholic International Education Office defines a Catholic school as one that is “open to all”, the church here is dead against the 50 per cent religious admissions cap, saying that it breaches canon law not to prioritise Catholic children. In a 2014 Commons debate, Hinds suggested that if Catholic schools are open to all they “lose their distinctive character”.
What makes the Catholic lobby particularly powerful is that the government is relying on it to open more free schools. But if May’s administration also cares about the “one nation” agenda it bangs on about, it must keep the 50 per cent cap and put the Catholic church in its place, perhaps politely reminding it of Jesus’s words in Luke 18:16, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not”. Unless the Lord whispered the caveat “apart from little children of different faiths”, it is difficult to square this benevolence with the church’s stance. It matters deeply that we resist more segregation in schools. Parts of this country are woefully divided. Professor Ted Cantle, who carried out a major report into cohesion after the 2001 Oldham race riots, believes that things have got worse since then: “More segregation in residential areas, more segregation in schools, more segregation in workplaces . . . driving more prejudice, intolerance, mistrust.” Governments can do little about segregation in privately rented or owned homes or in workplaces. Where the state can and must work for more integration is in schools. In the state-funded sector, it is neither realistic nor desirable to get rid of faith schools. Catholic schools alone make up 10 per cent of the total and though atheists harrumphing about “fairy stories” may not like it faith schools consistently rank among the best in the country. It would be folly to attack existing success stories.
