One rule for Islam, another rule for everyone else
Welcome to 'Letters From A Tory', covering British politics from a conservative perspective. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts about today's letter, and don't forget that you can CLICK HERE to get my letters sent to you by RSS every morning.
Dear Julia Robinson,
Now that you have resigned as headteacher of Meersbrook Bank primary school in Sheffield, the details of your disgraceful treatment have begun to emerge. A teacher at your school said that you had been under a lot of pressure, while a parent claimed that you were forced out along with the school’s chairman of governors. You have been “absent through ill health” for most of last year and were due to resume your duties this term, but some parents objected to the local authority about your return. Regardless of the fine detail, the accusations of racism made against you because you tried to scrap separate assemblies for Muslim children at your school are sick and twisted.
Many people will read your story with dismay and anger. As headteacher, you decided to hold a single weekly assembly for all pupils, regardless of their faith. Although the plan was backed by staff and many parents, some Muslim parents objected and accused you of being racist. More than 20% of your school’s 240 pupils are Muslims and parents from the local mosque said that the Islamic services started ten years ago after they withdraw their children from the daily service. One said that the split came after a teacher tried to force a Muslim pupil to sing a Christian hymn. The school and the parents apparently agreed that Muslim pupils would attend four of the five weekly assemblies, which were inclusive in nature, but that on Tuesday, when a more Christian worship was held, Muslim pupils would have an Islamic service led by one of the parents. When you joined in 2007 you set up a working group to review this and took careful advice from the local education authority, concluding that this practice should not continue. The question going round my head is what have you done wrong?
As a teacher at your school pointed out, having separate assemblies “did nothing to promote inclusiveness”. Another teacher added that “the buzzword from the authority at the moment is all about community cohesion but there is little cohesion at this school. The staff are very upset at what has happened.” As a parent remarked, “the children sit together in class so why shouldn’t they share a school assembly?” David Fann, from the National Association of Head Teachers, said that he had never known a school to hold separate assemblies for children of different faiths. “Segregating children is not good practice. The whole point is to gather people together to share their views and to learn from other people’s viewpoints.” In short, Muslim parents are demanding one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. It is quite clear that their motivations are entirely selfish and they wish to separate their children from their peers because they deserve ’special treatment’. Even though the staff and the vast majority of parents want these pupils to be brought closer together, the Muslim parents want to pull them apart. Some Islamic activists have now urging all Muslim parents to withdraw their children from school assemblies and to demand the right to hold separate acts of worship.
Personally, I think the law that children at state schools “shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship”, which should be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”, is a bit of a joke. I think our country is sufficiently diverse to require something more ‘inclusive’, and the reality is that the only ‘inclusive’ way of educating children is through secular means where no child is separated from another on the basis of their religion. These Muslim parents seem to have forced you out because you believe that everyone should be treated the same, yet that is precisely what headteachers should be trying to do. I’m sick and tired of one religion getting special privileges because they instil fear in their opponents. I don’t hear Jewish parents or Hindu parents threatening schools and headteachers. Rest assured that you have done the right thing – it is not you who deserves the criticism.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
“As a teacher at your school pointed out, having separate assemblies “did nothing to promote inclusiveness”. “
If she’d only dropped the hymns altogether, and had a fully secular assembly, she’d have taken the wind out of the Muslim parents’ arguments.
The fact that she refused to do so has caused this mess.
“I think the law that children at state schools “shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship”, which should be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”, is a bit of a joke. “
Indeed. The law is an ass if it thinks it can dictate matters of religion. We should follow the US example and leave it out of school assemblies altogether.
I don’t hear Jewish parents or Hindu parents threatening schools and headteachers.
You will now that they will have seen that playing the victim brings results.
This is inevitable while you have an established Church in a specially protected position – you either discriminate against all non-CoE ‘faith’ and those people with no religion or you have to look at treating all religions equally. Which, if it invokes specific protections, should make society unworkable – this is why Blashepmy only applies to the CoE despite attempts my Muslims to have it extended to their
fairy tales‘faith’.The law is an ass if it thinks it can dictate matters of religion. We should follow the US example and leave it out of school assemblies altogether.
Yes, the only way to avoid these problems is secularism. It allows schools to treat all superstitions equally by leaving them out of the school entirely. Religious education allows, effectively for segregation and Northern Ireland should show everyone just how effectively that works out if you want a peaceful and harmonious society.
I can sympathise with parents of one religion who object to their child having to take part in an assembly which includes elements of a different religion. Presumably, therefore, the Islamic parents in this case would support me if I were to work in Saudi Arabia and ask for special treatment for my Christian children?
The only real solution is of course a secular approach in which there is no real religious content – i.e. some sort of CofE service
)
Lol!
I’ve never understood the need for Christian assemblies in Primary Schools. All of these problems could be solve instantaneously by the school deciding to leave religion to the parents and get on with teaching. Job done.
Incidentally, my primary school was CofE in a predominantly Jewish area. Jewish kids attended the assemblies, but weren’t required to sing hymns. Nobody seemed to have a problem with that.
Exactly. Most people just shrug their shoulders and get on with life, yet here we have Muslim parents calling for all Muslim children to be withdrawn from assemblies around the country.
We need secular education to put an end to this nonsense. The bad news is that Cameron is a Christian and so are many of the Conservative faithful.
Julia Robinson forgot to check the rules of Victimhood Poker before making this decision.
Ha, that’s brilliant. You could get some high scores in this primary school if some of the parents turned out to be transgender….
When my son came home last year, 6 years old, and told me that I will go to hell because I am not a Christian I baulked pretty hard to say the least. There was a bit more beside that, a lot of superstition taught as if there were evidence (including creationism. Only the calmness of my wife stopped me going to the school to have it out with the teacher in question.
I am not a Muslim, I am an atheist. For schools to instruct in religion at the behest of the state is a situation which I find abhorrent. It is indoctrination, pure and simple. My children will be able to make their own choice when they are old enough, I do not push my views down their throat, I would appreciate it if the school and the government refrained from the same!
Well said Tony, but I don’t think many parents are willing to entertain the concept of ‘letting the children decide what they believe in’.
Mainly because my son currently believes in “lying on the sofa watching DVDs while we bring various appetising dishes to his side”
Tony E don’t sweat it.
my 4 year old gave me a long and repeated lecture about how smoking melts your lungs and it is very very wrong. The lecture got a bit confused about having to wear a cardigan to keep warm and eating only fruit for pudding.
I pointed out that I didn’t smoke and was told “Dad, … God is everywhere. Even when you are in the bath.”
Delivered with the same look and knowing nod as with Robert Duvall’s “Some day this war’s gonna end.”
Don’t worry about the morality. Its a good grounding.. In ten years time she will be wearing nothing but a bra, demanding to be allowed to smoke in her bedroom, while eating a plate of finest Cheesey fries.
I always remember those lucky jehovah’s witnesses getting out of RE lessons at school. Interesting though it might be to learn about the wierd and wonderful things that masses of people believe it might as well have been ‘Grimm Brothers Education lesson’ for the amount of factual content.
Assemblies should be about bringing the school together whilst the only non-tone deaf teacher attempts to play one of the assortment of primary school only instruments (like that funny ribbed wooden thing) and talks about peace and love etc. No need for the bearded fellows here.
No need for the bearded fellows here.
Richard Morgan, in his sci-fi novels calls religious fundies (of any flavour) Beards. To me, this touches on a truth:
Most religions crave control of the three Fs:
Food, Facial Hair and F*cking.
Think about it!
Thank you Shaun for that mental image, it took me a while to work out that you didn’t necessarily mean all three at the same time.
you didn’t necessarily mean all three at the same time
You do know that its the word “necessarily” that conjures the spectre of speciality porn so deviant that even I haven’t heard of it, right?
Thanks, you two. There is a mental image in my head of Rowan Williams eating a cake and … now I need to bite on an electrical cable before it develops any further…
Ha ha ha – so gross. And all religious beardies at once aswell?? I guess buddha is out (no beard, what an amateur). Although he might have compensated with the food part but I really don’t want to think about the third element! But now I am – damn you Shaun!
Conservatives blogs. Where else could we repress only the most creative dirty minds?
Thanks Patently & Bill Quango.
I’m not sure I’m entirely reassured but I did have a chuckle!
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/10/school-assemblies-row-what-the-bbc-didnt-tell-you/
From that ‘Harry’s Place’ article:
“Does Robinson sound like a ‘racist’ or does she sound like a well meaning liberal who wanted to promote multiculturalism?”
Hmmm, hard to say which makes me dislike her more…
[...] From A Tory writes about Julia Robinson, who resigned as headteacher of Meersbrook Bank primary school in Sheffield, [...]