It interviewed Mohammed Zabar, a Muslim parent who wrote to the Prime Minister in December 2013 about the lack of cultural balance in the curriculum at his daughter's school, Oldknow. [48] Reverend Ray claimed that in the 1990s, when John Major was Prime Minister, he made the government aware of Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir becoming involved at his school. In its separatist assertions and attempts to subvert normal processes it amounts to what is often described as Islamism. [12], On 14 April, the City Council confirmed that it had received over 200 reports from parents and staff at 25 schools in Birmingham. [63], A teacher from Park View School was reported to the police after he broke into a female pupil's mobile telephone to prove she was having a "forbidden" relationship with a boy. The report stated the messages evidenced that the group had "either promoted, or failed to challenge, views that are grossly intolerant of beliefs and practices other than their own". Agent: Mark Walters - (772)-201-5650. [62] A former staff member said that one teacher had handed out a worksheet stating that women "must obey their husbands", and told his class that wives were forbidden from refusing their husbands sex. Ofsted subsequently expanded their investigation into schools in the north and south-east of England. banned from any involvement with schools,[10] while the bans against 14 other teachers were eventually overturned, dropped and/or dismissed in courts between 2016 and 2017. [88] This showed that most schools conflated the two and did not have teachers trained in the Prevent duty. The first opportunity for teachers to challenge the claims came when hearings against them for professional misconduct brought by the NCTL were begun in September 2015 over a year after the story about the affair first broke. [2], The hearings dramatically came back into media attention in October 2016 after one of the hearings that had concluded with guilty verdicts against two teachers went to the High Court on appeal. [68][69] Two other senior teachers were also suspended. It also provides useful information and guidance and features of good practice in meeting those needs. It described the ideology being promoted as "an intolerant and politicised form of extreme social conservatism that claims to represent and ultimately seeks to control all Muslims. [7] Mahmood told Channel 4 that he did not believe that the investigation was Islamophobic, stating "Over 200 people complaining to the local authority about what's gone on and you can't really claim that it's a witch-hunt". [4], The investigation obtained 3,000 messages, spanning 130 pages of transcripts, of a private WhatsApp discussion between a group of teachers at Park View School called the Park View Brotherhood. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 10 (1), pp. [83], An Ofsted inspection found that the Islamic school, which shares its premises with a mosque, had books in its library with content that had "no place in British society". an "issue of education management", or appeasement. [23] The government terminated its funding arrangement with three of the schools. They investigated schools in East London, Bradford and Luton over concerns regarding a limited curriculum and pupils' detachment from the wider community. [62] The deputy head of Nansen Primary School, Razwan Faraz, leads a group called the "Educational Activists" which he says introduces an "Islamising agenda" in Birmingham state schools. Three cases against junior teachers were heard separately from that against the senior leadership team at PVET. The BBC reported on gender segregation at a state secondary school, Carlton Bolling College, during trips and after-school workshops, as well as boys-only school trips. "Dossier of Trojan horse evidence finally laid bare after leaks and allegations". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2022. ^ Oldham, Jeanette (11 June 2014). "Trojan Horse: Birmingham academy spent 50,000 on trip to Saudi Arabia using travel firm linked to school director". Birmingham Mail. Indeed, in presenting his charges, Clarke commented that "it is only fair to point out that the Trust disputed most, if not all, of the allegations". [104], In May, David Blunkett announced that if in government again, the Labour Party would appoint an 'Independent Director of School Standards' with the power to monitor academies: "In April 2014, the alleged Operation Trojan Horse in Birmingham demonstrated the difficulties that have arisen from this 'absence of transparency'". "[128] Bhupinder Kondal left the school again shortly after. [25], A number of governors and the Muslim Council of Britain dubbed the reaction of authorities to the plot a "witch-hunt". [2], Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers said the organisation could not fully endorse the report. At the same time, The Trojan Horse Affair ultimately tells us more about the two hosts than this central mystery, as they chase leads and question each other, leading up to a Neoptolemus son of Achilles, who according to a prophecy had to fight at Troy in order for the Achaeans to be victorious. [2], The leaked letter on the alleged plot was reported by media including the BBC on 7 March 2014. With the apparent agreement of the Chair of the Panel, the decisions were amended prior to publication so as to state that the allegations were "in no way concerned with violent extremism". "[78], Segregation was found in one classroom with girls sitting at the back with their heads covered. [2], The report found evidence of intolerance at several schools toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people, and said that governors and staff exhibited openly homophobic behaviour. Students were also told that it is un-Islamic to have a pet dog. Pupils studying biology were not taught the section of the syllabus about reproduction and the teacher stated when briefly outlining evolution that "this is not what we believe". From Serial Productions and The New York Times, The Trojan Horse External speakers were improperly vetted. [103], A play about the Trojan Horse affair and the injustices at its heart by LUNG Theatre (Helen Monks, co-writer; Matt Woodhead, co-writer and director) won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2018 and began a national tour in October 2019. [105], The Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, Jim Fitzpatrick, warned of a 'Trojan Horse'-style Islamist plot to infiltrate councils in London. [58], The EFA inspection found a classroom culture which was not welcoming to non-Muslim pupils. His complaints were published on 24 February 2014,[39] whereas the 'trojan horse' letter was not sent to the press until 2 March 2014. [5] Its leader, Sir Albert Bore, said that the Council accepted the Ofsted findings that schools in the city were failing pupils. [98] New clauses were added into funding agreements for academies, stating that the Secretary for Education could close schools whose governors do not comply with "fundamental British values". As noted above, governors and teachers accused in the various investigations were given no opportunity to respond to the allegations and the claims made in the various reports were not subject to independent scrutiny until misconduct charges were brought by the NCTL against teachers associated with Park View Education Trust. [4], The investigation found that at Anderton Park Primary School, after a white child joined the school, a Muslim parent instructed staff: "get a white chair and white desk and put the white kid in a white corner with a white teacher and keep him away from the others. Serial Productions recently released its latest investigative podcast series, "The Trojan Horse Affair." He noted that in Tower Hamlets, a borough in which 32 per cent of the population is Bangladeshi, the Tower Hamlets First Party, of which the Mayor was a member, had 18 councillors who were all Bangladeshi, and 17 of them were men. Based on drawings and written records, this Trojan Horse model allows you to recreate one of the most epic tales of ancient Troyalthough on a much smaller scale. [99], Governors resigned from Saltley School in protest after the Ofsted findings were released, stating that they doubted the inspectors' impartiality. [75] The school's curriculum was deemed inadequate because it did not promote tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions. In a discussion on 5 February 2014, a teacher at Oldknow and governor at Small Heath School, revealed that the group's favoured candidate had become the head teacher at Small Heath. Some staff at the school expressed fear that neither eating nor drinking amid high temperatures during the 18 hours of daylight in the months of June and July would compromise pupils' health and their ability to learn. The school had a determination from the local SACRE to provide Islamic collective worship since 1996. is for sale online, in a number of independent bookshops, including one in Seattle, and in a major bookshop chain in London. [58] An extended Islamic assembly for its Year 10 and 11 pupils was arranged with Sheikh Shady al-Suleiman, an extremist preacher who has called on God to "destroy the enemies of Islam", "give victory to all the Mujahideen all over the world" and to "prepare us for the jihad". The governors have been made to resign Has she come back because she wants to take the school forward or is she fulfilling a personal vendetta?[127]. The Trojans believed the horse was a peace offering and dragged it inside their city. Mark was definitely the author. First Published 2019. However, she admitted that senior staff had warned her not to let pupils dance to pop or Bollywood music. [7] Pupils and teachers from Park View School denied this version of the story, saying that after this assertion had been raised by a boy during a presentation on sexual education teachers organised an assembly where they explained that "marital rape was legally and morally wrong". [99], Harriet Harman, the shadow Culture Secretary, urged the Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, to protect music from being dropped from school curriculums after learning this had taken place at one of the investigated schools. [54] Kerslake deferred issues of education to the Clarke and Kershaw Reports, but an appendix to his Report provided contextual data on poverty, adult education attainment, unemployment and school performance across comparator cities and for England as a whole. Teachers reported unfair treatment because of their gender or religious beliefs. [30] In it, responsibility was claimed for installing a new headteacher at four schools in Birmingham, and it highlighted 12 others in the city which would be easy targets due to large Muslim attendance and poor inspection reports. [citation needed], An investigation ordered by the government found a "sustained, co-ordinated agenda to impose segregationist attitudes and practices of a hardline, politicised strain of Sunni Islam" in several Birmingham schools. [27] As Holmwood and O'Toole show, neither the Kershaw Report nor the Clarke Report gave any attention to the schools improvement policies of Birmingham City Council or the Department for Education. The drawn out nature of the cases meant that there were no journalists present to report the detailed rebuttal of claims indicated above, for example of banning Christmas celebrations, or teacher handouts promoting the obligations on wives to consent to sex with their husbands. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector at Ofsted, had commented at a national conference that "All schools should be like this and there's no reason why they shouldn't be. Her credibility was called into question by the NCTL Panel when discontinuing the case. [60], Golden Hillock School in Sparkhill, Birmingham, was put under special measures by Ofsted on 5 June 2014, after being rated "inadequate" in all categories. At the heart of the affair He has performed over 60 operatic roles in the standard Unlike the teachers, the lawyers involved in serious impropriety were not subject to professional misconduct charges despite the cost of the hearings. Other details can be found in Man-in-the-browser attack. Akmal criticised female politicians, saying: "She has to sacrifice her family, she has to sacrifice her children, she has to sacrifice her husband, all in the name of equality." [58] Governors at the school banned any discussions regarding sexual orientation and intimacy. Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies, 13, Media reporting expressed alarm that the transcripts were those of 'whistleblowers' who had provided statements under terms of confidentiality.[132]. Across eight episodes, journalists Brian Reed and Hamza Syed sought to discover the author of the anonymous letter that triggered the scandal. He said the government would be terminating its funding arrangement with three of the schools. [29] The letter described pressure being put on the head teacher at Regents Park school, a school judged to be outstanding and "planting the seed of her cheating". Nor did he report the evidence of the secretary to Birmingham Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) that the scheme of Islamic collective worship at Park View had been in place since 1996 and had been regularly reviewed since then, and that the school was teaching the agreed local curriculum on religious education, despite not being required to do so as academies. Government officials and policy advisers, as well as journalists previously involved in the case, rushed to announce that the cases had collapsed on a 'technicality'. [51], Ofsted investigated in 21 schools in Birmingham in March 2014. [1], Year 11 pupils about to sit their GCSEs at the school were instructed to partake in an Islamic fast, taking neither food nor drink, to place them in the right "spiritual frame of mind" for the exams. The rush to set up the hearings in July and August 2015 (prior to the Conservative Party conference in September) provided little time for the preparation of the case for the defence prior to the start of the hearings in contrast to the long-drawn-out nature of the proceedings once they had started. [6], Tahir Alam, former chairman of the Park View Educational Trust which ran three schools in Birmingham, was alleged to have written a 72-page document for the Muslim Council of Britain in 2007 detailing a blueprint for the "Islamisation" of secular state schools, a claim that has been widely debunked. In the podcast, the link between the Trojan Horse letter and the Headteacher of Adderley Primary School in Birmingham, Rizwana Darr, is explored and it is alleged that Darr is the real author of the Trojan Horse letter. At Park View, Golden Hillock, Nansen and Oldknow academy, it is alleged that teachers were instructed not to use images in any subject which displayed even slight intimacy between sexes. A three-year-old in a nursery said that his family were poor because the Jews and Zionists had all the money. [81], Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg also backed the investigation, stating that schools should not become "silos of segregation". [1][11] The allegations against the teachers were set out in the press and in the Kershaw and Clarke Reports. It also included evidence from then secretary to Birmingham SACRE, given to the Clarke inquiry but not reported by him, which "conflicts with the evidence of NCTL witnesses who had been saying that it was wrong for collective worship to be solely about Islam when a school had a determination but [the secretary] who had been with SACRE for 9 years, said it was acceptable" (paragraph 125). It was entitled Towards Greater Understanding: Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools. The school was one of those identified in the Kershaw and Clarke Reports, but no information about it was provided. Community cohesion and PREVENT: how have schools responded? This affected the teaching of English, Art, Religious Education and Personal, Social and Health Education. It described a "madrassa curriculum" and reported that "posters were written in Quranic Arabic in most of the classrooms visited. The school has a largely Muslim governing body. [50], The Educational Funding Authority, Ofsted, and Birmingham City Council agreed to investigate the letter, although West Midlands Police decided that it was not a matter for them. [29] Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, said that "wider, more comprehensive action" was needed and appointed Peter Clarke, a former senior Metropolitan Police officer and ex-head of the Counter Terrorism Command. [95], Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Birmingham, praised his government's swift action in investigating the conspiracy. [42] The general secretary of the headteachers' union, Russell Hobby, said the union has found "concerted efforts" by hardliners to infiltrate Birmingham schools, and that it was working with 30 of its members in 12 schools and had "serious concerns" about some of them. Information and Guidance for Schools and is available as an appendix to the Kershaw Report. The Department for Education had also commissioned a report by Ipso Mori in 2010 into how schools understood their duties with regard to Community Cohesions and Prevent. The headteacher and deputy headteacher were subsequently found guilty at an NCTL hearing of falsifying SATS tests. "[4] Another school investigated, Alston Primary, was already in special measures. [44] He accused Tahir Alam, chairman of the Park View Educational Trust, of "planning this for 15 years" and honing in Birmingham tactics that he had drafted in his 72-page document, published by the Muslim Council of Britain in 2007, on how to subvert schools to fundamentalist Islam. [3][4] Birmingham City Council imposed a temporary freeze on the appointment of school governors after probes into Operation Trojan Horse were announced. [2], In January 2022, The New York Times released an investigative podcast about the Trojan Horse scandal which characterized it as an "Islamophobic hoax" and compared it to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a historical antisemitic hoax. The educational advisers to the Clarke Report did not set out the guidelines applying to religious education and collective worship in schools and no information was provided about the locally agreed SACRE curriculum which continued to be taught in the schools. [22] Pupils and staff stayed in luxury five-star hotels. [80] Effective strategies were not in place to deal with extremism and "governance, safety, pupils' cultural development, equal opportunities and the teaching of religious education are all inadequate". In addition, Park View had been designated a National Healthy School for its approach to Personal, Social and Health Education. WebTottenhams Trojan Horse? [citation needed], After resisting attempts by governors to impose an Islamic ethos, teachers were suspended and its principal, Jennifer McIntosh, and her deputy, faced attempts to oust them. He claims he was pressured to ban sex education and the teaching of non-Muslim religions, and was dismissed in 2003 after he told prospective teachers to question the governors. About. For example, the co-head of the security and extremism unit at Policy Exchange (the conservative think tank that had advised Michael Gove's schools programme), Hannah Stuart, and its head of education, John David Blake, proposed that, "non-disclosure of anonymous witness statements from the Clarke inquiry was described as an 'abuse of process', and that is deeply unfortunate, but this falls short of an exoneration. [88] This showed that most schools conflated the two and did not have teachers trained in the Prevent duty. [29] The letter was alleged to have been written from Birmingham and sent to a contact in Bradford to expand the operation into that city. Council leader Sir Albert Bore stated that his council had spoken to authorities in Bradford and Manchester, and said that there are "certainly issues in Bradford which have similarities with the issues being spoken about in Birmingham". Additionally, the inspection stated that "there are too few books about the world's major religions other than Islam". There were posters in schools warning the children that if they did not pray, they would "go to hell". Now the audio game-changer has made a divisive UK story the focus of a new eight-part series, its first overseas outing. The hearings were expected to be concluded quickly, but continued through until May 2017. richard belding leave it to beaver songs about rebelling against parents makai polk scouting report. He announced proposals to send Ofsted to any s This page was last edited on 24 December 2022, at 23:24. [125], An undercover reporter working for the Daily Mirror posed as a wealthy businessman and potential client of the training firm Exquisitus, a firm owned by Shahid Akmal, the chairman of governors at Nansen Primary School. This was after the government had cited the Trojan Horse affair as justification for its new plans to counter extremism.[130]. [1], A former teacher at the school reported that the current head teacher, Monzoor Hussain, expressed "mind-blowing" anti-American views at school assemblies, describing the US as the "source of all evil in the world". He said that "protecting our children" was "one of the first duties of government" and convened an emergency meeting of the Extremism Taskforce and a ministerial meeting to discuss the affair. The Greeks were laying siege to the city of Troy, and the war had dragged on for ten years. [26] In protest of the investigations, Tahir Alam and several governors of affected schools resigned. [61], Subjects such as Personal, Social and Health Education, Biology and Sex and Relationships Education were bowdlerised to conform with a conservative Islamic teaching. The Education Funding Authority conducted a parallel investigation. ", "Birmingham Trojan Horse letter 'no hoax', "Top academy investigated for 'sidelining' non-Muslim staff", "Inner-city academy investigated after being accused of 'side-lining' its non-Muslim staff and trying to put Islamic studies on curriculum", "Trojan Horse: 25 schools probed over alleged takeover plot", "Head teachers raise 'serious concerns' over Islamic school take-over", "City fights new Trojan Horse Islamic schools plot", "Teachers 'assaulted and marginalised in Islamising plot', "Birmingham 'Trojan Horse' plot 'started 20 years ago', "Ministers 'given Trojan Horse schools warning in 2010', "Trojan Horse fears in Birmingham 'raised in 2008', "Watch: Oldknow Academy principal: 'I was forced out by Trojan Horse plotters', "Bradford school governors 'promoted Islamic agenda', "Trojan Horse probe headed by ex-Met chief Peter Clarke", "Trojan Horse: Special adviser brought in to investigate 25 Birmingham schools", "Council expects 'firestorm' over Trojan Horse schools plot", "Schedule 1: Breaches of the Funding Agreement and/or legislation applicable to Academies", "Ofsted inspectors make U-turn on 'Trojan Horse' school, leak shows", "Trojan Horse schools: 'British values' must be promoted in the classroom, says Michael Gove", "Girls claim discrimination at 'Trojan Horse' school", "Extremists and the 'Trojan Horse' approach in state schools", "Trojan Horse leaked report says pupils 'not protected from extremism', "Trojan Horse school Golden Hillock still 'inadequate', Ofsted finds", "Hardeep Saini, Sikh Teacher in Britain Accused of Unprofessional Conduct Towards The Students", "Trojan Horse school looking to new future", "Trojan Horse school forced to recruit teachers from Australia", "Culture of fear and intimidation in Birmingham schools, says Ofsted chief", "Muslim teacher spoke of 'white prostitutes' to children in assembly", "Gove to order teaching of 'British values', "Dossier of Trojan horse evidence finally laid bare after leaks and allegations", "Trojan Horse: Birmingham academy spent 50,000 on trip to Saudi Arabia using travel firm linked to school director", "Trojan Horse schools: Harriet Harman calls on Government to protect music lessons", "Trojan Horse hearings: Pupils shown picture of white person to teach them what Christians looks like", "Michael Gove calls for further schools investigations after Trojan Horse affair", "Books 'promoting stoning' found at Olive Tree Primary School", "Trojan Horse row: Teachers suspended for refusing to impose strict Islamic model", "Birmingham schools: Education Commissioner's report", Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Monzoor Hussain, Mr Hardeep Saini, Mr Arshad Hussain, Mr Razwan Faraz, Ms Lindsey Clark. It effectively ended the war, demonstrating the ingenuity of the Greeks. The art curriculum was altered to "remove full faces or immodest images, such as paintings by Gustav Klimt". He claimed that girls should be taught cooking and sewing while boys should be taught trades. [62], Forced segregation of the genders was observed in some classes at Golden Hillock and was mandated in some departmental policy documents. [9] Its intentions are clearly set out in the introduction where it states "its purpose is to promote greater understanding of the faith, religious and cultural needs of Muslim pupils and how they can be accommodated within schools. The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair (2017). Teachers taught the children at Park View Academy that "good" Muslim women must wear a hijab and tie up their hair. [85] The governors of the school were sacked in April because of inappropriate interference in the running of the school. "[49], In Bradford, teachers reported instances of governors imposing an Islamic ethos. Click here to Responsibility for determinations for academy schools passed to the Department for Education, but they put in place no measures for renewing determinations. The previous trustees of the academy having been replaced, she withdrew her resignation and returned to her post on 19August 2014. [93], The investigation, however, did not find evidence of a "conspiracy" to promote "violent extremism or radicalisation" values.[19]. But who wrote it? [123] The Guardian also revealed that West Midlands Police was investigating whether the alleged plot was a hoax concocted to support one of the schools named in the plot, Adderley primary school, in an industrial dispute. [8] In school assemblies, former staff alleged that a senior teacher frequently praised Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda recruiter that had been involved with at least three major terror attacks, and referred to non-Muslims as "kuffar", an insulting term for "infidel". [20] Ian Kershaw, Head of Northern Education Trust in Newcastle, was named as its full-time special adviser.[52]. At paragraph 37 of his judgement, he writes that. Mark knew the Adderley case well and the letter [citation needed] A senior teacher told inspectors that the solution to all problems would be a global Caliphate under Sharia law. WebThe Trojan Horse Affair raises a serious question that requires an answer. This showed Birmingham to be performing badly on most indicators, but outperforming other cities and the national average for its school results and the proportion of schools graded outstanding. Altogether the documents that were deemed to be relevant amounted to about 1600 pages. The Department for Education had also commissioned a report by Ipsos Mori in 2010 into how schools understood their duties with regard to Community Cohesions and Prevent. [9] The introduction of the document states that the "purpose is to promote greater understanding of the faith, religious and cultural needs of Muslim pupils and how they can be accommodated within schools.