The most detailed and hard-hitting of the reports was written by a former head of counter-terrorism, Peter Clarke, assisted by a 14-strong team of senior civil servants and experts. He was appointed by the former Education Secretary Michael Gove. Someone with access to Clarke's draft sought to limit the damage with a controlled explosion by leaking it to the Guardian days ahead of publication. This worked. Newspapers gave Clarke minimal, inside-page treatment.
The second report was written by a respected former head teacher in Coventry, Ian Kershaw, who now runs an education consultancy. He was appointed by the local education authority, Birmingham City Council. Although Clarke and Kershaw shared some witness evidence, I am told that they did not discuss their conclusions with each other. That fact makes the striking similarity of many of their findings all the more significant.
Between them, Clarke and Kershaw identified 16 state schools as having been the target of takeover tactics, albeit at different stages, by male Muslim governors and teachers mainly of Pakistani heritage. Clarke says that the Park View Brotherhood was at the heart of this "pre-determined plan" deploying "coordinated, deliberate and sustained action" to "introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos" into the schools.
We learn that when asked to present the sex and relationship curriculum for the approval of a secondary school's governors, a senior female teacher was shouted at and told that she was "trying to get our boys to masturbate". One governor refused to speak to her solely because she is a woman.
Governors and staff at Park View Trust schools were openly homophobic. Nansen Primary staff said they were told to teach that homosexuality is a "sin". And here's what the Nansen Primary's recently suspended deputy head, Razwan Faraz, thinks of gay people: "These animals are going out full force. As teachers we must be aware and counter their satanic ways of influencing young people." Faraz implores "Allah" to "further expose this and give us the strength to deal and eradicate it".
A Muslim head teacher was sworn at and hissed at by parents and teachers in the playground after being the victim of rumours that she was sexually promiscuous. She was also branded a kaffir (unbeliever). How was such bigotry tolerated in secular state schools when Birmingham City Council had frequently been warned about similar behaviour going back to the early 1990s? It seems the answer is that officials feared they might upset Birmingham's Muslims if they intervened. The council's Equalities Division apparently advised action could "destabilise relationships across the city".
When the first trickle of Trojan Horse stories emerged last spring, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) dismissed them as "idle chatter" and demanded: "End this witch-hunt of British Muslims." Yet Clarke and Kershaw disclose numerous examples of offensive behaviour — not just of sexism, homophobia, bullying and aggression, but also of discrimination against non-Muslims, financial impropriety and nepotism, with jobs going to friends and relatives of governors.
Some governors and teachers are also said to have used children to humiliate staff who didn't toe a more fundamentalist line: governors encouraged pupils to criticise head teachers; children were told to tell their non-Muslim teacher that she wore too much make-up; another Muslim teacher was ridiculed by a male Muslim teacher for showing her neck.
The second report was written by a respected former head teacher in Coventry, Ian Kershaw, who now runs an education consultancy. He was appointed by the local education authority, Birmingham City Council. Although Clarke and Kershaw shared some witness evidence, I am told that they did not discuss their conclusions with each other. That fact makes the striking similarity of many of their findings all the more significant.
Between them, Clarke and Kershaw identified 16 state schools as having been the target of takeover tactics, albeit at different stages, by male Muslim governors and teachers mainly of Pakistani heritage. Clarke says that the Park View Brotherhood was at the heart of this "pre-determined plan" deploying "coordinated, deliberate and sustained action" to "introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos" into the schools.
We learn that when asked to present the sex and relationship curriculum for the approval of a secondary school's governors, a senior female teacher was shouted at and told that she was "trying to get our boys to masturbate". One governor refused to speak to her solely because she is a woman.
Governors and staff at Park View Trust schools were openly homophobic. Nansen Primary staff said they were told to teach that homosexuality is a "sin". And here's what the Nansen Primary's recently suspended deputy head, Razwan Faraz, thinks of gay people: "These animals are going out full force. As teachers we must be aware and counter their satanic ways of influencing young people." Faraz implores "Allah" to "further expose this and give us the strength to deal and eradicate it".
A Muslim head teacher was sworn at and hissed at by parents and teachers in the playground after being the victim of rumours that she was sexually promiscuous. She was also branded a kaffir (unbeliever). How was such bigotry tolerated in secular state schools when Birmingham City Council had frequently been warned about similar behaviour going back to the early 1990s? It seems the answer is that officials feared they might upset Birmingham's Muslims if they intervened. The council's Equalities Division apparently advised action could "destabilise relationships across the city".
When the first trickle of Trojan Horse stories emerged last spring, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) dismissed them as "idle chatter" and demanded: "End this witch-hunt of British Muslims." Yet Clarke and Kershaw disclose numerous examples of offensive behaviour — not just of sexism, homophobia, bullying and aggression, but also of discrimination against non-Muslims, financial impropriety and nepotism, with jobs going to friends and relatives of governors.
Some governors and teachers are also said to have used children to humiliate staff who didn't toe a more fundamentalist line: governors encouraged pupils to criticise head teachers; children were told to tell their non-Muslim teacher that she wore too much make-up; another Muslim teacher was ridiculed by a male Muslim teacher for showing her neck.
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