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). [41] Concerns have also been raised by the National Association of Head Teachers about schools in parts of East London and other "large cities around the country". is for sale online, in a number of independent bookshops, including one in Seattle, and in a major bookshop chain in London. Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies, 13, This pre-dated by approximately .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}3+12 months the date on which the witness statements were signed and finalised". [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. Marks doctoral research concentrated on the use of sport stadiums in urban regeneration projects and he is currently working on a graphic/comic version of his thesis. It's co-hosted by Brian Reed, a veteran producer of This American Life This page was last edited on 24 December 2022, at 23:24. Mark knew the Adderley case well and the letter An alleged Trojan Horse plotter claims the Nazis could have killed as few as 100,000 Jews. The school had a determination from the local SACRE to provide Islamic collective worship since 1996. 25/05/2022; Posted by He said that the efforts to instil fundamentalist practices into Birmingham classrooms were based on a "warped and abusive view of the religion". Instead, the report concluded, the council was focused on community cohesion. Girls were taught they could not refuse sex with their husbands, and would be "punished" by angels "from dusk to dawn" if they did. [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. [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. It was entitled Towards Greater Understanding: Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools. They built a wooden horse, which they left outside the city. "[49], In Bradford, teachers reported instances of governors imposing an Islamic ethos. A sixth school was labelled inadequate for its poor educational standards and twelve schools were found needing of improvements. Responsibility for determinations for academy schools passed to the Department for Education, but they put in place no measures for renewing determinations. [29] Its author described the plan as "totally invisible to the naked eye and [allowing] us to operate under the radar". [126], He claimed that white children were lazy. [21], The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, 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. [42] Senior Department for Education sources have also been reported as claiming that coordinated attempts to undermine and supplant head teachers have occurred in Bradford, Manchester, and the London boroughs of Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. Book Sport Policy and Politics in an Era of Austerity. Ofsted found that the curriculum was being narrowed to reflect the "personal views of a few governors". [3][19] The report found that senior council officials and elected members were apparently aware of these issues, but dealt with them on a case-by-case basis rather than making "any serious attempt to see if there was a pattern", though it is not clear whether this was due to "community cohesion", In consequence, the Panel judged that the matter was "an abuse of the process which is of such seriousness that it offends the Panel's sense of justice and propriety. External speakers were improperly vetted. Around a month later, Birmingham City Council revealed that following the letter release it had received hundreds of allegations of plots similar to those described in the letter, some claims dating back over 20 years. As set out in the Panel Report,[133] this included evidence an inspector from the EFA Report who had acted as adviser to the Clarke Report about the circumstances of the EFA inspections where the Panel proposed that "no doubt it would be argued that this further undermined her credibility and the reliability of her evidence" (see paragraphs 124/125 of the Panel's justification of discontinuing). Students were also told that it is un-Islamic to have a pet dog. He asked for publication to be delayed pending "clarification". [78] The EFA team concluded: "We saw evidence that Oldknow academy is acting as a faith school and is not making active efforts to make the academy attractive to all faith denominations including pupils of no faith. [88] This showed that most schools conflated the two and did not have teachers trained in the Prevent duty. [citation needed], Bhupinder Kondal, principal at Oldknow Academy, stated in July 2014 after the publishing of the reports that she recognised the steps illustrated in the letter and that governors had been trying to undermine her since 2009, although the Local Education Authority would not support her. Speaking after withdrawing her resignation, Ms.Kondal said: "The pressures outlined in the Trojan Horse letter are very real and it mustn't be allowed to happen again. It effectively ended the war, demonstrating the ingenuity of the Greeks. Mr Kershaw stated that the council had been "slow to respond" to allegations in the letter and said there was "culture within of not wanting to address difficult issues and problems with school governance" for risk of incurring accusations of racism or Islamophobia. Creationism was taught as fact in school assemblies and science lessons at both Park View and Golden Hillock. [58], The EFA inspection found a classroom culture which was not welcoming to non-Muslim pupils. He claimed that girls should be taught cooking and sewing while boys should be taught trades. Ms.Bano had previously been highly critical of the terms of the inspections of the school, claiming that "[My children] never knew words like radicalisation, but have now been exposed to them. Teachers taught the children at Park View Academy that "good" Muslim women must wear a hijab and tie up their hair. [103] When the reports were published, Mahmood said that scepticism of the original letter could be "put in the bin", but some people still had "their heads buried in the sand". [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. In its separatist assertions and attempts to subvert normal processes it amounts to what is often described as Islamism. [122] The Guardian also analysed Michael Gove's book on combatting Islamist terror, Celsius 7/7, pointing out that a chapter is titled "The Trojan Horse". Books available to the children included one which advocated parents hitting children if they did not pray by the age of 10 and another which praised individuals who "loved death more than life in their pursuit of righteous and true religion". [55] In the event, just 12 teachers were subject to NCTL hearings, in which they were accused of "undue religious influence", not Islamist extremism. [124], In January 2022, a new podcast by The New York Times, The Trojan Horse Affair, cast many doubts on the multiple investigations and the version of events that emerged. The few pupils that elected to study a Christianity unit as part of the Religious Studies GCSE course had to "teach themselves", because the teacher focused on Islamic studies which the majority were studying. [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 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. [47], Reverend John Ray, OBE, and ex-head teacher of a school in Pakistan, resigned as a governor of Golden Hillock School after 25 years. [58], The government ordered an inspection of the Olive Tree school following comments by its head, Abdul Qadeer Baksh, that in an ideal Islamic state, homosexuality would be punishable by death. At the Oldknow academy, children were asked whether they believed in Christmas and encouraged to chant "no we don't" in response. The show also found evidence of unregistered Haredi Jewish schools in London, which an ex-pupil claimed were not teaching a balanced curriculum. Faraz replied by saying that the new head "has to establish herself with minimum controversy for first six months", also referring to starting an eventual "Islamising agenda", but at the same time ensuring that the new head does not become a "coconut" in the process. In August 2014, the Principal Hardeep Saini was replaced by an interim principal. This evidence would come to light when the NCTL misconduct case against senior teachers at PVET collapsed because the prosecution had failed to disclose material from the Clarke Report that it had had in its possession since the start of the proceedings. WebThe Trojan Horse is one of historys most famous tricks. He found "very clear evidence" that young people were encouraged to "accept unquestionably a particular hardline strand of Sunni Islam that raises concerns about their vulnerability to radicalisation in the future". Nor did Clarke report any interviews with schools improvement officers at the local authority of the Department for Education. Following a forensic report by a handwriting expert for the tribunal that strongly suggested the signatures were fraudulent, Birmingham City Council advised Adderley's leadership not to fight the claims and withdrew the usual indemnity granted to council-run schools. However, it transpired that, just before the Panel was due to rule on 3 May 2017 on an application by the defence lawyers to discontinue, the NCTL presented a note from their solicitors. Three schools were commended. Senior leaders did not ensure "balanced views of the world" were taught and that "contact with different cultures, faiths and traditions is too limited to promote tolerance and respect for the views, lifestyles and customs of other people". [90] Nasim Awan, a governor at Springfield, said that the "first agenda item" should be to apply for Islamic assemblies at the secular school. [2]:15, In May 2015, the National Association of Head Teachers' annual conference heard that the problems associated with Operation Trojan Horse persisted, and there were claims that teachers had received death threats for attempting to dissuade students away from homophobia. [96] 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. No charges of extremism were put forward, only charges associated with 'undue religious influence'. [93], The investigation, however, did not find evidence of a "conspiracy" to promote "violent extremism or radicalisation" values.[19]. [29] It encouraged parents to complain about the school's leadership with false accusations of sex education, forced Christian prayer and mixed physical education, with the aim of obtaining a new leadership of Islamists. [22] He announced proposals to send Ofsted to any school without warning, saying that the schools in question had been able to stage a "cover-up" previously. Park View was more compliant than would be the case for other schools. [71], As of September 2015, Golden Hillock School was rebranded Ark Boulton Academy after being taken over by the Ark Academy Chain. The school had a determination from the local SACRE to provide Islamic collective worship since 1996. [60] Girls claimed to have been discriminated against and said some were sent home from a tennis tournament because their dress was too "revealing". First Published 2019. WebIts just a Trojan horse for gentrification: austerity and stadium-led regeneration book By Mark Panton, Geoff Walters. [22] Pupils and staff stayed in luxury five-star hotels. [108][109] The Prime Minister, David Cameron, intervened, requiring that Secretary for Education Michael Gove apologise to the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism head Charles Farr for briefings critical of him appearing in The Times, and Home Secretary Theresa May to sack a close adviser, Fiona Cunningham, known to be in a relationship with Farr,[110] who was found by a Downing Street inquiry to have been the source of a negative briefing against Gove. [72][73][74], Ofsted found that a small group of governors were "endeavouring to promote a particular and narrow faith-based ideology in what is a maintained and non-faith academy". "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. Another school investigated, Alston Primary, was already in special measures. "[92], The report concluded that based on the examination of emails and correspondence: "There is incontrovertible evidence that both senior officials and elected members of Birmingham council were aware of activities that bear a striking resemblance to those described in the Trojan horse letter many months before it surfaced. Arrangements for the hearings were deeply unsatisfactory, with four separate cases brought against different groups of teachers associated with PVET and one other school, Oldknow Academy (which it transpired had a Memorandum of Understanding with PVET, signed at the behest of the Department for Education). [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. [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. Neoptolemus son of Achilles, who according to a prophecy had to fight at Troy in order for the Achaeans to be victorious. [7][8] This document provided guidance about the religious needs and practices of Muslim parents and pupils that would facilitate their integration into schools. [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. WebA Trojan Horse is a program that uses malicious code masqueraded as a trusted application. He announced proposals to send Ofsted to any s 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. [12] West Midlands Police and the city council investigated whether the letter was a hoax and the plot had been concocted to support Adderley's school case at the employment tribunal. The Trojan Horse was a clever idea that turned the tide of the war in favor of the Greeks. [85] The governors of the school were sacked in April because of inappropriate interference in the running of the school. [32], In July 2014, Channel 4's investigative programme Dispatches aired an episode titled "No Clapping in Class" on the issue of faith schools. It was entitled Towards Greater Understanding: Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools. This led the Panel to conclude that the matter had not been a misunderstanding, but that the transcripts were "deliberately withheld from disclosure". to lead the Department for Education analysis of "evidence of extremist infiltration in both academies and council-run schools". The Department for Education inspection found the seating arrangements "often with boys sitting towards the front of the class and girls at the back or around the sides". [119], Tahir Alam, chair of governors at Park View and labelled by some newspapers as the "ringleader" of Operation Trojan Horse, resigned alongside all of his board of trustees on 15 July. ", "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. [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. ", Peter Clarke, former counterterrorism chief, conducted the investigation which gathered and examined 2,000 documents and generated 2,000 pages of interview transcripts from 50 witnesses, including former headteachers, teachers, council staff and school governors. He said that the overview report on the matter could trigger "some kind of bloody firestorm" and "may well lead to significant structural proposals" for the city council. If that fails get rid of the white kid." [40], Based on interview and research in The New York Times podcast Serial, the producers argue that most levels of government did not prioritise the identification of the letter's author. [34] The Guardian and The Independent both stated that the letter is "widely regarded as a fake". [100], In a letter to Park View Trust chairman Tahir Alam, Education Minister Lord Nash criticised its running of the schools, saying he was "deeply mindful of the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations". Mark Walters has been removed from his current school's website very recently. [5][15][16] Golden Hillock School, Nansen Primary School, Park View School all run by the Park View Educational Trust Oldknow Academy and Saltley School were placed in special measures after inspectors found systemic failings including the schools having failed to take adequate steps to safeguard pupils against extremism. The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair (2017). Richard Kerbaj and Sian Griffiths, writing in The Sunday Times, reported that over 100 teachers would be charged with professional misconduct. [58], The Education Funding Agency (EFA) found that the school lacked a balanced and broad curriculum and saw several subjects marginalised. [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".
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