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. [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". [126], Akmal was recorded saying that "white women have the least amount of morals" and since women were "emotionally weaker" than men, their role was to look after children and the home. [29] Its author described the plan as "totally invisible to the naked eye and [allowing] us to operate under the radar". They investigated schools in East London, Bradford and Luton over concerns regarding a limited curriculum and pupils' detachment from the wider community. [4], These claims by witnesses were unsubstantiated. Three schools were commended. The previous trustees of the academy having been replaced, she withdrew her resignation and returned to her post on 19August 2014. However, the report interviewed none of the teachers or governors against whom allegations were made with the single exception of Tahir Alam. [86], The investigation found there to be "no evidence to suggest that there is a problem with governance generally" nor any "evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham", but said there was "evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views". [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". Alam remains[when?] Nor did he report any evidence provided by school improvement officers at Birmingham City Council or the department for Education. [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". "[127] Shabina Bano, chair of the Oldknow Academy Parents' Association, said parents would welcome Ms.Kondal back because they wanted, stability as soon as possible At the same time we want to know why she deserted parents. [8], Ofsted found that the governing body interfered with the running of Saltley School and undermined the work of its senior leaders. His complaints were published on 24 February 2014,[39] whereas the 'trojan horse' letter was not sent to the press until 2 March 2014. He criticised the approaches to the story by the BBC[120] and The Guardian, which he claimed were unduly biased in favour of the schools. The study of French was replaced by Arabic. Look at how [the] Muslim population is increasing in the UK. This had been initiated by Sir Tim Brighouse, who had been Chief Education Officer in Birmingham between 1993 and 2002, and was highly critical of the 2014 Ofsted reports and the subsequent inquiries. [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". 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). [90] Nasim Awan, a governor at Springfield, said that the "first agenda item" should be to apply for Islamic assemblies at the secular school. [105], The Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, Jim Fitzpatrick, warned of a 'Trojan Horse'-style Islamist plot to infiltrate councils in London. [7][8] This document provided guidance about the religious needs and practices of Muslim parents and pupils that would facilitate their integration into schools. The latter found that there is "no evidence to suggest that there is a problem with governance generally" nor any "evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham", but said that there was "evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views", and that there had been "co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained" attempts "by a number of associated individuals, to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos" into "a few schools in Birmingham". Imprint Routledge. [94] In fact, this film was a BBC Panorama programme, a copy of which had been made at the request of West Midlands Police, to show at a session they were providing for the school on the dangers of radicalisation. At paragraph 37 of his judgement, he writes that. [4] Governors also restricted teaching topics which were part of the Department for Education's Prevent strategy, such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation. " 'Trojan Horse' schools: the leaked inspectors' report". Telegraph Blogs. Archived from the original on 23 April 2014. ^ Gilligan, Andrew (9 March 2014). "Extremists and the 'Trojan Horse' approach in state schools". The Telegraph. ^ "Trojan Horse leaked report says pupils 'not protected from extremism' ". Altogether the documents that were deemed to be relevant amounted to about 1600 pages. [3][4] Birmingham City Council imposed a temporary freeze on the appointment of school governors after probes into Operation Trojan Horse were announced. A member of staff at Park View also alleged that the school had handed out worksheets stating that wives can not refuse to have sex with their husbands, a claim that the school denied. [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. Menelaus King of Sparta, husband of Helen, and brother of Agamemnon. Additionally, the inspection stated that "there are too few books about the world's major religions other than Islam". Media coverage of Operation Trojan Horse was varied. [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. [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". [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. [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. External speakers were improperly vetted. The group promoted links to extremist speakers that betrayed "an Islamist approach that denied the validity of alternative belief", and some group members who believed that the murder of Lee Rigby was staged, encouraged other members to promulgate this view. Another teacher told the children that were "lucky to be Muslims and not ignorant like Christians and Jews". is for sale online, in a number of independent bookshops, including one in Seattle, and in a major bookshop chain in London. Nor did Clarke report any interviews with schools improvement officers at the local authority of the Department for Education. The books contained fundamentalist views and promoted executions, stoning and lashing as appropriate punishments. However, what was at issue also included other documents outside the Clarke Report that had potentially been relevant to the case. [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". [131], A further comment by Mr Justice Phillips is noteworthy. Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Birmingham, praised his government's swift action in investigating the conspiracy. [5], Ofsted expressed concerns about an exclusively Muslim culture in non-faith schools and children not being taught to "develop tolerant attitudes towards other faiths". [4] No evidence was provided to substantiate these claims. [3] It found that a number of governors and senior teachers had been promoting a form of Islamism or Salafism. [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. 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. 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". The letter was leaked to the press in March 2014. This 345ac property fronts the south side of SR70 / Okeechobee Rd, a major cross-state highway ; Is 4.5 miles west of the I-95 & Florida Turnpike 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. [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. [20] After the Trojan Horse affair, this[clarification needed] was replaced by a new duty to promote "fundamental British values". From Serial Productions and The New York Times, The Trojan Horse He said the government would be terminating its funding arrangement with three of the schools. 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. 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. [citation needed] A senior teacher told inspectors that the solution to all problems would be a global Caliphate under Sharia law. 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. [19], In an incident that was referred to counter-terrorism police, a teacher told the pupils at the Golden Hillock school "not to listen to Christians as they were all liars". The school has a largely Muslim governing body. 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. [28] This included a special concern with the achievement of pupils of Asian heritage, as set out in its "Asian heritage achievement action plan" of 19 December 2003. 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. Neoptolemus son of Achilles, who according to a prophecy had to fight at Troy in order for the Achaeans to be victorious. [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". ", "Trojan Horse row Q&A: What is the 'Muslim plot' all about and why is it so important? Andrew Gilligan of The Daily Telegraph wrote extensively on the episode. 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. Trojan Horsewalkers' Team | Conditioning horses since 1961 Products Lead Walkers Free Flow Exerciser Rebuilt Kit FAQ Price Quote About Us Contact Us 855-265-4222 Products Lead [2], The report commissioned by Birmingham City Council and compiled by former head teacher, Ian Kershaw, concluded that school governors and teachers had tried to promote and enforce radical Islamic values and found evidence of extremism in 13 schools. Despite calling for secrecy, a hidden recording was sent to The Daily Telegraph, in which Rogers criticised the approach to the conspiracy by Education Secretary Michael Gove and Chief Schools Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. [2] They described the Trojan Horse affair as a "false narrative" spread by a hostile British press which led to "a serious miscarriage of justice" against the teachers, drawing comparisons to the Hillsborough affair. Using a graphic book to disseminate academic research findings. It appears that this wording troubled the Head of the Department for Education's Due Diligence and Counter Extremism Group, Hardip Begol. Indeed, neither the Kershaw Report, nor the Clarke Report asked the question of how a school could be taken over by governors and teachers. [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". [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. [32], In July 2014, Channel 4's investigative programme Dispatches aired an episode titled "No Clapping in Class" on the issue of faith schools. [31], Of the schools mentioned by the letter, the account of Adderley Primary School was the more detailed, alleging that an employment dispute at Adderley was part of the Islamic plot's attempt to unseat the head teacher and install a conspirator with the same radical Islamification goals as the letter writers. At the Oldknow academy, children were asked whether they believed in Christmas and encouraged to chant "no we don't" in response. [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 said that the efforts to instil fundamentalist practices into Birmingham classrooms were based on a "warped and abusive view of the religion". Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies, 13, 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. Agent: Mark Walters - (772)-201-5650. [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 Panel had been ready to announce its decision in the case on 23 December 2016, but an urgent application for disclosure, relating, in part, to transcripts associated with the Clarke Report, was made by defence lawyers on 24 November 2016. What has happened has brought the integrity of the process into disrepute". The Trojans believed the horse was a peace offering and dragged it inside their city. He asked for publication to be delayed pending "clarification". After the Trojans got within four, the Long Beach Poly product rattled off his own mini 7-0 run. Hamza Syed There was a fact checker on our team who said when he heard that scene, it brought a context that has largely been missing from what it actually means to be Muslim. [81], During the tribunal it emerged that a photo of a white person was shown to students as an example of what Christians look like. [58] Ofsted stated that the school had failed to protect students from "the risks of radicalisation and extremism". [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. Book Sport Policy and Politics in an Era of Austerity. 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. [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. WebIdomeneus King of Crete, hero who defended against Hector, and killed 20 Trojan heroes. "[4] [95], After the reports were published, Liam Byrne, Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, said that cultural division in Birmingham had been caused by the rhetoric of the government, and "[Birmingham]'s school system is so fragmented it feels at times likes the Balkans". 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 He said some of the witnesses had been very nervous and anxious. The teacher also used school facilities to copy Osama bin Laden DVDs. [5][80] Inspectors found that no humanities, arts or music was taught in Year 6 and only "limited" teaching of these subjects in Year 5. The Education Funding Authority conducted a parallel investigation. [45], In May 2014, the BBC reported that Tim Boyes, the former headteacher of Queensbridge School, had written anonymously to Birmingham City Council in 2010 to try to expose Operation Trojan Horse,[46] and in June a former prospective school governor said that he had informed authorities of the conspiracy in 2008. He raised concerns about the governance of Golden Hillock 20 years ago stating that the Trojan horse plot "reveals something, something that is true". [53] Birmingham City Council was already under investigation by Sir Bob Kerslake over problems of governance associated with financial management, looked after children, waste services and issues of equal pay for work of equal value. 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". [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. [32] This audit report was later reportedly retracted by the council following the Trojan Horse letter, and has never been published. It was entitled Towards Greater Understanding: Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools. Once inside the network, attackers are able to carry out any action that a legitimate user could perform, such as exporting files, modifying data, deleting files or otherwise altering the contents of the device. It also did not report any interviews with members of Birmingham Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) responsible for the agreed curriculum on religious education taught in local authority schools in Birmingham, and also responsible for approving deterninations of daily acts of collective worship for other than Christian worship. In May, Mark Rogers, Birmingham City Council's Chief Executive, had a meeting with head teachers of affected schools. 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". [101] Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Perry Barr, said that the City Council may have known of previous plots, but not acted due to fears of being seen as anti-Islamic. Ofsted said it had found evidence of an organised campaign to target certain schools by Islamists and that head teachers had been "marginalised or forced out of their jobs". It effectively ended the war, demonstrating the ingenuity of the Greeks. 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]. Assistant principal Lee Donaghy, a self-declared agnostic, said that the school was achieving more by "accommodating" Muslim practices, but called it "pernicious" the idea "that people running the school are trying to force more religion on these kids than the parents want". mark walters trojan horse. [19] It found evidence that the "five steps" to destabilise a school's leadership, as outlined in the original Trojan Horse letter, were "present in a large number of the schools considered part of the investigation". [68][69] Two other senior teachers were also suspended. It said that there was never a serious effort to ascertain what was happening in school governing bodies, and that council's approach had been described as one of "appeasement and a failure in their duty of care towards their employees". [4], Student ambassadors, known as "religious police" by some staff, are appointed at Park View to report "the names of staff or students who exhibit behaviours deemed unacceptable by conservative Muslims". A sixth school was labelled inadequate for its poor educational standards and twelve schools were found needing of improvements. [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. [18] Birmingham City Council commissioned Ian Kershaw of Northern Education Trust in Newcastle to review the evidence. He claimed that girls should be taught cooking and sewing while boys should be taught trades. [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". He said that its conclusions did not reflect the full reality in schools, and that discrepancies between this and the governmental report were "regrettable and unhelpful". He said that the "colonial blood" within white people was "very difficult to get rid of that very quickly", as British people "still think they rule half the world". Staff wishing to discuss LGBT matters were lambasted by governors. [95], Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Birmingham, praised his government's swift action in investigating the conspiracy. 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." This affected the teaching of English, Art, Religious Education and Personal, Social and Health Education. He worked for a charity believed by the US to have links with terrorist organisations. One EFA inspector went on to become educational adviser to Peter Clarke. The show also found evidence of unregistered Haredi Jewish schools in London, which an ex-pupil claimed were not teaching a balanced curriculum. Book Sport Policy and Politics in an Era of Austerity. [25], A number of governors and the Muslim Council of Britain dubbed the reaction of authorities to the plot a "witch-hunt". The report found that attempts were made to introduce Sharia law in schools. [126], Akmal said that jailing gay people and adulterers was a "moral position to hold" and that they should be exiled from the community. [93] The report said that the extremism went unchallenged as the council prioritised community cohesion over "doing what is right". Adderley primary school is at the centre of the podcast's investigations. [113] Pieces in The Guardian included criticism of the academy system,[121] and demands that all state schools be made secular. [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. [12][1], In December 2022 a report from right-leaning Policy Exchange challenged the findings of the New York Times podcast and suggested that various reports into the matter had uncovered real causes for concern. The 16-year-old girl's phone was confiscated by the teacher during a Sunday event and then taken to a shop for its passcode to be broken, and its contents were then examined by the school. [71], As of September 2015, Golden Hillock School was rebranded Ark Boulton Academy after being taken over by the Ark Academy Chain. [2], The leaked letter on the alleged plot was reported by media including the BBC on 7 March 2014. [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. 163-183. Michael Gove. 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. ", 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. "[78], Segregation was found in one classroom with girls sitting at the back with their heads covered. [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. Mark Walters, who testified that he saw Rizvana Darr open the teaching assistants' resignation letters, seems [30], The Times described the letter as "a crude forgery", noting that "The document appears to show that the conspirators were working to remove a primary school headmistress who was actually dismissed 20 years ago". [135][136] No mention was made of the fact that allegations of extremism had not been any part of the charges against teachers. Under the academy schools programme, it could only be done with the active involvement of officials in the local authority (including over the transfer of assets to the new trust) and at the Department for Education and it would require an academically successful school to be the sponsor of 'failing' schools. While this kit can be [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. 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. He said "man-made" British laws were "very confusing", unlike those "given by God", which were fair. The art curriculum was altered to "remove full faces or immodest images, such as paintings by Gustav Klimt". [76][77] Exchange visits with nearby churches had been curtailed. [43], Two anonymous members of staff at Park View School told BBC Radio 4 that school assemblies had praised Anwar al-Awlaki. Responsibility for determinations for academy schools passed to the Department for Education, but they put in place no measures for renewing determinations. Responsibility for determinations for academy schools passed to the Department for Education, but they put in place no measures for renewing determinations. richard belding leave it to beaver songs about rebelling against parents makai polk scouting report. [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. The New York Times podcast "The Trojan Horse Affair" uncovered this secret document that disproves one of the central allegations of the Trojan Horse letter, that there was a conspiracy against the headteacher of Adderley primary school. Staff were afraid to speak out about the significant changes. [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", Its just a Trojan horse for gentrification: austerity and stadium-led regeneration book By Mark Panton, Geoff Walters. It said that "manipulative" governors had been determined to introduce "unacceptable" practices and to deny students a broad and balanced education. The report identified the Muslim Council of Britain and the Association of Muslim Schools as organisations "[stemming] from an international movement to increase the role of Islam in education". In its separatist assertions and attempts to subvert normal processes it amounts to what is often described as Islamism. They say that the letter had disproportionate emphasis on events at Adderley Primary School and the letter's timing proved a boon to Adderley's head teacher, Rizwana Darr, in Adderley's contemporaneous employment dispute immediately after an internal audit report had referred the dispute at Adderley to the police, specifically recommending Darr be investigated. Although the school describes itself as "multi-faith", there are claims that the Islamic call to prayer is broadcast to the entire school. Richard Kerbaj and Sian Griffiths, writing in The Sunday Times, reported that over 100 teachers would be charged with professional misconduct. [55] In the event, just 12 teachers were subject to NCTL hearings, in which they were accused of "undue religious influence", not Islamist extremism. 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. Community cohesion and PREVENT: how have schools responded? [84] The school was rated "inadequate". Posters were found in the classrooms encouraging children to begin lessons with a Muslim prayer, one saying: "If you do not pray, you are worse than a kafir", and staff reported that loudspeakers were set up in the school to broadcast a call to prayer. Another school investigated, Alston Primary, was already in special measures. 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. Mr Justice Phillips declared that evidence for the defence presented in the hearing against the senior leadership team should have been made available to the defendants in the other case. [75] The school's curriculum was deemed inadequate because it did not promote tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions. [3][4][5] The name, based on the Greek legend, comes from an anonymous letter sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013, alleged to be from Birmingham "Islamists" detailing how to wrest control of a school, and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities. Another school investigated, Alston Primary, was already in special measures. This stated that, on 14 October 2014, they had received "25 of the Clarke transcripts to include transcripts of 10 interviewees who went on to be witnesses for the NCTL in these proceedings. [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". [62], Forced segregation of the genders was observed in some classes at Golden Hillock and was mandated in some departmental policy documents. Jaimie Martin, former special adviser at the Department for Education, wrote that "it is important to note as [the teachers] were not tried for the charges, they were therefore not cleared of them", and that "people who downplay the seriousness of Trojan Horse, claiming those involved exhibited 'mainstream' Islamic views, are guilty not only of stunning naivety, but of a dangerous error". The two inquiries shared evidence, with the Kershaw inquiry deferring matters of extremism to the Clarke inquiry. [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. [citation needed] Later, he was critical of the Conservatives' plan to teach "British values", claiming that it would alienate moderate Muslims. At the heart of the affair Information and Guidance for Schools and is available as an appendix to the Kershaw Report. For the ufology book, see, Saltley School and Specialist Science College, Laisterdyke Business and Enterprise College, Political row between Home Office and Department for Education, National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) hearings, Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, "Trojan horse: the real story behind the fake 'Islamic plot' to take over schools", Report into allegations concerning Birmingham schools arising from the 'Trojan Horse' letter, "Trojan horse inquiry: 'A coordinated agenda to impose hardline Sunni Islam', "Trojan Horse: Ofsted says schools were targeted", "Birmingham City Council receives 'hundreds' of allegations after Trojan Horse claims", "Guide to school Islamisation, by 'ringleader' of Trojan Horse plot", "Investigation Report: Trojan Horse Letter (The Kershaw Report)", "Banned school governor Tahir Alam fights gay equality lessons", "High court overturns lifetime bans for Trojan horse teachers", https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/The-Trojan-Horse-Affair.pdf, "Michael Gove calls New York Times 'useful idiots' for Trojan horse podcast", "Islamist plot: six schools face Ofsted special measures", "Police arrest four former teaching assistants from 'Trojan Horse' school", "Trojan Horse: Ofsted probe widens to Luton and London", "Trojan Horse: Birmingham council 'accepts' Ofsted reports", "Christians lie and wives must have sex or go to hell, Trojan Horse pupils told", "Birmingham council freezes appointment of school governors following Trojan Horse probe", "Guidance on promoting British values in schools published", "PM threatens snap Ofsted inspections over 'Trojan Horse' affair", "Trojan Horse: Three schools to lose funding", "Trojan horse report: All schoolchildren to be taught British values from September, says Michael Gove", "Education and Muslims: End this Witch-Hunt of British Muslims", "Education experts voice fury over Ofsted's 'Trojan Horse' schools inquiry", "Jihadist plot to take over Birmingham schools", "Shamed head and deputy banned from teaching over SATs tests cheating", "Alleged Islamic plot to take over Birmingham schools may be hoax", "Trojan Horse affair: Midlands student behind controversial podcast", "Is the Trojan horse row just a witch hunt triggered by a hoax? It found that non-Muslim staff were banned from assemblies in which the children were preached at and told that white women were "prostitutes". [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". an "issue of education management", or appeasement. A detailed discussion of the evidence presented in the NCTL case is provided in chapter 9 of John Holmwood and Therese O'Toole's book on the Trojan Horse affair. The reporter recorded a series of meetings with him which the Mirror alleged exposed Akmal as a "sexist, racist bigot". Children were banned from playing musical instruments and drama lessons were dropped from the schedule. The school had spent 50,000 on three subsidised trips to Saudi Arabia so that pupils could visit the cities of Mecca and Medina in what the EFA described as "an extravagant use of public funds". [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. [102] Mahmood, said that he felt that it was certain that "Salafists" were attempting to change the school's secular nature and "split young people away from their parents". [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. [114] He later said that the Council accepted the Ofsted findings that schools in the city were failing pupils. [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. [78][80] Christmas events were cancelled and raffles and tombolas were banned at a recent school fete because they were considered un-Islamic. It described a "madrassa curriculum" and reported that "posters were written in Quranic Arabic in most of the classrooms visited. [24], Members of Parliament of all three major parties in Birmingham wrote a joint letter for an inquiry. This was after the government had cited the Trojan Horse affair as justification for its new plans to counter extremism.[130]. Opera News describes veteran baritone Mark Walters as a force to be reckoned with as Don Carlo in La forza del destino. [116] Tahir Alam, a governor at Park View School since 1997, and former chair of the education committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that the accusations had been "motivated by anti-Muslim, anti-Islam sentiment". Park View was more compliant than would be the case for other schools. [2], Golden Hillock School, Nansen Primary School, Park View Academy 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. 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. Of 21 schools investigated by Ofsted, and 14 schools investigated by the Clarke Report, charges were brought against teachers at just 4 schools. 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. WebPanton, Mark and Walters, Geoff (2018) Its just a Trojan horse for gentrification: austerity and stadium-led regeneration. Texts and images of the girl with a boy, a fellow Year 11 pupil at Park View, were used to justify the girl's suspension weeks before her GCSE exams. [12], On 14 April, the City Council confirmed that it had received over 200 reports from parents and staff at 25 schools in Birmingham. Creationism was taught as fact in school assemblies and science lessons at both Park View and Golden Hillock. "[4] He conducted no interviews with governors or teachers who were accused of misconduct, with the exception of Tahir Alam. Ofsted found that the curriculum was being narrowed to reflect the "personal views of a few governors". [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. A three-year-old in a nursery said that his family were poor because the Jews and Zionists had all the money. [3][4] This reflects the views of the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society and included the description of a document intended to provide guidance about the needs of Muslim pupils in state schools as a "blueprint for Islamisation". She also said, "It is not just an academy problem, this was happening before we became an academy. 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. [20] Ian Kershaw, Head of Northern Education Trust in Newcastle, was named as its full-time special adviser.[52]. The teachers were barred from responding to the allegations due to confidentiality orders as part of their employment contracts that were binding also after the suspension. The inspection said that "too little is done to keep students safe from the risks associated with extremist views". [17], Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw accused Birmingham City Council of a "serious failure" in supporting schools in protecting children from extremism. Edition 1st Edition. Segregationism dividing the world into 'us' and 'them', with them to include all non-Muslims and other Muslims who disagree; Attempts to impose its views and practices upon others; Intolerance of difference, whether the secular, other religions or other Muslims. He said that Birmingham City Council had limited its process and terms of reference "in a way which excludes critical evidence", that it had employed "too narrow a definition of extremism" and that the governmental report had reached a very different set of conclusions by accessing a different evidence base. [4][89], The discussions contained: "Explicit homophobia, highly offensive comments about British service personnel, a stated ambition to increase segregation at the school, disparagement of Muslims in sectors other than their own, scepticism about the truth of reports of the murder of Lee Rigby and the Boston Marathon bombing and a constant undercurrent of anti-western, anti-America and anti-Israel sentiment. [126], He claimed that white children were lazy. [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. [97], Michael Gove, the Education secretary, announced that all of England's schools would have to promote "British values" of tolerance and fairness and that teachers would be banned from the profession if they allowed extremists into schools. It is designed to steal, damage, or do some harmful actions on the computer. About. There were posters in schools warning the children that if they did not pray, they would "go to hell". Instead, the report concluded, the council was focused on community cohesion. These questions have been left unanswered She has not been held to account. A mysterious letter detailing a supposed Islamist plot to take over schools shocked Britain in 2014. As a result the content may not reflect current Government policy and may make reference to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) which has now been replaced by the Department for Education (DFE). ^ Cook, Chris (18 July 2014). " 'Trojan Horse' report an unhelpful epitaph for Michael Gove". Students were also told that it is un-Islamic to have a pet dog. [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". 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. [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. The annual sports event for boys and girls was scheduled in different days. 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). [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 latter piece concluded that in the present system, the schools investigated could have registered themselves as faith schools and been allowed to teach Islamic values with permission from the state. Ms.Kondal alleged she had been the victim of undue and unlawful pressure to resign her position by both parents and governors. [19], At Nansen School, Islamic religious assemblies were introduced and Christmas and Diwali celebrations were cancelled. [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. Teachers reported unfair treatment because of their gender or religious beliefs. The charge of failure to disclose documents from the main hearing against senior teachers in other hearings, however, indicated a possibility of a similar failure on the part of NCTL to fulfil its obligations of disclosure in the hearing against senior leaders. A sixth school was labelled inadequate for its poor educational standards and twelve schools were found needing of improvements. Four teacher assistants were suing the school for unfair dismissal after being forced out of the school with fake resignation letters signed in their names. There was evidence from officials at the Department for Education responsible for managing the incorporation of schools into PVET, as well as initiating a memorandum of agreement between PVET and Oldknow (paragraph 123). Information and Guidance for Schools and is available as an appendix to the Kershaw Report. 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. Share. A Trojan Horse (Trojan) is a type of malware that disguises itself as legitimate code or software. Neither report addressed this, nor did they report any interviews with those officials and the minutes of the meetings that took place among senior leaders at the various schools. [88] This showed that most schools conflated the two and did not have teachers trained in the Prevent duty. [17], Birmingham City Council announced an investigation into the allegations, estimated to last six months. [60], It was alleged that the sexes were segregated in the classrooms and boys and girls suspected of being too friendly towards each other were disciplined. [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. [19] Like Peter Clarke, Kershaw seemed unaware that all schools had a duty to promote community cohesion. 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. This led the Panel to conclude that the matter had not been a misunderstanding, but that the transcripts were "deliberately withheld from disclosure". mark walters trojan horse. WebTrojan horse virus, also called trojan, may be defined as malware that appears to be legitimate or appropriate software and used by attackers to compromise the systems security. Mark Walters has been removed from his current school's website very recently. The decision to discontinue disciplinary proceedings was based on procedural grounds not on a shortage of evidence". They included:[3][4], The report found there had been changes made to the curriculum and education plans, including increasing the faith component. [91] Another participant in the discussion said that "JEWS" (emphasis in original) were making websites with false information on the Quran, while Abdul Malik, Deputy Head of Golden Hillock in Bradford wrote "Al-Islam will prevail over all other ways of life. The malicious code can be injected on benign applications, masqueraded in e-mail links, or sometimes hidden in JavaScript pages to make furtive attacks against vulnerable internet Browsers. Others were challenged in court before the case against the senior teachers was discontinued. The Muslim Council of Britain also described the investigation as a 'witch hunt'. Youre otherwise a regular Joe, you just go and pray on occasions. In August 2014, the Principal Hardeep Saini was replaced by an interim principal. [24] In the wake of the findings, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, announced that all schools in the country will have to promote British values of tolerance and fairness and said that teachers will be banned from the profession if they allow extremists into schools. [112] The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has also expressed concerns about the scope of the problem in other major cities, whilst advising that there was no "cause for panic". [107], In June 2014, there was a highly public argument between the Home Office and Department for Education ministers about the responsibility for the alleged extremism. In July 2015, Ofsted stated that Golden Hillock was still inadequate. Skilled Account Development Executive in areas of Insurances and Financial Servant Leader and faithful optimist of delivering an exceptional partnership product experience. No charges of extremism were put forward, only charges associated with 'undue religious influence'. It also provides useful information and guidance and features of good practice in meeting those needs. [110][111], The National Union of Teachers (NUT) demanded a full review of academies after the letter was revealed, expressing that political and religious groups had exploited the status at thousands of schools to indoctrinate children.