Girls been forced to sit at the back of the class

[Wannabestepfordwife]

Apologies that I can't link but has anyone else seen recent stories on the Al-Madinah school in derby.

Not only are female staff required to wear a headscarf regardless of religion and having their contracts changed to reflect this.

But female students are being forced to sit at the back of the class and have to give up their place in the dinner queue for male pupils.

Now I'm not what you would call an active feminist but I'm absolutely disgusted by this. A free and equal education for everyone regardless of sex, creed, race is one of the best things about this country IMO.

Does anyone know what powers the government have over free schools or can they basically do what they want?

'free schools (not necessarily the faith ones) as a fast-track route to privatisation and profit-making without proper due diligence'

It might have been pointed out but just to add that Al-Madinah is under investigation by the Education Funding Agency for alleged financial irregularities. Which also suggests the free school route may be open to abuse even by non-profit trusts.

The thing is, with faith schools, you can kind of see why faiths, any faiths, get into education. I'm not saying it's right for them to, and I'm not saying it's wrong either. I wouldn't send my DCs to a faith school but I can understand why others would. I think most religions getting involved in education are probably doing it for the right reasons, and definitely not for monetary profit.

But when you get the bloke from Carpetright getting involved in education (I believe he is involved in some academies, don't know if he's opened any free schools), I have to wonder what he is getting out of it.

And as for the private schools, I know of a local one that became an academy because it was struggling for numbers, and attended a recent open evening where my family weren't exactly made very welcome. Can't put my finger on why really, but it made me feel suspicious.

What I still don't understand is why when we are having a crisis of not enough school places are the government funding free schools but not giving LAs sufficient funding to deal with the problem

We should stop all state funding for any religious school C of E, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim. Parents can educate children at home in religion ( or pay school fees to educate them privately).

crescentmoon This is a side debate to the thread but I'll answer a couple of points. The BHA website lists 50 schools which it considers the most socially selective and most are faith schools. Tauheedul has 8.65% FSM pupils but 26.69% in the local area. (Another local CofE school is just as exclusive - but do two wrongs make a right?)

This article may give more background. The four mosques are affiliated with Gujarati speaking Indian community while the town's Muslim population is predominantly Pakistani:

www.asianimage.co.uk/news/education/8631904.Muslim_school_hits_back_at__racism__claims/

Wannabestepford since 2010 the government has decreed that LAs cannot open new community schools unless they are academies or voluntary aided schools but then they have no control over admissions policies, and there has been much confusion over sponsor approval. The DfE is deciding centrally on new free schools but the overriding ideology was competition. So some have opened despite 300 spare places in schools within 3 miles that were tied into long-term PFI deals but are losing pupils and revenue. Meanwhile the government has cut capital expenditure for LA maintained schools and although it has made some money available recently it is too little, too late, and is probably only enough to create supersized primaries (while 1FE free schools are opening). And class sizes are growing past 30 per class.

If you sign up for limited free access to FT articles there is an article on this entitled 'Former education minister urges Tories to cut school sizes'.

The Times has an interesting article today about a very strict Jewish school in London with girls wearing modest clothing, no TV allowed at home or school, pictures of art works censored etc. (Subscribers can see it at www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article3887162.ece )

the school in the OP has been immediately closed, I heard on the radio, is that true?

It was closed for health and safety reasons and I think is re-opening today.
Schools are allowed to be sexist and even C of E schools can read out those bits of the bible which say women should submit to men etc. The sooner we take all religions and sexism out of all state funded schools the better.

When my friends were putting their dcs into private nurseries, I put mine into the local state nursery. The private nurseries were overcrowded and small, with little outside space. The state nursery had fully trained very experienced staff with the full accountability of an education department and a governing body behind them. It was safe and stimulating.

It seems that free schools are another way to make parents feel that they are giving their children security by the illusion of small size and exclusivity. In fact they are exposing their children to the risks that go along with lack of accountability - overlooked staff credentials, overbearing rules or curriculum and financial conflicts of interest behind the scenes.

I can't believe that Carpretright are getting into education, what with their record of, well, lying to customers about prices how can this be right?

If you have a spare hour there is a documentary here www.academiesandlies.org.uk/ called 'The Parents, The Politician and the Carpetbagger' about how Lord Harris, chairman of Carpetright and Tory party donor, managed to get his hands on a school that was a forced academy, and it ended up one of the 'Harris Federation'.

You can read the massive bomb that the DfE have planted under them here. It gives them lists of problems (some of them absolutely massive) to be fixed by the end of this week, the end of next week and the end of the month. Otherwise they're going to have their funding terminated.

Several of the things that are being demanded will piss off the parents whose children are there already. They have this week to "Provide me with written confirmation that you have ceased any practices and procedures that have as their reason, cause or effect that women and girls are treated less favourably than men and boys" when it's precisely that discrimination that is the appeal for some parents. They have until next week to "Satisfy me that your curriculum is broad and balanced" when, again, it's the imbalance in the curriculum that is part of the USP.

And paragraph (m), about the "many and significant failings with regards to financial management" is pretty explosive, too.

And "Provide me with a document setting out how the school will ensure that it is welcoming and attractive to students of all faiths and none" is probably the iron fist in the already pretty metallic glove, because it's effectively "you can remain a free school, but only if you stop doing all the stuff you're currently doing".

The wheels of the DfE grind exceeding slow, but they also grind exceeding fine. It's hard to see the school, at least as presently constituted, surviving this. And the Ofsted report hasn't even been published yet!

Thanks for the link friday it's a hell of a to do list!

I really think the acting principal is going to struggle to find another job I wouldn't want someone who thought putting girls at the back of the class was acceptable teaching my dd

Good!

It was closed for health and safety reasons according to the Independent, the H&S reasons were that a lot of the staff hadn't been CRB checked.

That explains the first item on the list. I heard they'd reopened, presumably they've got enough checked staff at this point to do so.

Interesting they're scrutinizing the governors - clearly they've not been up to the job to date.

I really don't understand why, given general lack of money, any of these schools were funded in the first place. However, given that the government seems to want health care professionals to be more like Tesco's employees, I suppose it's not that surprising.