Fulham Boys' School - preaching a"legalistic and blatantly misogynistic rehash of upper class Victorian era roles"

[Emilyontmoor]

The quote is from a review of a book by Gavin Peacock, former footballer and now Director of International outreach for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (an American evangelical organisation that promotes the belief that God created Adam and Eve as a model and any divergence in terms of identity, sexuality and gender is wrong), who recently spent a week at Fulham Boys' School, a CofE state free school. This is the review www.amazon.com/Grand-Design-Male-Female-Made/dp/1781917647/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1540234398&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3AGavin+Peacock and this is more detail on CBMW cbmw.org/cbmw-in-london-uk/

I am frankly shocked that he was allowed to spend a week during which he must have surely proselytised his evangelical views which are at the very least inconsistent with British society's values on equality, if not full on Christian fundamentalism ? Did the parents of boys there know Mr Peacocks agenda? His views may have been offered up for the boys to debate but was that consistent with having an ethos in the school that encourages respect for women and understanding and space for those boys who will inevitably be struggling with issues around their own identity? What fuss would there be if a Muslim preacher was allowed to proselytise these views in a state school? Is this airing of extreme evangelical views that are coming from the outside of the CofE structures acceptable to the diocese?

This is going to be long but here is the fuller background. Mr Ebenezer, is the the Headmaster at Fulham Boys' School, an author of evangelical books and speaks regularly at various Independent Evangelical churches, here are sermons he delivered at Hounslow West and Amyand Park Evangelical church but there are several more churches he has spoken at. www.hwec.org.uk/index.php/preacher/alunebenezer/ www.amyand.org.uk/sermons/speaker/21-alun-ebenezer His invitation to Mr Peacock to spend a week at the school must surely be related to his own evangelical beliefs, as he says at 11.30 in this sermon to Amyand Park Chapel in Twickenham, "Wives submit, men love, children obey." www.amyand.org.uk/files/sermons/1521413377_VnsyD_20180318_AM_AE_ChristiansAtHome_Ephesians.mp3

Mr Peacocks twitter reflects his beliefs "We have turned against boys and forgotten a simple truth: the energy, competitiveness and corporal daring of normal males are responsible for much of what is right in the world" "When godly men lead and love, godly women follow and flourish." "In God’s structure of humanity he made male and female: him before her, her from him to help him, and him to treat her as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh in this thing called marriage." "In the face of cultural pressure and a feminist ideology set forth against the structure of marriage and the home, thankfully there are still many humble Christian women who gladly submit to and respect their husbands for the sake of the gospel." twitter.com/GPeacock8?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

It seems hard to believe that Mr Peacock did not with the full support of the Headmaster proselytise these beliefs to the boys. Indeed the School Chaplain reports that "Gavin spent a week at FBS getting involved with a range of activities. He spoke at assemblies for all four houses, encouraging them to be men who were courageous, thinkers, self-controlled and took on responsibility." The only encouraging point he makes is that some boys took issue with his views. I bet they did! www.fulhamboysschool.org/about-us/christian-ethos/chaplains-updates/

Mr Ebenezer is a member of a team proposing a faith school in Richmond, alongside a scientist whose work on the Adam and Eve gene is used as evidence for both creationism and "Complementarianism" (Mr Peacock's cause) and an elder in a local independent evangelical church. The proposal gives no hint of the extreme evangelical views of the founders, it just seems as if there is a christian fundamentalist agenda creeping into our state schools by stealth?

I can't believe this is inkeeping with the DfE's current focus on British Values.

I’m probably very naive, but am really shocked. I’d love to know what the lived experience of boys and parents is..,,,,but regardless, views like some of those expressed by the school’s leaders are deeply disturbing.

I think a conversation with the DofE is in order

op what is your stake in all this? do you have a child at the school?

florence No I don’t have a son at the Fulham Boys’ School but the Headmaster is part of a team proposing a Free School for a site in Richmond along with other evangelists. My concern is as a Richmond parent. Our local schools are now oversubscribed and there is an urgent need for places. Like Elibean I am interested in the lived experience of parents there and elsewhere. As parents in Richmond we are really concerned that there is no transparency about the conservative evangelical background, with all that implies in terms of their beliefs in creationism, the position of women, same sex relationships etc. It just seems frankly like Christian fundamentalism in disguise. You would worry about the mental health of children who could not conform.

This is shocking. And I think this is the same school which recently refused to allow a Y7 boy into lessons on the grounds that he had dreadlocks as part of his Rastafarian religious beliefs

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/09/12/schools-may-no-longer-ban-pupils-having-dreadlocks-rastafarian//_

Not people I would want educating my sons!

It is the same school, the boy is apparently now fortunately at another school. Whatever the school rules what a way to treat a 12 year old? I wonder if parents have any idea of the true ethos when they are offered a place?

Good grief.

As a Mortlake parent I have read all this with interest and mounting anger. Have also now been told that the Office of the Schools Adjudicator has recently found against Fulham Boys School regarding their unacceptable admission policy.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/723127/ADA3391_The_Fulham_Boys_School_Hammersmith_and_Fulham_-_5_July_2018.pdf

Taken as a whole this evidence speaks volumes about the school and their supposed "Christian ethos" and I shall be opposing any moves to let this bunch anywhere near the proposed new school on the Stag Brewery site. Our children deserve better!

Richmondmama I think there is a dawning realisation about the true nature of the proposed Thomas Cromwell school. The school has been included in the list of Wave 13 free school applications by the D of E. On the face of it it has no prospect of success since LBRUT announced that the DofE had allocated the site to the Aspirations Academy Trust and with that school established on that site there will not be a further need for school places or sites to put a new school. Local frustration with the way that decision was made is understandable, we did of course have a similar issue in Twickenham which was how the parent led Turing House came into being. But this looks awfully as if it is exploiting that frustration to establish a school with an evangelical agenda, not to create a parent led school that is a part of the community and reflects our values like Turing. It would be out of the frying pan into the fire. At least Aspirations Academy Trust have a track record with 14 schools some outstanding.

If it were to become a serious prospect then I am sure we will not be the only local parents willing to get involved in opposing the school, the borough has a track record of it. And this time I can't believe our politicians will look on the school favourably either......

The irony is that if it is not approved for here the DofE could decide to foist it on another borough elsewhere as it has done with the site here. Fulham Boys' School had some powerful backers including Boris Johnson (though I suspect he thought he was embracing a masculine anglicanism not fundamentalism) and may have some traction with the DofE

Emilyontmoor You mention Turing which I gather is an example of parent power for good. My sense here is that the "parents" are being used as a front for something much bigger and more sinister.
I take your point about the powerful backers behind the Fulham Boys School, but from what I hear on the grapevine it is not the success it would claim to be. I have heard suggestions of lack of pastoral care and a willingness to "off roll" any boys who might be seen as a threat to their first set of GCSE results due this year. This also echoes the view of Ofsted who rated them "Good" but commented that the school does not do well by its SEN and disadvantaged pupils.
The founders said that they wanted to offer a traditional boys public school education within the state system. I think its probably a classic case of "be careful what you wish for ...."