A Muslim is a Muslim. He/she is neither moderate nor fundamentalist. A state funded Muslim school is for Muslim children with Muslim teachers as role models. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.A Muslim girls’ state school which recruits only female staff has been criticised by Ofsted inspectors for a lack of male influence on pupils. Faversham College in Bradford has been told to introduce male role models to its ‘all-female environment’. The 664-pupil school was visited by inspectors last month as Ofsted’s ‘Trojan Horse’ probe into attempts to impose a strict religious agenda on schools was extended beyond Birmingham. The watchdog found that music was not taught as a separate subject to 11 to 14-year-olds and some teachers were given performance targets to develop the school’s ‘Islamic ethos’. Inspectors also reported that the school operated an ‘all-female learning environment’ which extended to male governors ‘not interact[ing] with students’.Muslim schools should be inspected by Muslim members of the Ofsted. They understand the needs and demands of the Muslim children as well as their parents. Twenty leading educationalists and Muslim leaders have questioned Ofsted's impartiality in the Birmingham 'Trojan Horse' affair, education consultant Robin Richardson reflects on the factors behind its controversial recent inspections. What gives OFSTED the right, or indeed any Brits, to preach to minority groups about how they should live their lives. This is a cosmopolitan country, the Muslim community have the right to educate their children how they choose. What has being British got to do with your religious belief? In Britain there are Hindus Sikhs pagans Jewish Buddhists atheist Zoroastrians Rasta's and many more should they all change there religious beliefs because they are British? Studying the Qur'an will certainly help towards these children becoming fully integrated citizens of the UK.Faversham – motto ‘In the name of Allah the Beneficent the Merciful’ – aims to educate girls aged 11 to 18 ‘in the context of the Islamic Sunni faith as a way of life’.The designated faith school was judged ‘outstanding’ at its last full Ofsted inspection and is regularly among the highest-performing state comprehensives in the country.Ofsted placed five schools in Birmingham special measures earlier this month after investigating allegations of a concerted attempt to introduce a strict Islamic agenda in state schools.‘Faversham College was established in 1984 for 11 to 18-year-old Muslim girls, in response to parental demand for single-sex education based on religious beliefs’ she said.‘When applying for voluntary-aided status in 2001, it was made very clear to the DfE (DfEE as was) and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (LEA) that the school’s intention was to continue to operate with female-only staff, based upon two legal opinions obtained at the time by the school.‘This position was accepted by the DfEE and LEA at the time. The school has recently taken further legal advice from a leading QC, who has confirmed that the school’s policy of a female-only teaching environment is not unlawful and complies with the terms of the Equality Act 2010.’Ofsted should be an advisory body - full of experts who are able to support and guide schools into a better service for our young people. Instead, figures are massaged, teachers bullied, children get a raw deal and all because there are 'standards' to be reached or else the brown stuff hits the fan. The standards seem to me to be all wrong; my children's first school had a motto 'learning with love and loving to learn'. From what I have seen in primary schools throughout my 20 years (I have just thrown in the towel) is a continual drive to get children to higher standards quicker than ever which tends to overlook the fact that they are children and need time to explore and assimilate their learning. Child-centred learning should be top of the agenda with Ofsted helping to achieve the goals. We get what we pay for and currently we have a system which berates rather than supports.If 8 out of 10 schools are getting good or outstanding why is that not a headline? That would be positive & when the next Pisa comes out & shows no improvement the government would be made to look stupid because the 8 out of 10 schools are good or outstanding is bullshit just like much of what Ofsted say. Ofsted are a political tool used to show progress to the electorate & win votes. Their comments, inspections & judgements are utterly, utterly worthless. Wilshaw was just on radio 4 and he seemed to reject the proposal that parents have any responsibility for their children's attitude to learning and behaviour, preferring to point out that Head teachers 'have tremendous powers to set the culture'. This wilful blindness is what has hindered the progress of too many students in mainstream state schools for too long.One of the most remarkable things about this whole through-the-looking-glass "debate" is that the media still treat OFSTED as anything other than a bad joke. OFSTED are corrupt, incompetent, self-serving and redundant parasites. There are plenty of cases which demonstrate that an OFSTED "judgement" has slightly less value than wet toilet paper, and Michael Wilshaw is an oafish buffoon so lacking in intelligence that he finds it absolutely impossible to imagine that there might be any other way of teaching than the one he used himself thirty years ago.The Trojan Horse story in Birmingham is one in which carelessness, incompetence, coincidence, opportunism, self-interest and sheer wickedness all play significant parts. The dominant narrative began to be public when the security correspondent at the Sunday Times provided on 2 March 2014 some quotations from a document which he claimed had been written by a Muslim in Birmingham for sending to a Muslim in Bradford. It was obvious from the quotations to any reasonable person with time and inclination to think about it that the document was a forgery, a false flag operation. It was not, alas, obvious to journalists in the mainstream media, including to its shame the Guardian.Anti-Muslim hostility advances the electoral prospects of certain political parties and individual politicians, and in consequence narratives about the Trojan Horse affair were affected by campaigning for local and European elections on 22 May 2014, and for the general election in UK in 2015. For example, there are politicians who stress as part of their party's appeal to voters that Britain is a Christian country and that Muslims should accept this and they link this claim to the Trojan Horse affair.And then there are the ambitions of individual politicians. The current secretary of state for education, for example, stands to gain a great deal or to lose a great deal, depending on how the Trojan Horse affair plays out. He could become leader of his party, or alternatively could end up in the political wilderness.Further, there are tensions and disagreements about the role, independence and future of Ofsted, and in relation to the expectations which different interest groups have of Ofsted. These tensions exist within the coalition government, and between the Department for Education and Ofsted, and within Ofsted itself. In common with secretary of state for education, Ofsted stands to gain a great deal or to lose a great deal, depending on how the Trojan Horse affair plays out. Muslim parents and communities rightly want the education received by Muslim children and young people to be improved. In recent years there have been major improvements nationally in the achievement of Pakistani heritage and Bangladeshi heritage pupils, and nationally there is no longer a gap between the achievement of these pupils and the average for all pupils.The Trojan Horse affair must not be allowed to hinder improvements that are urgently needed in educational provision, and in the representation of Muslims in educational policy-making and decision-making.A Birmingham school at the centre of the Trojan Horse investigation spent £50,000 on a taxpayer-funded trip to Saudi Arabia for students and staff. The school had described the Saudi Arabia tours as ''modern foreign languages trips'' with the ''double benefit'' of allowing students to perform Umrah, a religious pilgrimage.Last May 40 students and eight staff travelled to Mecca and Medina. The ten-day visit involved stays at luxury five-star hotels.The 2013 trip to Saudi Arabia had initially won praise from Ofsted in a report last year. Talking about pupil feedback, the report stated: "For pupils who spoke to the inspectors, last year's trip had clearly been a life-changing experience.''But in the new damning Ofsted report, released on Monday, inspectors raised concerns. "Governors have used the academy's budget to subsidise a trip to Saudi Arabia for only Muslim staff and pupils,'' it saidIALondon School of Islamics Trust
Iftikhar Ahmad ● 3576d