CHOOSING A SECONDARY SCHOOL

Around this time every year thousands of families complete their secondary school choices. The lucky ones can send their 11 year olds to a good local school that, like a house purchase, just feels right. There’s lots of sound educational research showing that most kids do well when their parents support them in schools (and many do badly when their parents don’t.) Parents who make sure their kids read, do a bit of homework, talk with them occasionally and make sure that phones and games machines are nowhere near their bedrooms, these parents may enjoy the secondary school experience more than they had feared.

For those who are struggling to make the choice – and often this is limited by postcode and income – here’s my 3rd Choosing A Secondary School blog.

In East Hertfordshire some people will choose to send their children to private schools because they have more money than sense and/or they want their neighbours to know that they are better than them. My money is a measure of my worthiness and if I have struggled to pay then my sacrifice is my justification. 7% of children are in private schools, many in the low achieving hippy-rich mickey mouse institutions we have in the shires.

Many private schools are still entering children for iGCSEs rather than GCSEs. The Department for Education said that iGCSEs are sub-standard and not fit for purpose. There are no league tables, national curriculum, SATs or Ofsted inspections for private schools. Just give them your money; tell your friends.

In most areas of the country private schools rank no higher than state schools. I have taught and reared children who have done better in exams than every private school child in our nearest, snobbiest, £34,000 a year, most esteemed private school.

The slouching, silver-spooned Rees Mogg didn’t like the bedclothes at Eton so nanny came every week to change them for the 11 year old.

Some parents make a conscious, rational decision to get rid of their kids for as long as possible by sending them to boarding schools and paying up to £40,000 a year.  It’s like being in care without the stigma and children do mess with one’s social life. Young people’s prisons cost at least double per inmate and the food isn’t nearly as good. Private school will possibly teach your children the manners parents should have instilled but, as the short story writer Saki said, “if you truly want a boy to be vicious you have to send him to a good public school.”

So, on to more practical advice on how to choose a secondary school.

Go Local

I want to see local schools which welcome all children who can access the curriculum. I want everyone in our area to have a good school where their children can be safe, happy and successful; a school that unites people in a community, regardless of race, religion, gender or wealth.

Sort of, a school high on morality, community: an equal opportunity meritocracy.

If your child is in a local school they can walk in with their friends, attend before-school and after-school clubs, go for tea with their friends, make friends for life and just be normal. Much of what we offer children is the social interaction with other children and being ferried in and out by parents does not help anxious children develop confidence. Local families with a local school at the centre of their community.

Schools are better now

If you are choosing a new school for your children, please understand that the vast majority of our schools are much better than when you went to school yourself. Teachers are better teachers and lessons are fuller, better resourced, supported by online software and carefully planned.

Talk to People

Your neighbours and their children know a lot about their school.  It’s best not to accost stray children for interrogation as our CCTV and Safeguarding procedures are really good.

Selection by Religion

I have written many times about my concerns for faith schools. They are by design separatist and divisive and encourage social segregation. However, faith schools can now admit 100% Catholics, Jews or Muslims and will safely prevent your children coming into contact with people with different ideas on the meaning of life, relationships and gods.

I worry about the curriculum in all schools, with the drive in reverse gear to the artless, toneless mind-numbing rote learning, speed writing and endless test-practising menu characterised by largely irrelevant SATs in Year 6 and Year 11 GCSEs that measure very little. I was taught the Catholic view of many things, which included virgin birth, resurrection and the chastity of priests.

Take care with Ofsted

One of our local outstanding schools was last inspected 8 years ago – a school lifetime – staff, children, headteacher and governors have changed. I have previously reproduced research showing that many of our “outstanding” schools have the highest pupil scores on admission in Year 7. The correlation between Year 6 attainment of a school’s intake and Ofsted rating is stunning. It is statistically harder for mixed comprehensives to satisfy Ofsted than for a fat man on a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

I wonder if the point of secondary admissions is to stop the children most in need of a good education actually getting in to the best schools. And, inviting approbation and condemnation from my colleagues, some headteachers seem actively engaged in turning away these children.

Selection By Grammar School

Apparently (they got consultants in for this) if you select the kids doing best at tests at age 11 and put them in one school, that school will have the highest achievers in GCSE tables five years later. Stunning. Apparently, it is also hotter near the Equator.

However, real school achievement is the progress made by students in the time between joining the school at age 11 and leaving at age 16.  Progress 8 tells parents how well bright kids did and grammar schools are not always the best at this.

Rather than taking a small proportion of bright poor kids and sticking them in grudgingly benevolent grammar schools let’s put massive resourcing into the schools in poorer areas. Get the best teachers with higher salaries and subsidised housing and create the infrastructure and local economy to employ the high achieving youngsters. Admire and emulate virtually all of Scandinavia.

Or we could select all the academically able kids and put them in schools with thatched roofs. Then, when they achieve good GCSEs we can call for the spread of thatched roofs throughout the country.

Comprehensives Selecting Too

If the school has a test – usually looking for musical or linguistic ability is that your good school? How can comprehensives select their students?

If a school, “tries hard with kids with special needs but is not very good at it,” is that a sign of excellence?  Look out for the schools that tell parents that the school is jolly good with exceptionally bright children.

Schools defend themselves:

Why should schools admit kids who need a little extra help, children who should flourish in an outstanding school, if there is a risk that Ofsted will criticise, league tables condemn and parents choose elsewhere?

NHS hospitals could prosper by turning away sick people as unsuitable.

Some of the “outstanding” schools find educating children who need a little help the equivalent of climbing mountains in ankle length skirts, which brings us to,

Selection By School Uniform

For some parents the uniform rules can be a tremendous signal of a school’s worth: if it is unfashionable and expensive and can only be bought in one shop there’s your good school? I was speaking with a parent whose son’s blazer cost £130, and very pretty it was too. They may be acting illegally but who’s going to tell? I bet his blazer has never been a goalpost.

Selection by Income

Some schools expect an annual “voluntary contribution” from parents – a useful message for families struggling to survive on low incomes at a time when wages have fallen behind prices. I know of a school where the USA football trip – already out of many budgets – demanded that each player’s family bought a £1000 Quiz Night table. Another school requires every student to have their own iPad. Helps keep out the riff raff.

Beware Open Evenings

My imaginary, “How to be a Headteacher” course tutors us in how to describe our schools. On Open Evenings we are all unique, have a special ethos where moral values are important and teaching and learning are at the heart of what we do.(I love that bit) Emphasise that, “We teach a traditional academic curriculum and have the highest standards.” One must state, “We have many gifted and talented students,” and then the truisms, “We have the highest standards of behaviour,” and “We aim to help all students fulfil their potential?”

Can you imagine a Headteacher suggesting, “Our standards and expectations are low; we tolerate ill-discipline, kids are scruffy on purpose, our curriculum is useless; we don’t care if they progress or do well?” Quite obviously, the opposite of what we say at these events is unimaginable – “the law of the ridiculous reverse” (Simon Hoggart quoted in an excellent “Choosing a secondary school” article in The Guardian 23rd September 2014)

Emphasise Latin if you’ve got it. My daughter achieved a very good Vocational Latin grade that would endear her school to the pariah, Michael Gove.

As I approach my 20th Open Evening as a Headteacher I am aware that these events are proof that every science lesson contains explosions or volcanic actions and that PE teachers wear suits. One must never consider how many children, on how many occasions, contributed to the building of a wonderful car. The Headteacher, my friend, Kit Car Steve has retired; the car lives on.

The money a school has in its accounts was allocated to schools to educate children. Thousands of pounds are spent on glossy brochures, designer websites and superfluous adverts. Pose the children carefully by the nice tree; blonde girls with ponytails most prominently.

School facilities may well be very good but say, “state of the art,” “the envy of others” or even “the finest in the country,” and pray that no-one asks for the evidence. A few computers in a library can be state of the art to some of us older people.

Tour the School During the Day

Are the children happy, busy, silent, occupied, interested, active, co-operating? Is the school well resourced, warm, well heated, ventilated, safe? Ask about extra curricula matters, staff turnover, pastoral care and watch the interaction between staff and students and between the students themselves.

Choose your own criteria and be very upset by girls’ skirt length.

Finally...

Tell schools your Level 6, gifted daughter plays violin for England and watch them fall over themselves to form a disorderly queue for her admission.

Dennis O'Sullivan

Give Us The Money and Leave Us Alone

     

        Give Us The Money and Leave Us Alone

My title is a cleaned up version of the words I use when helpful people get me to my feet after one of my occasional running accidents: “Thanks very much now…..”  Just to remain obscure it is also a paraphrase of the 1970s German band, Can, singing  a twisted love song, “If you really love me, don’t turn on the light, and leave me alone.

The government’s contempt for education has suddenly shifted our way. Suddenly,  there is a teacher recruitment crisis; suddenly, a pay rise is advisable.  Amusingly, the reinstated despicable Gove argues that ministers should listen to experts. When you are again vying with Johnson and Davies to depose the leader to whom you pledged loyalty your stated views count for nothing. Gove said, on education reform, “We have had enough of experts” and smashed the wrecking ball through rational thought.  

Even I I have been surprised that there is no depth of backstabbing deceit and contradiction that politicians  will not wallow in. Ex PM John Major, lightened my mood when he said, of the Tory-DUP pact, “Be careful who you get into bed with.” and then, moments later I was listening to Edwina Curry on Radio 5 dismissing the election result. We have to find amusement where we can.

It looks like we are returning to the dark days of Irish politics, banging a lambeg drum for the Democratic Unionist Party and their paramilitary allies in a doomed attempt to shore up a troubled British government writhing in weakness and confused chaos. The road to power is paved with hypocrisy and littered with discarded principles and manifestos. The DUP would build a society on superstition, prejudice and bigotry.

 

I am saddened to see that the peace-broking British government, which did so much to end the “Troubles,” should be risking Irish lives for a few more months in declining political power. As a teacher I worry about the DUP’s intolerance of homosexuality, promotion of single faith only teacher training and their pro death penalty and anti-abortion stance. And the world is only 6,000 years old; there were no dinosaurs. The tourist attracting Giants Causeway is not 50 million years old at all: God made it just before King Billy appeared on murals – that’s round about mid July 1690.

 

We now have the least strong and stable structure since my mate Dave tried to dance a jig on a bannister. We have to accept creationism in return for the politicians vying to replace the ruined May. On carrion they swoop: Davies, both Johnsons, Greening, Hammond and the chameleon Gove, all prepared to abandon their manifesto, contradict their previous statements, suddenly end austerity and embrace anything that offers them power. How much for a principle?

 

Tories now want to give some public sector workers a pay rise. Why? Nothing has changed, except that the firefighters are now deemed necessary and anti-terrorist work was compromised by under-funding of the police. The Education Secretary, Greening, clamours for £1.5 billion for education. Why now? Co-incidentally, she was not consulted on her own party’s election manifesto.

Most parents know that there is an immediate funding crisis in schools.. We have a 7.5% increase in staffing costs and those costs are around 80% of a typical £5million secondary schoolbudget. That make the cost increase around £300,000.  Each year. Funding  per pupil is to fall by 6.5% by 2021(Institute for Fiscal Studies 2017)

All state schools are, or soon will be, facing damaging choices: fewer teachers, less support for children, fewer subject choices and bigger class sizes. But many will just go bust.

Headteachers, unions and parents have paused for breath in the lobbying for decent funding for our children’s education. This crashing, fading wreck of a government must now give schools the money and leave us alone to get on with educating young people in an inspiring and exciting manner.

Stop  meddling.

Here are the Tory disasters;  careless, ideological games they have been foisting on parents, children and teachers, at a cost of billions and billions.

 

Grammar Schools do not meet any educationally sound, evidence-based agenda.  Selective and notoriously biased against poorer children, grammar schools popped back into Theresa May’s now confused mind  to woo UKIP. Sadly, it is unlikely that UKIP voters’ children would have featured greatly in grammar schools.

 

Selecting the brightest  pupils at 11, stick them all in a couple of schools, use raw exam results as the success measure and then claim grammar schools are good. We might as well argue that sticking all the brightest kids in purple rooms shows that purple is best.

 

Hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked for more of these schools, rather than properly funding existing good schools to get even better outcomes for all our children.

What we need is to improve standards in all schools not relegate 80% of them to secondary modern status and all those children to the shared expectation of failure and knowing their place in some 1950s throwback to an industrial age.

 

Free Schools Free schools are a fop to middle class luvvies bribed to propagate the Govian idea that any idiot can teach kids.

 

Free schools are experimenting with our children, situated in areas that don’t need them and are massively costly. Originally allocated £450m in 2011 Michael Gove, he Free School building programme  will cost £9.7bn by 2021. Taxpayers must meet a bill of£2.5billion just to purchase the building land in estate agent heaven.

Meanwhile established good schools fall into disrepair.

 

The Department for Education has given the National Audit Office the figures for school funding:

A place at a secondary free school costs an average £24,600.

It’s £21,100 for each place in a primary free school.

A place at a state school costs just under £4,800 (DfE figures 2017)

 

Give state schools 5 times the current funding and watch our children reach the stars.

 

The government spent £19 million in setting up University Technology Colleges (UTCs) and Studio Schools to take students from existing schools at age 14. The NFER report that UTC students are performing worse than their peers in their previous schools.(NFER 2017)

 

37 of the 48 UTCs are less than half full   and  7 have closed since their inception in 2011.Without trying to condemn UTCs why would a bright 14 year old move from a school to a UTC?

 

15 of the 35 Studio Schools have closed. Designed as an alternative to mainstream education for 14 to 19-year-olds. They provide a work-related curriculum. However, set up without consultation with established schools and FE colleges and in areas where they were not wanted, UTCs and Studio schools have wasted tens of millions of pounds and failed young people.

Behold, said the conservatives,  in times of racial and religious intolerance, let’s segregate more of our children as early as possible, hide them away from other faiths and make them believe in  intolerant archaic prejudice more appropriate to The Daily Mail Sidebar of Shame than a democratic inclusive country.

At the start of January 2017 there were 6,813 state funded Faith Schools in England. The majority were primary schools: 37% of all state funded primaries. The chools were the most common type among primary schools (26% of all primaries); Roman Catholic schools the most numerous type of faith school at secondary level (9%). Non-Christian schools were very much in the minority; there were 48 Jewish (up by 6 in six years) 27 Muslim (up15 in 6 years) 11 Sikh (up by 8) and 5 Hindu schools (up by 4)  All stats are from the DfE 2017)

Are we really surprised that Muslims do some Islam related teaching, that their ethos may be a bit different to the mass-in-school-time Catholic faith schools ? Do boys in Jewish faith schools wear the kippah, Sikhs turbans and Muslim girls the niqab? Surely the refusal to insist on secular state schools means we tolerate faith schools praising and proclaiming their own religion just a bit. Do we doubt that the Methodists, Greek Orthodox and United Reformed Church who all have state funding for their schools, sometimes go on a bit about what they consider the best bits of their faiths? Allow and encourage faith schools and we must accept that elements of separatism will pervade. The Quaker school might mention pacifism when talking of war, much to the distaste of those who glorify British wars. And as for the new Hindu Free schools with a ban on sausages…

If we segregate children by religion are we surprised they become segregated socially. Why would the Tories want to expand faith school provision?

 

What else am I against? (In Marlon Brando’s words in The Wild Bunch: “What ‘ve you got?”)

 

Schools Commissioners are all powerful, undemocratic and unaccountable. They replace Local Education Authorities and act pretty much as they choose. They can, and do, pick up the phone and close schools. Strangely, don’t seem as committed as one might expect. All it takes is for a Multi Academy Trust to come waving a £200,000 cheque, and there you go.

 

There are 8 regions each with 1 commissioner and the programme has run since 2014.  In that 3 year period 7 schools commissioners have resigned.  Nobody wanted them in the first place and they ran for more money as soon as it was dangled.

 

It seems to me that Multi Academy Trusts have been an opportunity for headteachers to become Executive Heads on high salaries. What on earth does an Executive Headteacher do? ARE THERE Executive bakers? Will an Executive Head Barman sell me beer?

 

What a surprise last night.; One year after almost half our 11 year olds were told they were failures, after a whole 12 months, all the results improved by around 5%. .Bruiser Nick  Gibb say,s "Thanks to their commitment and our new knowledge-rich curriculum, thousands more children will arrive at secondary school having mastered the fundamentals of reading, writing and maths, giving them the best start in life."

 

Oh thank you Nick, you were right you havre performed miracles. Or might Gibb and his cronies have been fiddling around?

 

I see and hear of worried, unhappy 10 year olds endlessly practising for SATs that serve to protect schools from Ofsted and headteachers from the sack.

 

Let the kids enjoy learning for as long as humanly possible. Give our teachers the opportunity to explore the joy of learning.

And. to paraphrase Bob Geldoff, Give us the bloody money!”

Why have I never taught a Jewish child?

Teaching British Values is now compulsory in our schools and we are drawing in on ourselves, into Little Britain, because of a fear of the actions of a tiny, tiny minority of so-called radicalised British Muslim youth.

As we clamour for restrictions on immigration, alongside a liberal’s fear of talking about race, we label some communities as dangerous and not very British. Fear of Islam is irrational but encouraging Muslims to retreat as some sort of alien breed is counter to our democracy and the values we claim as our national identity. And it alienates Muslims.

Faith schools are marching towards segregation and the creation and strengthening of racial barriers between communities. The government adores free schools and plans to open another 500, many of them single faith schools.

In 2014 there were 6,848 state funded faith schools – about a third of the total and around a 3% increase in the last decade. Jewish and Muslim faith schools, a tiny minority of these, increased from 37 to 48 and from 7 to 18 respectively over the last 7 years. 1.8 million students are in faith schools. (House of Commons Library 08-09-2014)Most of these are Catholic or Church of England primary schools.

In 36 years in multi-cultural East London schools and a largely mono-cultural Hertfordshire town I have taught around 7,000 children aged 11-18. I have known many churchgoing Christian children, active Catholics, practising Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims studied alongside other faiths and we had small numbers of Baptists, Buddhists and at least 8 Jehovah Witnesses. But never a Jewish child.

I spoke to a London headteacher about the number of Jewish children in his 1000 strong school. The school had many Jewish children until the opening of a nearby Jewish Free School at which point all Jewish children left. If we segregate children by religion are we surprised they become segregated socially and that elements of separatism will pervade?
As more Jewish kids are taken into faith schools and fewer are taught alongside non Jews should we be surprised that the horror of anti Semitism is prospering in Britain, with more attacks in 2014 than for decades?

There is a video of the Muslim IQRA Primary School in Slough which starts with a boy doing morning prayers in Arabic with the other assembled children. This faith school was created because, “the community wanted it.” The allocation of community status is an interesting one: is there just one Muslim community; just one English community? Despite support for our school’s planning application people living within 100 metres of the school have designated themselves “the community.” And really did expect their views to take prominence. It seems we can all claim community support if we narrow our constituency sufficiently. In theory, non Muslims could attend the IQRA school but they don’t. My understanding is that at least some Muslim schools ban stringed instruments, singing, dancing and figurative art because they conflict with the teachings of the Koran which suggests they can lead to sexual arousal and idolatry.

The Catholic Church has refused to open further academies until the government changes its policy on a 50% cap on the control of admissions. This cap on single faith control of admissions upset Jewish community leaders, too, but the government says that, “new faith schools established with taxpayers money in areas where there is a shortage of good places will be available to all who need them.” (Telegraph 15-11-2013)Why wouldn’t faith schools, all built upon such positive principles want to attract others to their moral outlook?

I worry about the curriculum in all schools, with the drive in reverse gear to the artless, toneless mind-numbing rote learning, speed writing and endless test-practising menu. However, what do faith schools teach? I was taught the Catholic view of many things, which included virgin birth, resurrection and the chastity of priests. I was 18 before I dared tempt hellfire by entering a non Catholic place of worship.

In July 2013, a state-funded orthodox Jewish girls' school in north London was admonished after it was discovered that students had their GCSE exams censored, with questions about evolution deliberately blacked out of science papers. The OCR examinations board found that 52 papers in two GCSE science exams sat by pupils at Yesodey Hatorah Senior girls' school in Hackney had questions on evolution obscured, making them impossible to be answered.

When we separate from others we allow gossip, exaggeration and ignorance to take hold, playing into the hands of those who want to divide people. David Green, chief executive of the think-tank Civitas, said, ‘Some Muslim schools in Britain have become part of a battleground for the heart and soul of Islam. Their aim is to turn children away, not only from Western influence, but also from liberal and secular Muslims.’Mr Green says that children in some of the Islamic schools are not being prepared to live in a free and democratic British society. Indeed, they are being made to despise our culture. (Daily Mail 1-10-2013)

It is wrong to go down the Daily Mail’s one school does it so they all do route in condemning the new government sponsored free school, Islamic Al-Madinah school in Derby. Here, allegedly, girls have to sit at the back of classrooms, boys and girls are segregated at meal times and there is a strict dress code even for non Muslim staff. Sensibly, Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum, declared: ‘We are not living in rural Pakistan or a Taliban-run region of Afghanistan. Such superstitious, divisive nonsense should have no place in a British school.’ Whose voice will be considered typical?

We don’t know what goes on in religiously separated schools so I guess we have to believe the Mail when they add, using anonymous sources, “Growing Government worries over what is being taught in the quickly rising number of private and publicly-funded Islamic schools has led to reports that the home intelligence service, MI5, is to send in undercover agents posing as teachers to check if children are being brainwashed in Islamic radicalism.” By ‘eck.

Might the reality be that some or most faith schools develop thoughtful, tolerant, responsible and caring young citizens as Ofsted reported on the JFS (Jewish Free School). Their, “religious outlook is orthodox, and one of its main aims is “to ensure that Jewish values permeate the school”. Jewish Studies is a core subject for all students all of whom take the GCSE examination in Religious Studies. Ivrit and Israel Studies are included as part of Jewish Education. (http://www.findajewishschool.co.uk/jewish-secondary-schools/jfs-school.php#)

King Solomon High School in Ilford also highlights the importance of Israel, wanting to teach “a positive and proud sense of Jewish identity built upon a sound knowledge of Jewish practice and observance and an appreciation of the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”.
(http://www.findajewishschool.co.uk/jewish-secondary-schools/king-solomon-high-school.php#sthash.ghFJWwDZ.dpuf)

I do worry when I see so many children waving the flag of Israel on a school website; we might all be expected to worry if Muslims were pictured with the Saudi flag enthusiastically paraded. We worry anyway if the English flag is given prominence.

We should live, work and study side by side in mutual respect of different traditions and cultures. We should celebrate and proclaim the characteristics that can bring us together. Let’s promote acceptance of others, both within the school community and in the wider world, incorporating values such as caring, kindness and charity. Study together in secular schools for a better world.

Dennis O'Sullivan

I Am All For Extremism In Schools

Posted Wednesday 10th June 2014



I am all for extremism in schools

I am an extremist, I have extreme views on the education of our children and I impose my extreme beliefs on 1025 children I have systematically removed staff who do not share my extreme practices and I have insisted that all governors, recruited over the last 15 years , embrace fanaticism.

I have tried everything I currently know to extend my agenda into other schools and I am a member of organisations committed to the same revolutionary vision.

I'm looking for a whole herd of Trojan horses, skilled letter writers, spoof columnists and revolutionary cadres to spread the takeover.

Or as Bobby Dylan said, "I'm liberal but to a degree, I want everyone to be free."

The context for my confessions is the “Trojan Horse” scandal to hit 21 Birmingham schools. In March, an anonymous letter was made public which claimed to be a template illustrating how state schools could be taken over and pushed into adopting a more Islamic culture. The unsigned letter could be a provocative hoax - refers to "Operation Trojan Horse" as the name of the alleged conspiracy.

At a time of anti-foreigner sentiment spreading throughout our political parties this was a heaven-sent opportunity to scare us all about muslims. Into Birmingham went four investigation teams, including experts on terrorism, for God’s sake!

Schools that were judged good or outstanding by recent Ofsted inspectors are now labeled by Ofsted as inadequate. I’m not sure I can see much evidence, that’s evidence, of extremism but I do know that the judgments on the mainly muslim state schools have been made on criteria my colleagues and I, in mainly white state schools, have never heard of. And I have endured 7 such inspections.

The Birmingham schools reject the findings as “scaremongering and an unfair misrepresentation,” calling the whole investigation "a vicious and co-ordinated smear campaign.” Much has been made of a muslim woman’s failure to shake hands with an Ofsted Inspector. This was interpreted as a cultural thing rather than most teachers’ sensible approach to Ofsted.

However, with an education system unmonitored and split asunder to satisfy an ideological obsession there are bound to be opportunities for all kinds of nutters and if you let all kinds of people run their own schools you will get extremism, almost by definition.

Many people of all ethnicities are united by their opposition to homosexuality. Our great British values were upheld in law between 1987 and 2003 with the infamous Section 28 banning teachers from suggesting, “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”

I find it hard to embrace the Old Testament punishment for adultery

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”(Leviticus 20:10)

And I am very pleased that Mosaic Law was replaced when Jesus came along to preach love and forgiveness rather than stoning. John 8:7 recounts a woman accused of adultery being brought before Christ, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Adulterous wives have been roundly condemned. Among the often severe Aztecs they were sometimes impaled. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks favoured amputation of the nose whilst the legal code of Mesopotamia , around 4000 years ago, provided drowning as a punishment. This was as much to do with husbands’ rights of ownership as sin, of course, and the Mormon religion encouraged men to be polygamous, though not women. For failing to worship her husband in the Manu tradition of Ancient India “the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many.”

I think what I am trying to show is that societies can have some laws and punishments we now consider abhorrent, but they can and will change in a liberal society. They remain abhorrent. There are no static context free British values and I understand that values evolve with the maturity of a society. There is no place for Sharia Law in Britain but we need to respect British muslims into society, not ostracise, isolate, label and condemn them.

 In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools, approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.

Are we really surprised that Muslims do some Islam related teaching, that their ethos may be a bit different to the going-to-mass-in-school-time Catholic faith schools? Do boys in Jewish faith schools wear the kippah, Sikhs turbans and Muslim girls the niqab? Surely the refusal to insist on secular state schools means we tolerate faith schools praising and proclaiming their own religion just a bit. Do we doubt that the Methodists, Greek Orthodox and United Reformed Church who all have state funding for their schools, sometimes go on a bit about what they consider the best bits of their faiths? Allow and encourage faith schools and we must accept that elements of separatism will pervade. The Quaker school might mention pacifism when talking of war, much to the distaste of those who glorify British wars. And as for the new Hindu Free school with a ban on sausages…

 If we segregate children by religion are we surprised they become segregated socially? Our school cook, Tina, said it better than me: “If you want a multicultural society our kids have got to grow up together.”
Why would an inclusive society want to separate our children from each other on religious grounds. There’s a nice little model of how this could work in Northern Ireland.

 98% of our state funded faith schools may refer to those tablets God gave to Moses. The 10 Commandments insist: Keep the sabbath holy, Do not covet thy neighbour’s wife, oxen or his other property. And I was brought up not to question the Holy Trinity the Virgin Birth the Ascension of Mary into heaven, The Resurrection, transubstantiation, Heaven and Hell, mortal sin and the infallibility of the Pope. Well…

Long ago
I was a 9 year old debutant altar server at Our Lady’s House in Willesden and at something near to 5.00 a.m the fallen women were already at work. I remember them as worn, timid and withdrawn young women very drably dressed scrubbing the floor. Many of you will be familiar with the recent films and fuss about the dire and inhumane treatment of women in the Magdalen’s Laundries throughout Ireland. Approximately 10,000 women are known to have entered a Magdalen Laundry from 1922 until the closure of the last laundry in 1996.

The homes cared for unwed mothers and other young women considered to be wayward. They endured a daily regimen that included long periods of prayer and enforced silence. Women were imprisoned in these institutions and kept from the embarrassed holy eyes of a catholic nation.

The vengeful Catholic Church would take their children from them.

On Wednesday 5th of June 2014 news broke of the discovery of the bodies of 796 children from one of these schools for the children of fallen women in Tuam, County Galway, my own mother’s homeland.

The children in these schools/homes were 5 times more likely to die as other children, undernourished and cruelly abused and neglected as the sins of the mothers were visited on innocent children. 796 very small skeletons of children who died in the home were found in a septic tank The Catholic Church buried these children by throwing them into a cesspit. I wonder if they recited Luke 18:16 “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God, “as they disposed of their bodies like worthless garbage.

The Bishop of Tuam says you can't impose the morality of 2014 Britain on 20th century Ireland. You can't judge people for previous behaviours. I guess the 1960s were a different time and we should let Jimmy Saville and the other paedophiles rest in peace. And let’s not go using our 21st century ideals to go on about the Holocaust.

My family were catholic. It was their job and their church’s job to teach me about being catholic. Parents have a right in the European Convention of Human Rights to bring up their children in the religion of their choice. However, they do not have a right to state funding for religious schools. I have nothing against what I know of the Hindu religion, and Muslims, Sikhs, the numerous Christian varieties, Jews and Anabaptists should all be free to worship as their religion and secular law dictate. But I am against all faith schools.

Let all schools educate about the similarities between religions, the fact that there are different views of religion. A little thought to town planning, to mixed housing provision to help create communities of people of all colours, who consider themselves British and who can celebrate their faith, or none, in a fair society based on good old British values: equality of opportunity, meritocracy, fair play and doing the right thing.

However, I don’t want to come across too democratic or liberal. Neither I nor my daughter, Scarlett, slept peacefully on hearing the Mass Grave in Galway story, sadness and anger ruining the night.

I hear that a priest wants to pray over the septic tank.

For whom shall we pray, who to bless and who to condemn? Upon whom should we wish eternal hellfire, to rot in hell - the nuns and priests, bishops and popes or the children they termed bastards?



Dennis O'Sullivan

To parliamentarians on the occasion of Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday: A Pox on Both your houses.

April 26th 2014

I have to give you bad news today and it is an unsweetened pill.  You will know that Mr Gove (an early blog appearance as usual)is very, very opposed to students taking their exam qualifications before the age of 16. He is likewise against what he calls “gaming” when schools enter children more than once for an exam or resit to get a better mark. Ofqual admit to “several thousand” mark changes on appeal but we are to be stopped appealing.  So he has announced that schools will be barred and penalized for such wrongdoings. Bravo, Brave Gove, to stand up and tell off the private schools, who have been gaming forever, with such unequivocal bluntness is worthy of admiration, adulation and a new job. Or can it be that these new rules are going to apply only to the public sector, can it? That would be obscenely beneath the “all in it together” mantra our prime Minister declares. When aliens took the life form of Michael Gove, the 21^st century bogeyman getting away scott free with destroying our schools they avoided both glamour and shame.
The identikit Tory-Labour parties have ignored the electorate, effectively promoting the nauseating, dangerously divisive UKIP offering answers to voters real concerns – wrong answers, ill thought out and contradictory answers but nonetheless populist nasty stuff which appeals to people losing hope as their standards of living continue to decline.

I was recently asked to write something for a magazine and they are publishing the blog-type ranting leaving me to find an alternative to the quiet piece which ended quite hopefully:

“..the terrible beauty of learning, the textures and belief in teaching, the joy and delight in achievement… transcending baffled incredulity and wounded self-belief. Lotta continua, Mickey, that struggle continues.”

I explained last month how Gove became Mickey and I also mentioned Ukrainian blog readers. Well, Mickey hasn’t bothered replying but 30 Ukranians read my stuff one day last week. Worryingly for Farage they mainly hit upon “How to choose a secondary school,” so maybe they have plans to visit. If I really want to wind up the bucolic UKIP –there’s been 83 blogs read in Poland, 219 in Germany and, please explode Nigel, 139 in France. What if all these literate discerning adults descended on us with their fancy skills and bilingualism?

Our symbol of democracy, The House of Commons united in eloquent opposition to the abuse of one of its members. Apparently, Christian Torres (Chelsea South) had not claimed expenses for the bus ride to his constituency party's fete. The ever so thorough MPs’ committee for looking into MPs’ expenses regretted that his claim was two years out of date. “It was an innocent mistake,” he chimed, “and now I am being victimised. That I overlooked the rules should not penalise me… I forgot to claim the £2.20… I was only on the dammed bus as part of a publicity stunt… and even though my mum paid the fare I want the money… and I don't get paid enough…. and bigger boys made me do it, one of whom may have been my partner but I was afraid to mention that, so I want to claim his fare too. Anyway, when did we start having to submit genuine, timely expenses claims?”

Fancifully creative writing, of course.That didn’t really happen; the next lot did.

Culture Secretary, Maria Miller with a trifling expenses difficulty, was ordered to repay £45,000 by the Commons Watchdog. The MPs own committee reduced her repayment to £5,800. Having obstructed the investigation she was ordered to apologise and did so with a teenage petulant 32 seconds of the tiniest, most begrudging,“ I’ve been told to apologise.” Her fellow MPs hurried to her side whilst she spoke. Yes, they said, “Were certainly in this together!”

Prime Minister Cameron has gone all religious (vote for him wont you) and declared us a Christian country as he spouted beliefs and values based on god stuff, admitting he is a somewhat occasional Christian. Every man needs a creed at election time.

There’s something fishy going on in Birmingham. It may be a big fat hoax of a letter left lying around in an editor’s intray or a real attempt by some Muslims to take over the management, curriculum and pastoral care in some schools.

There are at least three enquiries being done in Birmingham today and Gove (really having a laugh) has set his own underway, naturally led by a supremely unqualified guy, Peter Clarke, fresh from running the counter terrorism unit at Scotland Yard. Google the investigation and The Telegraph have it under “terrorism.” May I offer a “for God’s sake!” here as Gove equates Muslims with terrorism.

I was a victim in  catholic schools where we went to benediction  and mass in  school time; we mimed hymns in assembly, were taught that we would go to hell if we attended another faith’s ceremonies, whilst priests and nuns beat us with equanimity. It’s dead easy to be a Catholic school headteacher as the talent pool is restricted to those who can produce a priest’s certificate of attendance. Herabouts you also have to take pledges like “veritas” and “caring for all children” with a pinch of salt.

 Sikhs, Jews and Hindus have their own schools proposing their own way out of reality and Church of England schools contain more kids than churchgoers. Isn’t it all right for religious groupings to run their own schools, with divisive admissions policies, prayers and interesting curriculum bias financed by the state? If Muslims are doing so is it really any of Gove’s business?

Gove recently allocated funds for five free schools, obviously free from terrorist associations. They are Jewish free schools: Etz Chaim (Mill Hill) Eden (Muswell Hill) Rimon (Golders Green) South London Jewish(Wimbledon) and Alma (Finchley)all recently generously state-funded.

“Faith schools make a fantastic contribution to our education system and none more so than Jewish faith school,” Education secretary Michael Gove said in December 2010.

I’m going to believe in pixies and leprechauns, rainbows and pots of gold supplied by Mr Gove to those he chooses.

 I am so liberal that I have nothing religious against Jewish schools and accept that there is probably a Jewish flavour to the ethos, where Jewish governors are possibly a majority and they espouse a Jewish way of life. Nothing against Jewish schools at all. I’m just against all religion inspired schools and in favour of a “we’re all in it together” secular education system.

So Muslims up to no good in schools? Must be a terrorist issue or is it just a good old fashioned anti-foreigner alternative to UKIP in next month’s election?
To sink so low name-checking Christianity. Can we have blokes on horses crusading in the name of St George. George by the way, ironically, never set foot in England, good Turkish lad that he was.

When the deputy speaker gets cleared of serious sexual charges politicians united to bleat about "high profile people” being protected from such prosecutions, giving anonymity in trials to "people like him." All 3 parties moved to bully the CPS, protecting each other from the deserving consequences of their own venal stupidity, dishonesty and complicity. Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans’ confessed drunken bloke’s groping behaviour is apparently common in the House.

40% of House of Commons employees claim they have been sexually harassed at work. Imagine the fuss if it was a teacher drunkenly groping the people around them at work?

 UKIP leader Nigel Farage proclaims his politics as a break from the corruption of British politics. But here’s an oddity. Mr Farage is incessantly against foreign workers coming to the UK to take jobs that can be done by britishers. He employs a German as his secretary, OK, he says, because she’s his wife and just one of the “26 million European workers” coming to Britain in UKIP publicity.
Farage is against the EU parliament wasting money on expenses. The £60,000 he can't account for was not expenses it was an allowance and how dare we ask how he spent it. That’s almost like the rabidly anti EU and virtually everything else, Dail Mail editor Paul Dacre taking EU grants of 300,408 euros for his Scottish estate.

You may think that I am creating a stereotype, partying in urban myths. Stereotypes are sometimes thick ugly plaster over a framework of truth and our leaders really are a dodgy bunch of opportunists.

This week David Laws announced that its time to stop changing everything in education, lets settle down. If you vote us back in we will stop meddling. Could Lib Dem Laws be trusted, after all he is in the government, he is working with Gove in the DfE. Listen Honest David, I'm not the only one who's been taking notes: remember you got kicked out for a £50,000 illegal expenses claim.

Let’s trust our betters and breed a generation of the silently insulted. There is some perverted poetry that it is Mrs Fox who is leading Gove’s unrelenting hunting down of accessible qualifications. so that most students fail. And when our kids realise that the point is to stifle their ambition and aspirations I am sure they will sit quietly in rows. The rule changes on vocational courses are backdated to affect kids who started the courses 9 months ago, cos really, who cares? Not the disgracefully clueless silent Labour Party that’s for sure.

Just now I read that Gove has cancelled his speech at a headteachers’ union’s conference. He’s too busy. My own union leader asks me to believe that the government is listening. I admire your perseverance, Brian, but  you’re wrong.

Gove, Laws, Truss, Hunt and all you parliamentary abusers you don't know what you're doing. The exam-practising stress on our kids is growing – 9 two hour science exams in 2016 will be more than for a final university degree.  And just how much bloody Maths do you want them to do? What’s wrong with childhood and childish things, of a bit of creativity?  Don’t they have the right to be a 16 year old average ability kid working hard, doing well and getting recognition for that?

And the adults in education, if they’re  Maths or English teachers or headteachers in non selective schools will pack it in or get shafted. Gove has declared a 9 point scale for his new tougher GCSEs;. Well, Mickey, my anger at your machinations goes up to 11.

So my homework is for schools, its teachers, parents and leaders who know our students and families and understand our own communities to set the education agenda. 1.3 million school employees plus just under 10 million parents should swing any election, so

Seize the time.

Shout at politicians.

Shout loudly.

Dennis O'Sullivan