‘Education, not indoctrination’
Muslim parents lead 300 protesters at primary school over lessons ‘promoting homosexuality’
MORE than 300 parents and children gathered outside of a primary school yesterday to protest against lessons on homosexuality and gender.
Some Muslim demonstrators – who were joined by Christian evangelists – said they would rather leave the UK than allow their children to continue attending Parkfield Community School in Birmingham.
Pupils were kept out of lessons for the first hour of the day. Some joined in with the chants and held placards reading: ‘Education not indoctrination.’ One child carried a handwritten sign which said: ‘Let kids be kids.’
The protest comes amid a campaign against lessons on equality at the school, with parents in the predominantly Muslim area saying that they promote homosexuality.
Parents’ anger is aimed at the school’s assistant head Andrew Moffat, who is behind the ‘No Outsiders’ lessons. He created the scheme to teach children about the Equality Act and British values.
Pupils at the school – rated outstanding by Ofsted – have five of these lessons a year, covering areas outlined in the Act: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. The programme was first
‘My daughter is too young for all of this’
piloted at the school in 2014 and is now also taught at dozens of other schools in the country.
Mr Moffat, who is in a civil partnership, was made an MBE for services to equality and diversity in education in 2017. He is currently shortlisted for a ‘world’s best teacher’ award.
He resigned from a previous teaching post at another school after a row with Christian parents over lessons challenging homophobia – and is now facing even more vocal complaints from parents at Parkfield, where 98 per cent of the 750 pupils are said to be from an Islamic background.
Protester Mariam Ahmed, whose four-year-old daughter attends the school, has organised a petition against the No Outsiders project. She said yesterday: ‘What they are teaching is not right, they are too young. There are nine parts of the Act and they only seem to be focusing on one, homosexuality, and that is wrong. They need to have an ethos which reflects the area.
‘It’s not just because we are Muslims, there are Christians here too. We don’t have a vendetta against homosexuals and we respect the Act. We respect that Mr Moffat is gay and we are happy for him to teach.’ She said she would consider taking her daughter out of school full-time if the lessons continued, claiming children were being affected ‘emotionally and psychologically’.
One father, whose six- year- old daughter attends the school, said his wife wanted to leave the country rather than let her daughter attend the lessons. The man, who did not want to be named, said: ‘My daughter has been asking questions my wife did not know how to answer.
‘She is too young for this. A family who live near me have already returned to Pakistan because of it.’
Some of the protesters said Islam did not accept homosexuality, while others said they were not against it but accused the teacher of promoting ‘personal beliefs’. Mr Moffat said he tried to meet parents but stopped when they became ‘personal and aggressive’. He has described receiving threats from parents online. He told the BBC: ‘I have felt very threatened ... it’s been a challenging couple of weeks. However, what keeps me going is the support from the school which is absolutely brilliant, Ofsted [and] the city council.’
Currently, Year Five children, aged nine and ten, are taught about puberty and reproduction. Many under-11s currently learn about relationships in Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) classes but this is not mandatory.
The Government is, however, bringing in new compulsory ‘relationships’ education which will include teaching tolerance of same sex couples and transgender people.
Parkfield Community School has said it wants pupils to be ‘accepting and to welcome anybody’.
In a statement it said it was ‘disappointed’ by the protest but had ‘no plans’ to drop the ‘successful’ No Outsiders programme.