Lessons in activism

School slammed over ‘anti-cop’ agenda

FURIOUS Education Minister warned teachers political activism has no place in classrooms after a Sydney primary school displayed studentmade posters emblazoned with the words “stop killer cops” and “pigs out of the country”.

One placard of those completed by Year 5 and Year 6 students and displayed in the classroom at the upper North Shore’s Lindfield Learning Village said “white lives matter too much” and “change climate change”. Another Black Lives Matter poster said: “You can’t silence the speechLess”.

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell on Tuesday ordered a full review into how they came to be displayed in the first place at the recently opened public school.

“These posters should not be displayed in a classroom. Any teacher found to be politicising a classroom will face disciplinary action,” she said.

“Political activism has no place in a school. I have asked the Secretary to initiate a full review into this incident.”

The demonisation of the men and women in blue also prompted a fierce backlash by NSW Police Minister David Elliott, who said he will write to Ms Mitchell seeking an apology over why children were being brainwashed with anti-police propaganda by taxpayer-funded teachers.

“As Police Minister I am not going to cop it … It is a disgraceful act to have any educational institution allow this sort of engagement with its students and to have any students exposed to this sort of attitude,” he said.

“At a time when we’re encouraging children to have faith in police to trust them enough to bring forward concerns about sexual assault and consent and illegal drug acA tivity, to have any learning establishment promote this sort of approach to law enforcement, runs the risk of children losing faith in the justice system.”

Lindfield Learning Village is billed as an alternative school which was opened by the Department of Education in 2019 and promised an “innovative educational model”.

NSW Upper House MP Mark Latham described it as a “radical lefty sinkhole of a school” and said the teacher and principal should be fired.