Top head: New law needed to stop school segregation

A LEADING headmaster has called for a new law to stop state schools in diverse areas being taken over by one faith or community.

Sir Nick Weller, the chief executive of Dixons Academies in Bradford, said legislation is needed to stop communities segregating themselves at school level.

He warned of the ‘unhealthy’ situation in Bradford, where the Muslim and the white communities ‘live separate lives’ and send their children to different schools.

His comments come more than 30 years after another headmaster, Ray Honeyford, was branded racist for raising concerns about community cohesion in the multicultural city.

He later lost his job – but many said he was at least partially vindicated when a government-commissioned report into the 2001 Bradford riots blamed ‘ shockingly’ divided communities.

Sir Nick, who runs eight academies in the city, told Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday that diversity in schools is vital to helping com- munities interact.

He said: ‘I think it’s unhealthy in a city like Bradford for two communities to live separate lives, which by and large they do. You could say Bradford is almost two communities – the Muslim community and the white community.

‘Families will ignore the school that is nearest them because it is predominantly of one – the “wrong” – ethnic group and they will send them a little bit further down the road to a school where they feel more comfortable.’

He said there was a ‘tipping point’ and that once a school has ‘70 to 80 per cent’ of pupils from one community, other families are put off sending their child there.

Asked if the Government should legislate for the proportion from one community in any one school to be no more than 70 per cent, he Warning: Sir Nick Weller said: ‘I think that is the only answer myself, but the legal implications of that are quite high.’

Currently, all new faith schools must recruit 50 per cent of pupils who do not belong to their religion – although the Government has consulted on scrapping this requirement.

Sir Nick’s proposal goes further, suggesting existing faith and nonfaith schools should also be made to recruit a diverse mix of pupils.

Yesterday Professor Ted Cantle, who produced the report into the Bradford riots in 2001, said: ‘I do think it is a good idea.

‘Segregation is a disaster. We know that people who live in very excluded communities are more likely to fall prey to extremist points of view.’

Oliver Lee, chief executive of integration charity The Challenge, said: ‘It is hard to see how the Government could legislate on this, however local authorities and schools could do more to ensure their admissions policies encourage better school and community integration.’

Bradford Council’s executive member for education, Councillor Imran Khan, said: ‘Bradford has led the way in helping to bring together children of different faiths and cultural backgrounds through the Schools Linking Project which links schools to allow pupils from different parts of the district to learn side by side.

‘Our schools also take part in a variety of work which promotes the importance of tolerance.’

‘Almost two communities’