Stop treating pupils as a political project
IT’S NEARLY four years since I was widowed. Family and friends helped me get through that first, especially grim year. But one unspoken hero was the deputy headmaster at the school where my two youngest children went. Nothing was too much trouble. On one occasion, when the school bus broke down, he put them in his own car and drove both home.
Probably against someone’s rules somewhere on pupil transport, but exactly the kind of practical support I needed.
I say this to make clear I’m not reflexively anti-teacher. My late wife was training to be one. I have a sister who teaches in Dubai. But the fact is that too many schools see young minds as blank-slates ripe for ideological indoctrination.
Take the school in Nottinghamshire, where pupils as young as 10 have been encouraged to write letters to the Prime Minister criticising him over “Partygate”.
Pictures posted on Twitter by the school showed a child scowling next to a whiteboard
‘Where was the freedom of choice?’
on which was written “Boris Johnson” and the words “lies”, “mistrust” and “selfish”, in what appears to be adult hand-writing.
They say a fish rots from the head down. No surprise then to discover that the school’s headmistress has previously used the phrase “Tory Scum” online.
It’s a similar story in Lancashire. Again, we’re not talking about a secondary school here, but a primary acting in loco parentis for young, impressionable children.
The school in question is Barrowfield Primary School in Nelson. Some parents there are threatening to move their children after the head banned meat from the menu. She claimed it was needed to help the fight against climate change.
One parent wrote on Facebook: “I take it these children will never have a Christmas lunch ever again in school, something that’s happened for decades and all of them look forward to.”
There’s nothing new about headteachers running their schools as personal fiefdoms. I was terrified of Mr Moreland, the head of my primary school in 1970s West Yorkshire. But there’s a difference between instilling manners and motivation (never more needed after lockdown) and treating children as foot soldiers conscripted to fight a culture war.
There are democratic principles at stake. Where was the consultation with parents? Why were children told that even lunchboxes made at home should contain only plant-based food? Where was the freedom of choice?
Banning meat in schools is not government policy. And yet this headteacher was behaving as if it was settled science. It’s not.the truth is more complicated.
NOT ALL fruit and veg is good for the planet. Where’s the environmental sense in importing thousands of tonnes of soya-based protein from crops from the other side of the world? I’m not sure the school menu in Nelson runs to avocado on toast, but if it does, remember this. It takes 2,000 litres of water to grow a kilo of avocado.
It would be naive to think some teachers haven’t long seen the chance to impose their prejudices on young minds as a perk of the job. Many never shed the hard-left views of their student days, but it doesn’t mean they ought to get away with it.
I like the idea of schools having the freedom to plough their own furrow, independent of local authority control. For that to work, parents must have a voice.
But often, school governors simply go along with liberal, Left-wing consensus.
Parents need to learn to call this stuff out. Do the detective work. Join the dots. If a head is creating a culture that is overtly politicised, check their Twitter account. Organise on Facebook. Let them know that a school isn’t their pet project, it’s paid for by the taxpayer.
They have a duty – a sacred duty – to teach. Not preach.