© Reuters / Tyrone Siu
Parkfield Community School has been forced to suspend its 'No Outsiders' classes until after Easter, while a consultation takes place with parents. Tensions between the school and parents have escalated due to a row surrounding LGBT lifestyles being taught in classrooms.
The ill-feeling from angry parents has even boiled over into threats against the assistant headteacher Andrew Moffat MBE, who is gay. He claims to have received "nasty emails" including one which warned he "wouldn't last long."
The primary school, which has around 740 pupils, is located in a predominantly Muslim area. It has come under fire from Muslim parents for implementing an LGBT programme which seeks to challenge homophobia, because homosexuality is strictly forbidden in Islam.
According to Alum Rock Community Forum, children were removed from classes over the school's "undermining of parental rights and aggressively promoting homosexuality."
The forum added that despite repeated petitions, protests and dialogue instigated by parents, they have been "arrogantly ignored."
In a letter to parents, the trustee board of Excelsior Multi Academy Trust, which runs the school, confirmed lessons would be halted until the end of April.
Moffat had been piloting the programme, which had been running in parallel with sex and relationship education (SRE) lessons.
Books about same sex marriage including King & King and Mommy, Mama and Me were just some of the books being read to children.
Reader Comments
your personal choices are yours to make,
pedos can't survive in todays enviroment,
So why is deviant mainstream view being taught to primary children.
sexual choices are made by teens onwards, children should be protected in their Innocence,
by the government not exposed to non normal thinking.
I am taoist, and believe in the rights of adults to decide.
The rights of children are actually protected in the normal family by both parents facing up to their responsibilities.
Not the governments job.
Teaching about sex, gender, and real people is not promoting a "deviant mainstream view". It could be said that all people are 'normal' unless they hurt each other.
Yes, education is a government thing, and education pretty much covers everything in our world.
The majority of thinking in the adult world could be called "non-normal" inasmuch as we permit war, inequality, prejudice, ignorance, illness, hunger, gross pollution, etc. etc.
Self-identifying to some belief system opens one up to examination as the presumption is that one actually follows said belief system.