Faith Schoolers Anonymous

Lack of ‘SRE’ in schools leaves pupils exposed to the damaging lies of pro-life groups

“The result had been devastating for three young women, who ran out of the assembly crying after it was inferred that they were murderers, because they had had an abortion.”

juliabpas — Julia Bradley – Education Manager at BPAS

I have been involved in teaching sex and relationships education for the last 15 years. Both, as a school nurse, then working for my local authority, and now as education manager for British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). Over these years, we have seen different political parties come and go, debates about making sex and relationships education (SRE) compulsory, and new guidance being needed, but never produced. What has actually changed? Well nothing at the time of writing.

The problem with this is it puts young people at risk from organisations with very strong (not always accurate) views and beliefs, and in these days when money for school SRE is very tight or non-existent, these same organisations offer their services for free. Which for cash strapped schools can seem like a great option to ensure their students get these vital life skill messages. But do we really want to trust such organisations?

When I was working for my local authority I received a very upsetting call from a school nurse at a mixed secondary school. She had been asked to support an assembly on abortion, delivered by a pro-life organisation. The result had been devastating for three young women, whom had run out crying after it was inferred that they were murderers, because they had had an abortion. This was a 6^th form assembly with 150 young people present, so the odds of someone in the room either having had or knowing someone who had had an abortion were high.

In what other part of a schools’ curriculum could you get away with giving young people such wrong and misleading information?

As we know 1 in 3 women will have had an abortion by the age of 45. Why then is so little planning and prep given to such important areas of young people’s lives? If the school had asked their visitors exactly what they were going to deliver (a very graphic DVD with misleading information given out afterwards) and watched it beforehand, would the fall-out have been as awful? If the students knew the content, then they could choose to attend or not. This unfortunately is not my only account of such practice happening in schools.

In my BPAS role, I visited a mixed secondary C of E school last year in the home counties to deliver a pro-choice session, as the school the week before had a pro-life group in. I was hoping in the intervening years since my last experience of such groups things would have improved. Sadly I was wrong. The head-of-year greeted me, with a rather worried look on his face. The woman that had come to deliver was quite aggressive with the students, waving her finger at them, almost admonishing them. I reassured him I deliver facts and evidence based information, for them to research and make up their own minds. I was also worried that the students had been given misinformation regarding emergency contraception (being told it was the same as abortion), despite the entire medical evidence to the contrary. Emergency contraception aims to interfere with ovulation and fertilisation before implantation happens, where as medical abortion ends a pregnancy. I corrected other things they had been told, and pointed them to local NHS clinics or unbiased web sites, such as NHS choices for YP, for them to find support and information.

In what other part of a schools’ curriculum could you get away with giving young people such wrong and misleading information? The answer is, I don’t think we could in any other subject.

I was booked to go to a sixth form boy’s grammar school later this year, again, to do a follow-up after a pro-life session. The school then asked to change the format, so we had a head-to-head debate, which I declined, as I don’t feel it would have been supportive of the young men’s education, or given them the correct information about sex and relationships, particularly, condom use. When I explained my concerns, the school decided to cancel the whole idea. It’s such a shame for those young men at a pertinent time of their lives.

My last experience of helping to put accurate information to young people, was after a pro-life group set up a stall and banners outside a 6^th form college on the south coast. They were not invited by the college, but set up on the pavement outside. It was brought to my attention, because a mother of a young woman at the college contacted BPAS through Facebook, because she was so worried, as she had collected her older daughter but had her younger child in the car. She was also concerned that a young person at the college may have been experiencing unintended pregnancy or may have had an abortion, and the effects it would have on them. I approached the college, and was invited to have a stand during their ‘Be Well’ week teaming up with the local sexual health drop-in. It was a great success with many young people dropping by for accurate information, exploring contraception, condom use, STI’s and un-biased places to obtain a pregnancy test, or access sexual health services.

I recognise the desire of schools to present young people with a balanced education, but there is no virtue in any balance struck between information and misinformation. Unfortunately, in my experience, that is the kind of balance that many schools end up presenting when they ask both a pro-life group and a group like BPAS in to speak. That makes my job, and potentially these young people’s lives, all the harder.

I am passionate about sexual and reproductive health and have devotion for teaching young people about SRE, and I believe that all young people should have access to accurate, unbiased, up-to-date information about relationships, puberty, sex, consent, contraception and STI’s. Delivered to them in (and out of) schools, by people who want to impart this knowledge in a manner that will allow them to obtain the facts, in order for them to have safe, enjoyable and healthy sex lives, either now or in the future.

Julia Bradley – Education Manager & Lead Nurse BPAS.

Inside Britain’s homophobic Christian schools

“Though the researchers do not put it this way, the evidence suggests that attending a New Christian School makes you more likely to be homophobic”

There has recently been a flurry of interest in alleged homophobic teachings at Islamic and Jewish faith schools. In particular, unregistered schools reportedly promoting “misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic material” have come under fire. Of course, it is right that homophobic teaching is challenged wherever it is found. Strangely, however, numerous Ofsted-inspected private Christian schools have promoted similar views, yet attracted comparatively little scrutiny.

Known collectively as the ‘New Christian Schools’, a group of evangelical schools have long been open about their teaching of what they would call ‘traditional Christian morality’. Accelerated Christian Education schools are a part of this loosely-affiliated movement, which also includes numerous other kinds of evangelical school. In a 1988 book, an advocate for these Christian schools listed “homosexuality taught as a valid alternative” among the reasons for parents to reject mainstream education.

Husband: means a man who has a wife. Wife: means a woman who has a husband. — Image from ACE Social Studies 1029, a workbook used in some New Christian Schools.

In a 2005 study, 21% of boys aged 13-15 in non-religious secondary schools agreed with the statement “homosexuality is wrong”. For boys attending New Christian Schools, that figure was 70%. It’s an alarming statistic, but these boys’ negative attitudes to homosexuality might not be caused by their schools. Students in the New Christian Schools are much more likely than secular school students to come from evangelical homes and attend evangelical churches. Maybe they get their negative attitudes to homosexuality from their family or religious leaders.

Using the same data, a 2014 study tried to find out. Using statistical analysis, they tried to disentangle the effects of attending a New Christian School from other demographic factors: age, sex, location, social class, and religious affiliation. Unfortunately, the study did not control for parents’ religious affiliation and observance, which limits the conclusions, but it did control for students’ religious practice and belief.

Boys attending New Christian Schools are over three times more likely than secular school boys to agree “homosexuality is wrong”.

Before controlling for demographic factors, the researchers noted that “students in independent Christian schools were less accepting of abortion, contraception, divorce, homosexuality, and sex outside marriage”. They then found that even after demographic factors had been taken into account:

Independent Christian schools seem to shape students … who hold more conservative views on sexual morality (abortion, conception, divorce, homosexuality, and sex outside marriage).

Though the researchers do not put it this way, the evidence suggests that attending a New Christian School makes you more likely to be homophobic.

Just 20% of New Christian School students think gay couples should be allowed to look after children. We should ask why. Children are not born bigots.

More recent data supports this conclusion. In 2009, Sylvia Baker, a senior figure in the New Christian Schools movement, completed a survey of the schools’ secondary students for her PhD thesis. Explaining the schools’ position of homosexuality, Baker writes:

The new Christian schools tend to take a conservative line on the Christian view of marriage as it has traditionally been defined and regard the Bible’s teaching as precluding homosexual behaviour …

The schools would deny the accusation of homophobia and would claim that in their teaching they stress love for one’s neighbour and the importance of non-judgemental attitudes. However, historically, the teaching of Christianity on the subject of homosexuality, based on various passages from the Bible, is that homosexual practice and lifestyle is a sin.

Baker collected questionnaires from almost the entire student bodies aged 13-16 at 25 New Christian Schools. For our current purposes, three of the items on her questionnaire are of particular interest:

Just 20% of students in these schools thought gay couples should be allowed to care for children, and 15% think they should be allowed to marry. Baker seems to regard these findings as a success. Elsewhere in the thesis, she denies that the New Christian Schools indoctrinate their students, and she seems to take these findings as evidence:

While these data certainly support the view that the schools are upholding traditional Christian teaching on the issue of homosexuality, it also indicates that 30 to 40% of the pupils feel able to either reject or question that teaching.

The data, of course, tell us nothing of the sort. This was an anonymous survey, so we know nothing about whether students feel able to express support for homosexuality openly in their schools. And no system of indoctrination—not Hitler’s Germany, not Mao’s China, not North Korea—has ever been entirely effective, so these data also tell us little about how many students (if any) are indoctrinated.

The findings do give cause for concern, however. Rather than point to the 20% of students who agreed gay couples should be allowed to look after children, Baker should ask about the 62% who said the opposite. Children are not born bigots.

Since the introduction of the Government’s controversial ‘British Values’ programme, many Jewish and Islamic schools have come under scrutiny for their teachings on homosexuality. One school was recently banned from accepting new students in part because it did not teach students about same-sex relationships or encourage “respect for people who have such characteristics”.

If Ofsted and the Government do not apply these criteria evenly to all schools, including Christian schools, then the ‘British Values’ scheme will start to look less like it’s about promoting tolerance and more like a crusade against ‘alien’ religious beliefs.

Jonny Scaramanga also blogs at Leaving Fundamentalism.

‘Government inaction on illegal faith schools very nearly killed these children’

“Sadly, to those of us who have been through the illegal Charedi education system, none of this is at all surprising”

‘When they were plucked to safety, the schoolchildren were still in high spirits apparently unaware of the danger they’ve been in’ noted the ITV reporter who sounded rather perplexed.

This story which has been widely reported over the last few weeks, understandably caused some bafflement among reporters. How did a class of 34 school-children from London along with their two teachers walk past ‘nine warning signs’ on their way to the bottom of the cliff? None of whom ‘were dressed in any attire that you would associate with clambering over rocks’.

Sadly, to those of us who have been through the illegal Charedi education system, none of this is at all surprising.

The lack of basic teaching in English meant that neither the students nor the teachers (born and brought up in the UK by the way) had any of the grasp of what the words on the warning signs meant. Moreover, the notion of rising tides would be an alien concept to these boys because the teaching on science or geography is considered ‘evil’ for the role it plays in causing these pupils to question the sanctity of ancient religious scriptures.

So where are the authorities in all this?

The initial response by a PR firm hired by the school, was that they were a trip organised by an unknown community centre, which has no registered records anywhere and seems to have popped into existence only after this tragic incident.

A subsequent investigation by The Independent and British Humanist Association (BHA) found that these pupils and their teachers were in fact from an illegal unregistered school and had simply lied about the community centre. The full report can be found here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pupils-at-illegal-faith-school-almost-died-after-being-taken-on-hike-up-a-cliff-in-traditional-ultra-a7116956.html

Particularly shocking is the finding that ‘the teachers put the children’s lives in further danger because, once they realised they were at risk of drowning, they initially contacted community leaders in Stamford Hill, north London, instead of contacting authorities for fear of the illegal school being discovered.’

This illegal school has been known to the authorities for many years and yet no concrete action had yet been taken to shut it down.

The most disturbing outcome of this incident is highlighted in the final paragraph of the report:

‘A spokesperson for Hackney Council told The Independent they do not have any legal powers to close the schools and are conducting an investigation into the incident. They stated that they believed the children were from a school rather than the community centre but said that the school is not an illegal secondary school but a nearby legally run private primary school. After it was highlighted that this was not possible as the children in the incident were not of primary school age and sources outside the school site had confirmed it was the illegal school involved, Hackney Council declined to comment further.’

formerpupilbbclondon — **An anonymous former pupil of an illegal Charedi school being interviewed by the BBC last year**

The primary school in question is a registered religious school about half a mile away from the location from the illegal secondary school who took these boys on the treacherous trip.

It is astonishing that Hackney thought it realistic to make such a claim. According to the latest 2016 Department for Education census, the primary school which Hackney tried to claim these boys belonged to has no pupil above the age of 11 and isn’t registered to take anyone older than 11 anyway.

If these 34 pupils were indeed from the above school, they would have all been aged 10 or 11. Yet all the boys on this trip (as seen in the reported images) were clearly older and were dressed in the traditional Charedi clothing worn only post Bar Mitzvah (above the age of 13).

There are serious questions which must be asked, not only about the lack of action to shut down this illegal school for so many years (which would undoubtedly have been responsible for the deaths of these children were they less fortunate), but also why Hackney Council originally made a fictitious claim about the alleged school to which these boys belong?

This is why the work of the BHA is all the more critical in continuing to apply the pressure and hold authorities to account so that the well-being and rights of the children trapped in these schools, as I once was, can be protected.

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