The statement from the Department for Education spokesman about Derby’s controversial Al-Madinah School could not be more clear.
“The DfE will not hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to prevent religious intolerance or any breaking of the rules for free schools,” he said.
As this newspaper has already urged, an Ofsted inspection of practices at this school cannot come soon enough.
The ministry spokesman was putting it very mildly when he said that allegations of bad practice were “very worrying”.
Indeed so. And, in reply to the suggestion that we have exaggerated or invented some of the causes of concern, we can publish today a copy of the code of conduct issued to members of staff.
So, do some of the requirements amount to “religious intolerance”, requiring action by the ministry?
The code strictly itemises what can and cannot be worn and states clothing “must not display any symbols of other faiths”.
What could be more intolerant?
The teacher who told us she felt compelled to resign because of the pressures put on her to conform says the requirement to wear a hijab was only put to female staff at an induction session just before the school opened.
As a Christian, had she been aware of it at interview stage, she would never have taken the job, she said.
You may think it curious that a Christian would want to apply to work at a school which plainly was going to have Muslim roots.
But why not? After all, Andrew Cutts-McKay, the first headmaster, now departed, had vowed that the school would “honour all faiths” and he envisaged a school where 50% of pupils were Islamic and the remainder were not.
What could be more rewarding for a teacher than to work in such an environment, with the potential to contributing to, and witnessing, increased racial harmony among the younger generation?
Such a scenario now shows little or no sign of developing at Al-Madinah.