Headteachers ‘receiving threats’ when teaching values against homophobia

School leaders are dealing with death threats when teaching gay relationships in schools

Schools in Birmingham are dealing with a renewed campaign of intimidation following the Trojan Horse scandal, including death threats and dismembered dead dogs and cats hanging from their railings, a headteacher claimed.

The threats - some posted on social media sites - have emerged in areas where the Muslim population is high and in response to heads teaching about gay relationships in their schools.

These incidents illustrate how issues around Trojan Horse have not gone away as headteachers raised concerns that no school governor implicated in the affair that saw hardline Muslims infiltrate schools in Birmingham last year has been investigated or banned.

Addressing an annual NAHT Union conference in Liverpool, heads claimed there has been fresh campaign of intimidation against them and called for a database of individuals who are taken out governing bodies.

Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, head of Anderton Park School in Birmingham told the conference: “Trojan Horse has not gone away. Those of us who were involved, we knew it was the tip of the iceberg. We still have dead animals hung on the gates of schools, dismembered cats on playgrounds. We have petitions outside schools, objecting to teachers teaching against homophobia.”

She said she had been sent a death threat on social media, in which someone had written “any headteacher who teaches my children it’s alright to be gay will be at the end of my shotgun.”

She said the death threat directed at her on Facebook had homophobic comments.

Speaking after the debate, Ms Hewitt-Clarkson said schools in Birmingham are still dealing with intimidating governors.

Her concerns were echoed by Rob Kelsall, NAHT senior regional officer, said the resurgence in intimidation against headteachers was due to a failure to implement all the recommendations of the Clarke report around limiting the number of governing bodies one person can sit on, and preventing people from being involved in schools have not been acted on.

Mr Kelsall said: “That has left the door open and allowed the resurgence of some of the key operators to try and start to intimidate some of the headteachers who are not necessarily the ones who are going to be speaking out.”

Addressing journalists on the sidelines of the conference, Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary, said she had been made aware of some of these issues in Birmingham and that the government was taking action to tackle the issue.

She said: “There is no place for extremism in our schools and we continue to work to eliminate it. But this is not going to happen overnight. Action has absolutely been taken and governors have been investigated and there are those who were governors who no longer are.”

Allegations of intimidation against school leaders followed the carrying of a motion to provide governors better training.

Alison Marshall, proposer of the motion, said there has been failure to restrain governors involved in the Trojan Horse plot.

Ms Marshall said: “It’s our members who are yet again giving evidence of appalling acts of radicalisation.

“And yet despite all the evidence we have, we’re faced with a situation where not one single governor implicated in the Trojan Horse scandal, has been investigated or even banned.”

Second the motion, Tim Gallagher, an NAHT member, said: “Being a school governors is to become a member of the largest voluntary group in the country. By and large they serve well the interests of schools and communities.

“However, restrictions on becoming a governor are very limited. Most willing adults will be admitted. Rarely will a governor applicant be checked as to whether they meet appropriate standards. There is no database of governors. None are required to undertake training.

“Selection, induction and training of governors is a patchwork quilt of variable quality and quantity.”

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