The police are “supporting” a Birmingham school afterits head teacher received a death threat on Facebook from a parent over teaching pupils about homosexuality.
Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, head of Anderton Park School in Sparkhill, was sent a message saying: “Any headteacher who teaches my children it’s alright to be gay will be at the end of my shotgun.”
Chief Superintendent Richard Moore, of West Midlands Police, said: “We have been supporting the school in relation to Facebook messages that concern the use of anti-homophobic teaching resources at the school.
“We will continue to support the school and any others in the local area where criminal offences are identified.
“We are also aware that the Department for Education, the local authority and Ofsted are taking an on-going interest and supporting local schools on all of the related issues.”
On Sunday (May 3) Ms Hewitt-Carkson told the National Association of Head Teachers annual conferencein Liverpool that theTrojan Horse scandal had not “gone away”.
She revealed some schools have had dead animals hung on the gates of schools and dismembered cats had been left on playgrounds.
However, the police and Birmingham City Council bosses insisted that dead animals were not discovered at Anderton Park School.
“We believe that other alleged offences may have happened at other schools and have not been reported to us,” Chief Sup Moore said.
“We would ask any school to come forward and report any criminal offences to us, particularly those which could be deemed to be hate crimes.”
A council spokeswoman added: “Now that we have been made aware of the social media allegations we have had a meeting with Ms Hewitt-Clarkson and are offering the appropriate support.
“She has assured us that the animal incident did not happen at her school.
“We remain committed to supporting all schools to deliver programmes relating to equality issues.”
The death threat revelation comes as the council rolls out two controversial education programmes tackling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues at all local-authority controlled primary and secondary schools.
But the schemes – Challenging Homophobia in Primary Schools (CHIPS) and Pride in Education (PIE) – which are due to be fully up and running by 2018 have sparked controversy.
Parents signed a petition to stop pupils being taught CHIPS at Clifton Primary School in Balsall Heath in March.
And last year Jamie Barry, head teacher at Welford School in Handsworth, was confronted by more than 100 angry parents worried about the lessons.
In both incidents parents said the subject “conflicted” with the religious beliefs of the children, who are predominantly Muslim, while they also believed four year-olds are too young to be taught the subject.