As many as 80 per cent of pupils are being kept home from Parkfield Community School, Birmingham in protest at what parents described as the “aggressive” promotion of homosexuality in the classroom.
On Friday, around 600 children were taken out of classes at the Birmingham primary school, where 98 per cent of its 740 pupils follow Islam, after weeks of protest against a programme which sees the celebration of LGBT lifestyles and so-called diversity “embedded” into the curriculum.
The Alum Rock Community Forum, representing parents in the predominantly Muslim inner-city suburb, said children were being kept home as a result of the school “undermining parental rights and aggressively promoting homosexuality”.
“Dialogue, petitioning and protests by parents have been repeated and arrogantly ignored. Our children, Our Choice —Work with parents not against them,” the forum told Birmingham Live.
Reporting from Friday’s protest, where people held placards reading “Let Kids Be Kids” and “Say No To Sexualisation of Children”, The Sun said speakers explained they were not homophobic but that they did not think it was appropriate for LGBT issues to be taught to four- to 11-year-olds in a classroom environment.
Father Abdul Ma told the newspaper: “This is a brainwash. We bring our children here so they can later work as a solicitor or a teacher, not to be taught about being gay or a lesbian.”
Fatima Shah, a mother of pupils at the school, said what was being taught is not “age-appropriate”, adding that “promoting homosexuality” in the classroom was “confusing children”.
“Children are coming home, girls are asking whether it is true they can be boys, boys as young as four asking whether it is true we can be girls. There is no need for it,” she said.
The ‘No Outsiders’ curriculum has been piloted at Parkfield since the school hired Andrew Moffat, who is gay, as assistant headteacher. Moffat created the curriculum programme and says the pro-“tolerance” plan is essential at “preparing children for modern Britain”.
Previously awarded an MBE for services to equality and diversity in education in 2017, Mr Moffat was recently announced to be one of ten finalists shortlisted for a million-dollar (£765,000) Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2019.
“It shows that the world is moving forward. And what we don’t want is for children in Birmingham to be left behind,” he said of the shortlisting.
“It’s a great city, a diverse city, where everyone needs to feel welcome. What we can’t have is pockets of society where you can’t be this, you can’t be that. Children need to understand that we live in a diverse world and that is good.”
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