Revealing the shocking extent to which strict Muslim practices are being imposed on pupils and teachers alike, the chief inspector of schools said the plotters used ‘fear and intimidation’ against their opponents.
Music was banned at one primary, raffles and tombolas were axed from fetes for being unIslamic and boys were forced to change for PE in a store cupboard to preserve their modesty.
One primary spent £32,000 on a five-star trip to Saudi Arabia from which non-Muslim pupils were barred.
Children as young as six at the same school were told that Western women were ‘white prostitutes’.
Launching long-awaited reports on 21 schools, Sir Michael said the widespread conspiracy had involved fundamentalists infiltrating governing bodies.
Governors had ‘exerted inappropriate influence’ on schools leading to enforced segregation of boys and girls in some classes and a narrowing of the curriculum.
The Ofsted reports – and a separate set of Department for Education investigations – make many other revelations including that teachers attempted to vet the script of a nativity play. The reports were issued as:
Sir Michael revealed that Mr Gove had blocked his request for the right to carry out snap inspections.
Ofsted’s three-month inquiry resulted in five schools being put into special measures, with a sixth having its ‘failing’ verdict reaffirmed.
One head was so worried about the consequences of whistle-blowing he or she insisted on meeting inspectors in a supermarket car park.
‘Some headteachers reported that there has been an organised campaign to target certain schools in Birmingham in order to alter their character and ethos,’ Sir Michael said.
‘A culture of fear and intimidation has developed in some of the schools since their previous inspection.
‘Staff and some head teachers variously described feeling “intimidated”, “undermined” or “bullied” by governors, and sometimes by senior staff, into making changes they did not support.’
Some governors were ‘trying to impose and promote a narrow faith-based ideology in what are non-faith schools’.
Headteachers had ‘identified governors who are highly influential across several of the schools that were inspected’.Claims of a co-ordinated campaign initially surfaced in the letter that triggered the Ofsted and Government investigations, which purported to describe a ‘Trojan Horse’ operation to infiltrate governing bodies and push through a strict Islamic agenda.
