The Al Madinah Islamic free school in Derby is in trouble. The Guardian has a full copy of the OFSTED report and it is stunning reading and includes some amazingly direct language: “The school is in chaos”, “dysfunctional” and “no coherent staffing structure” stick out for me.
According to a leaked copy of the prospectus, the curriculum isn’t much better:
In each and every department, all efforts will be geared towards ensuring the books and resources conform to the teachings of Islam.
Sensitive, inaccurate and potentially blasphemous material will be censored or removed completely. If and when teachers are required by the curriculum to convey teachings that are totally against Islam, the Director of Islamic Studies will brief the relevant teachers and advise accordingly.
I had to pinch myself to ensure I wasn’t in some kind of strange nightmare. Here we are in 2013, in a global economy based on science and technology, in a modern, multicultural society, and we have schools funded by the British taxpayer which include in their prospectus the promise that “potentially blasphemous material will be censored”. What the fuck?
Free schools are directly accountable to the Department of Education rather than to the local education authorities. So, like it or not, this particular sack of shit is now perching atop Michael Gove’s desk. And The Independent is claiming that Gove knew about how much of a clusterfuck Al Madinah was long before OFSTED conducted their investigation.
Still, it’s a triumph of parental choice and religious insanity over actually providing a decent education.