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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/01/ofsted-faith-schools-jewish-girls-censorship
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| Faith school zealots are abusing girls’ rights. Ofsted is correct to censure | Faith school zealots are abusing girls’ rights. Ofsted is correct to censure |
| (about 2 months later) | |
| I long to know which story by Arthur Conan Doyle was judged, by the censors at Yesodey Hatorah senior girls’ school, to be so contaminating to young female minds, that bits had to be hidden. Did it feature cocaine? Bare wrists? Or was the presence, within the same room, of Holmes, Watson and an unchaperoned Mary Morstan more offensive to leaders who also redacted sections of a text on Elizabethan England that mentioned, Ofsted reports, “the Queen’s supremacy”. | I long to know which story by Arthur Conan Doyle was judged, by the censors at Yesodey Hatorah senior girls’ school, to be so contaminating to young female minds, that bits had to be hidden. Did it feature cocaine? Bare wrists? Or was the presence, within the same room, of Holmes, Watson and an unchaperoned Mary Morstan more offensive to leaders who also redacted sections of a text on Elizabethan England that mentioned, Ofsted reports, “the Queen’s supremacy”. |
| These, anyway, were just two of the extensive educational oddities uncovered by Ofsted inspectors: their new report ranks the Haredi-run school as “inadequate”. It found: “Leaders do not encourage pupils’ respect for other people because they do not acknowledge some groups in society.” The word “homosexual” was, for example, redacted in text about the Holocaust. | These, anyway, were just two of the extensive educational oddities uncovered by Ofsted inspectors: their new report ranks the Haredi-run school as “inadequate”. It found: “Leaders do not encourage pupils’ respect for other people because they do not acknowledge some groups in society.” The word “homosexual” was, for example, redacted in text about the Holocaust. |
| Amazingly, the school’s leaders are not expressing relief that it continues to enjoy state funding, instead of being classified “unforgivable”, and closed. Rather, the men responsible for Yesodey Hatorah say that Ofsted, not the school, is at fault, for “showing a clear disrespect for the Orthodox Jewish community”. The chair of governors, Theo Bibelman, said the school, whose inspection was prompted by Humanists UK, felt itself “part of a secularist plot”. | Amazingly, the school’s leaders are not expressing relief that it continues to enjoy state funding, instead of being classified “unforgivable”, and closed. Rather, the men responsible for Yesodey Hatorah say that Ofsted, not the school, is at fault, for “showing a clear disrespect for the Orthodox Jewish community”. The chair of governors, Theo Bibelman, said the school, whose inspection was prompted by Humanists UK, felt itself “part of a secularist plot”. |
| There appears to be no question, however, that the school did prohibit teaching about human or animal reproduction, redact information about female autonomy and, possibly most alarming, obliterate helpline numbers in books. This, the inspectors say – in what reads, in the circumstances, as a strikingly restrained assessment – “prevents pupils protecting themselves, because they are unable to seek independent, confidential advice if required”. | There appears to be no question, however, that the school did prohibit teaching about human or animal reproduction, redact information about female autonomy and, possibly most alarming, obliterate helpline numbers in books. This, the inspectors say – in what reads, in the circumstances, as a strikingly restrained assessment – “prevents pupils protecting themselves, because they are unable to seek independent, confidential advice if required”. |
| Jewish school in UK criticised for redacting 'bare wrists' from books | Jewish school in UK criticised for redacting 'bare wrists' from books |
| If, then, Ofsted were to have endorsed these methods, it would have been complicit – leave aside freelance censorship of the humanities – with the plan for any teenaged girl at this school to leave it knowing virtually nothing about her body, nor about her choices in sex and relationships, and with no clue about getting information from outside. When its censorship of textbooks was first exposed, a Yesodey Hatorah spokesman said this was “to protect girls from sexualisation in line with our parents’ wishes”. | If, then, Ofsted were to have endorsed these methods, it would have been complicit – leave aside freelance censorship of the humanities – with the plan for any teenaged girl at this school to leave it knowing virtually nothing about her body, nor about her choices in sex and relationships, and with no clue about getting information from outside. When its censorship of textbooks was first exposed, a Yesodey Hatorah spokesman said this was “to protect girls from sexualisation in line with our parents’ wishes”. |
| In the context of faith schools, he will have many sympathisers. Ofsted’s last annual report identified, with concern, educators “who seek to isolate young people from the mainstream, do not prepare them for life in Britain or, worse, actively undermine fundamental British values”. | In the context of faith schools, he will have many sympathisers. Ofsted’s last annual report identified, with concern, educators “who seek to isolate young people from the mainstream, do not prepare them for life in Britain or, worse, actively undermine fundamental British values”. |
| Rarely, however, can a faith school so dedicated to isolation have found itself endorsed by one of modern religion’s most widely available talents, Thought for the Day’s Giles Fraser. The Anglican prelate and radio personality called the report “Terrible news for the Jewish community”. All of it? Some members of the Jewish community have, it should be said, ridiculed this statement; then again, Fraser speaks with the authority of a BBC Moral Maze panellist. | Rarely, however, can a faith school so dedicated to isolation have found itself endorsed by one of modern religion’s most widely available talents, Thought for the Day’s Giles Fraser. The Anglican prelate and radio personality called the report “Terrible news for the Jewish community”. All of it? Some members of the Jewish community have, it should be said, ridiculed this statement; then again, Fraser speaks with the authority of a BBC Moral Maze panellist. |
| As for Ofsted, and the chief inspector of education, Amanda Spielman, Fraser, who also contributes cultural insights to the BBC’s Saturday Review, says they’re “behaving like the school bully”. Since there can be no doubting the Reverend Fraser’s sympathy with the anti-sexualising Haredi educators, we can only marvel at the scale of the epiphany he must have enjoyed post-2013 when he condemned, for the benefit of Today listeners, all churches’ “unwillingness to speak honestly, openly and compassionately about sex in general and homosexuality in particular”. His fellow media homilist, the Roman Catholic Catherine Pepinster, also considers Ofsted, rather than Yesodey Hatorah’s censors, to be at fault. “It might seem eccentric,” she writes, of redacted ankles and wrists, but the parents and school know best: “Ofsted’s intervention over them seems the embodiment of the nanny state.” | As for Ofsted, and the chief inspector of education, Amanda Spielman, Fraser, who also contributes cultural insights to the BBC’s Saturday Review, says they’re “behaving like the school bully”. Since there can be no doubting the Reverend Fraser’s sympathy with the anti-sexualising Haredi educators, we can only marvel at the scale of the epiphany he must have enjoyed post-2013 when he condemned, for the benefit of Today listeners, all churches’ “unwillingness to speak honestly, openly and compassionately about sex in general and homosexuality in particular”. His fellow media homilist, the Roman Catholic Catherine Pepinster, also considers Ofsted, rather than Yesodey Hatorah’s censors, to be at fault. “It might seem eccentric,” she writes, of redacted ankles and wrists, but the parents and school know best: “Ofsted’s intervention over them seems the embodiment of the nanny state.” |
| It’s true that, since the “Trojan horse” story in 2014, and under Amanda Spielman’s leadership, Ofsted appears to have woken up to a cultural relativism that had previously indulged attempts by zealots, of various orthodoxies, to inculcate in state and independent schools the most restrictive interpretations of their faiths. Recent inspections have exposed, for instance, persistent sex segregation of young children in a Muslim school; the redaction of evolution and hostility to other faiths in a Christian one, with the erasure of homosexuality being favoured by a range of devout establishments. | It’s true that, since the “Trojan horse” story in 2014, and under Amanda Spielman’s leadership, Ofsted appears to have woken up to a cultural relativism that had previously indulged attempts by zealots, of various orthodoxies, to inculcate in state and independent schools the most restrictive interpretations of their faiths. Recent inspections have exposed, for instance, persistent sex segregation of young children in a Muslim school; the redaction of evolution and hostility to other faiths in a Christian one, with the erasure of homosexuality being favoured by a range of devout establishments. |
| What spiritual fundamentalists tend to share, as dedicated patriarchs, is unabashed misogyny | What spiritual fundamentalists tend to share, as dedicated patriarchs, is unabashed misogyny |
| What spiritual fundamentalists tend also to share, as dedicated patriarchs, is unabashed misogyny, albeit usually represented as protectiveness. While indoctrination discourages independent thought in both sexes, young girls plainly have more to lose, given their routine classification as weaklings and chattels, helpmeets and reproductive vessels, who are too sexually tempting to be allowed full personhood, as well as possibly ripe for a beating. | What spiritual fundamentalists tend also to share, as dedicated patriarchs, is unabashed misogyny, albeit usually represented as protectiveness. While indoctrination discourages independent thought in both sexes, young girls plainly have more to lose, given their routine classification as weaklings and chattels, helpmeets and reproductive vessels, who are too sexually tempting to be allowed full personhood, as well as possibly ripe for a beating. |
| In fact, considering the large number of faith schools where leaders prove that religious observance and the 2010 Equality Act are not incompatible, it’s arguably more effective to protest faith school zealotry, in feminist terms, as an abuse of girls’ rights, rather than framing it, more helpfully for Britain’s variegated faith guild, as a question of secularism versus spiritual expression. Does one of our guides through BBC’s Moral Maze genuinely endorse girls being purposefully misinformed about Elizabeth I? | In fact, considering the large number of faith schools where leaders prove that religious observance and the 2010 Equality Act are not incompatible, it’s arguably more effective to protest faith school zealotry, in feminist terms, as an abuse of girls’ rights, rather than framing it, more helpfully for Britain’s variegated faith guild, as a question of secularism versus spiritual expression. Does one of our guides through BBC’s Moral Maze genuinely endorse girls being purposefully misinformed about Elizabeth I? |
| Admittedly, it has been instructive to hear Today’s leading thinkers – who would probably agree that something must be done about female underachievement in Stem subjects, or about girls’ education in African countries – argue, as Fraser effectively does, for constructed female ignorance in north London. It will be the secularists’ fault, we learn, if pious parents, denied their denial of sex education, in future choose to teach their daughters out of sight. But why should that matter, if, as both the BBC’s theologians insist, nobody knows better than loving parents how to educate their children? | Admittedly, it has been instructive to hear Today’s leading thinkers – who would probably agree that something must be done about female underachievement in Stem subjects, or about girls’ education in African countries – argue, as Fraser effectively does, for constructed female ignorance in north London. It will be the secularists’ fault, we learn, if pious parents, denied their denial of sex education, in future choose to teach their daughters out of sight. But why should that matter, if, as both the BBC’s theologians insist, nobody knows better than loving parents how to educate their children? |
| “Who knows,” Pepinster writes darkly, “what they will be learning then.” It’s certainly a compelling case for extending Ofsted inspection. | “Who knows,” Pepinster writes darkly, “what they will be learning then.” It’s certainly a compelling case for extending Ofsted inspection. |
| • Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist | • Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist |
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| Gender | Gender |
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