Rolled-up Trousers

St Albert's revisited

HMIE this week delivered a damning report into the management of St Albert's Primary School in Pollokshields, Glasgow.

Readers may remember that I blogged about the school almost two years ago, after Muslim parents were accused of being "extremists" for objecting to their children being forced to sit through Mass in the Muslim-majority Catholic denominational school.

I said at the time, in the face of much criticism, that the Head Teacher Frances Diver was grossly mismanaging the situation. It would be easy to say I feel vindicated in that stance given that she was singled out for criticism in the report, and was effectively sacked a few months ago in anticipation of the report's findings. The issues that HMIE identify though are more serious than this.

The purpose of education - maximising potential

BBC Scotland held a debate entitled "After the Bomb" a week after the Glasgow Airport attack. Following the traditional Question Time format, half-way through the programme a question on faith schools was selected in amongst the other issues affecting the terror threat.

It was a bizarre enough debating point in the context, but despite the fact that the panel did defend Scotland's diverse education system, not one of them made the point that this has nothing to do with terrorism and as such had no place on the programme. You don’t need much of an excuse to attack faith schooling in Scotland, but this was stretching the usual segregation canard to absolute ridicule.

My recent thought on this issue is that those who advocate an educational monoculture in Scotland, and advance community relations as their primary argument, need to explain their presumption for collective education in the first instance.

Before you abolish Catholic schools...

...why not get rid of Rangers and Celtic?

In Scotland, you don't need much of an excuse to attack faith schools. What has struck me for ages though is that while many bemoan how our kids are apparently living parallel lives, no one really gets to what's at the heart of it. It's not schools, it's football.

Kids are always going to go to different schools. In my town there were three - two non-denominational/Protestant, one Catholic. We didn't like the other non-denom (young people are territorial about these things), but the other school was different. It wasn't that we questioned their religious practices, or deplored the fact that they didn't have as direct a relationship with God as us. It's just they supported Celtic.

More nonsense on Catholic schools

The Catholic Church is reportedly about to get the power to approve all teachers at the denomination's schools in Glasgow.

The EIS, whose opposition to Catholic schooling is well known, have really got the wrong end of the stick with their comments in the Herald today:

Last night, officials from the Glasgow branch of the EIS said they intended to oppose the council plans. Willie Hart, branch secretary, said: "The EIS nationally has a policy of equality of opportunity in employment regardless of race, religious gender or sexual orientation, and this development would appear to diminish that.

How? Has anyone said that Catholics not agreeing to the Catholic school charter would be waived through regardless? That those of other faiths cannot sign up to the charter? It's commonsense that if someone is teaching in a school that they uphold it's values. What would be EIS think if a teacher was advocating a different ethos in a secular school? That if they were deemed not up to the job that it would be discrimination? As Donald Keane wrote into the Herald to say:

I wonder what those in management of any company would do about an employee/supplier who wasn't prepared to support the company's business objectives. There is no substantive difference between that situation and the church with regard to teachers in our schools.

Muslim schools are a "security problem" and should close

Apologies that I'm posting on this quite a bit after the event. I could not let this one go totally uncommented on however.

Sir Cyril Taylor, of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, and key government adviser on education has said:

In some parts of the country, for example, where children only speak Bangla at home and do not mix with other communities at school, it has become a real strategic security problem.

They would be much more likely to collaborate with the police and tell them [whether] people within their own community are doing things they shouldn't be doing if they were better integrated.

Where you have two schools, one that is predominantly white and the other that is majority Bangladeshi or Pakistani, the answer is to close them both and put them together in a new academy operating on a multifaith basis.

A number of issues with this analysis:

Alex Salmond has pledged to establish Scotland's first state Islamic school should he be First Minister come May.

The article also contains a remarkable turnaround in Conservative policy towards faith schools.

Islamic schools, not Muslim schools

The decision of Stirling Council to deny 13-year-old Reece Swain a free bus pass to go to school because he is not a Catholic is a complete nonsense. The boy had a pass in his first year to go to the Catholic St Modan's High, but has been taken away now after his faith status was uncovered.

I hope the Catholic Church or someone in authority somewhere comes out and condemns this fast. It does a disservice to faiths and faith schools.

David Cameron yesterday called for Muslims to follow the example of the Church of England in allocating 25% of their school places to non-Christians. Personally, I don't have a problem with this in principle. I've said from the beginning that Scotland's first state Muslim school must be open to all, and indeed if it is the successful school we anticipate and want it to be, it would be natural that people would want to send their children there.

The aim is not about segregating kids out. We should actually probably stop calling them 'Muslim schools', as that denotes that it's about people. What the campaign is actually about is to have a school with a unique set of values based on Islam. I can well understand people's concerns about segregation, even if I do not agree with them myself. But this about having an Islamic school, not a Muslim-only school.

Muslim schools 'more liberal and tolerant'

Muslim pupils are more liberal and tolerant than their white counterparts, according to a study released today.

Nearly a third of white youngsters questioned in Burnley, Lancashire, - the scene of race riots in 2001 - believed that one race was superior, compared with 10% of Asians who thought the same.

Almost half of the white pupils felt that respecting others regardless of religion was not important and a quarter did not feel it was important to tolerate people with different views.

The research was carried out as part of the Burnley Project, a Home Office-funded investigation in the wake of the riots.

More than 400 15-year-olds were surveyed about their attitudes towards race, religion and cultural integration earlier this year. The research was conducted by Lancaster University's religious studies department.

The pupils came from three unnamed non-religious schools, all in deprived areas. One in Burnley, attended mostly by white pupils, and two schools in Blackburn, where one had mostly Indian or Pakistani pupils and the other was ethnically mixed.

Study author Dr Andrew Holden said a "disturbing" finding of the survey was the response to the question of racial superiority.

Nearly a third of the white pupils believed one race was superior compared with a tenth in the Asian school and under a fifth in the mixed school.

Dr Holden said: "The greater degree of racial tolerance in an overwhelmingly Asian/Muslim populated school again calls into question the common sense assumption that mixed schools represent the most tolerant environments."

Jewish experience of faith schools

Simon Rocker of the Jewish Chronicle writes in the Guardian of how faith schools reduce fanaticism, not increase it.

The Jewish community's experience of their own schools is an interesting one. As he points out, they are held up as the very model of an integrated community, yet half of all Jewish kids attend a Jewish school:

British Jewry is often held up as a model of an integrated "minority". That makes one contemporary feature of it all the more notable: the dramatic swing towards religious schooling. No community has taken greater advantage of successive governments' willingness to subsidise faith schools. Between 1997 and 2005, the number of state-aided Jewish schools rose 50 per cent from 24 to 36.

(...)

Vatican calls for Islamic hour in schools

A Vatican report has said that schools with over 100 Muslim pupils should have an 'Islamic hour'. Hope that St Albert's RC Primary in Pollokshields, where 300 of the 330 pupils are Muslim, has taken note.

McConnell gives backing to Muslim schools

Scotland's First Minister has given his backing to the creation of a Muslim school.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that officials have been instructed to accommodate the Muslim community.

A letter from Ben Haynes of the Scottish executive’s education department, on behalf of McConnell, states that the executive will support any local authority wishing to create separate Muslim schools.

It says: “We believe faith schools have an important role to play in educating children. Any faith can ask the local education authority to establish a school to be run along particular faith lines. The local education authority would not have to agree to such a request, but in considering it they would have to take into account the principle that children should be educated in line with their parents’ wishes.”

'Roadmap' established for a Muslim school

A meeting has been held with Glasgow City Council about establishing Scotland's first state-funded Muslim school.

The result was that a clear set of criteria were established by which it would be set up. We're ready to tick most of the boxes already, while the council would also work with us in making sure that some of the remaining aspects are up to scratch.

Obviously, we are disappointed the Willowbank proposal was not accepted. It would have been a low cost and low hassle way of setting it up.

That campaign though did get use to this point - of having a clear roadmap to getting where we need to be. We also found the council less "not opposed" to the idea as genuinely open to establishing this groundbreaking move.

"Protest" at Catholic School

St Albert's Primary School in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow is once again in the news. This time the local priest, Father John Gannon, has labelled Muslim parents who want to withdraw their children from Mass at the Catholic school as "extremists".

This "pulpit attack" was splashed on the front page of the Daily Record. For those justifiably reluctant to take anything reported in Scotland's biggest selling tabloid seriously, he repeated his allegations of a protest on BBC Reporting Scotland and The Herald.

In reality there was no protest. Parents had arranged with the head teacher, Mrs Diver, to take their children out of school for the final hour of last Friday when Mass takes place. This was after she said she could make no alternative provision for them within the school.

Clearly Father Gannon has a strange idea of what constitutes a protest. There were no placards. There was no chanting. Parents came to pick up their children. His labelling of those parents as "extremists" is below the belt in today's political climate. It's even more despicable coming from a man of the cloth.

Parents are entitled to ask who the "extremist" is between them and a man who is insisting on performing Mass in front of 300 Muslim schoolchildren. This saga has been going on for over a year and it is high time that the head teacher formulated a clear and publicised policy on the options available to children who do not wish to take part in Catholic religious observance.

Facing a wall at the back as has happened before now is inhumane and should not be an option. The head teacher says she cannot provide any rooms or supervision elsewhere in the school building. Taking your children home is now considered a protest. What is the school's position? Bizarrely things have gone downhill. Former pupils from two decades ago report that at that time, the Catholic minority in the school were taken out for Mass, while the rest of the pupils carried on with class as normal.

Twinning plans a boost for Muslim schools

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell yesterday launched plans to tackle bigotry, including proposals to twin faith and non-faith schools in joint activities. These will include sports, music and drama, field trips and community projects.

This can only boost the cause of a state-funded Muslim school. One of the main objections among secularists is the "separation" of children. This is not one of our goals though, and we've always said we'd be creative about mixing between children of different backgrounds. As long as the Muslim ethos of a school is present, which can include non-Muslim children and teachers too, we're not paranoid about coming into regular contact with others.

There is a danger of overblowing the effect of schooling in ending bigotry though. There isn't a single Muslim school in Scotland but we still suffer great amounts of Islamophobia and racism. I went to a non-denominational school and the same kids that called me a "Paki" in P1 were still doing it at the end of secondary school despite knowing me all those years. It's bigots that cause bigotry, not schools.

Sunday Herald article

I have an article on Muslim schools in today's Sunday Herald. One quick quote about Glasgow City Council's position:

At last year’s general election, after realising their support among Muslims had collapsed, Labour continually cited their establishment of state-funded Muslim schools in England as a saving grace. With elections due next year, I expected a softer line in Glasgow, especially now every vote counts with proportional representation.

You can read the whole thing here.

Arguments against Muslim schools (Part II)

Mufti Muriel Gray has pronounced all arts and culture haram (forbidden) in Islam. As a result we shouldn't get a state-funded Muslim school.

"Can we really therefore condone the fact that to be truly Islamic these children will be banned from drawing and painting, (no sweet little self-portraits pinned on the classroom wall), that there will be no appreciation of Rayburn, Wilkie, Walton, Howson or Hornel? No readings of Burns’s love poems, Lewis Grassic Gibbon or Sorley McLean? No Scottish country dancing, where little boys twirl their reluctant girl partners round by their hand? No music lessons, or visits to orchestral concerts? No acting for young talents or ballet for children longing to jump and twirl?"

I wasn't aware that generations of Scots hold up as their defining school experiences appreciation of Rayburn, Wilkie, Walton, Howson and Hornel. Or ballet.

A quick Google shows Gray went to the exclusive private High School of Glasgow. I'm worried her experiences seem to have cut her off from the reality of the rest of us in society.

Islam doesn't seem to have been on the curriculum there though. Arch-secularist Gray's interpretation of the religion is unusually harsh. There is a middle way out there between the extremists and the rejectionists.

Arguments against Muslim schools (Part I)

A number of media sources sent reporters to stand outside the school gates of St Albert's last week to canvass opinion on the idea of a Muslim school.

One of these reporters told me that she was surprised by just how many parents agreed with the idea. Nevertheless, in the interests of balance, the media must not mention this and give equal space to both sides of the argument.

I have to say however, that if the comments against Muslim schools are only as advanced as those in the Herald from Saturday, we are on a winner here.

Glasgow City Council frightened off by "wider community"

Glasgow City Council know they can't trot out the same unsubstantiated reasons of segregation against Muslim schools that so many in the populace do - they'll end up undermining the Catholic schools they fund.

They also know that education policy on this is simple - that if a demand exists amongst a denomination, faith schools should be set up.

That is why they seem to be keen to play down the undoubted demand there is. A spokesman for GCC in the Herald on Saturday said:

"Glasgow City Council is not opposed to Muslim schools in principle, but we do not have any plans to establish such a school. There is no clear evidence of a consensus in favour of such a major development from within the diverse Muslim community itself, nor from across the wider community."

Really? Only every major mosque and Islamic organisation in the city has backed the move. My response on behalf of the Campaign for Muslim Schools was printed in the Herald's letters page today, and also drew attention to the council's telling throwaway mention of "wider community":

Muslim schools still top of the league

Muslim schools have again come out at the top of England's "value added" tables. Three of the top ten included Coventry Muslim School, the Islamiyah School in Blackburn, and Tayyibah Girls' School in North London. Those are all private schools, while state-funded Feversham College in Bradford was once again at the top, coming out second after being first last year.

The table is a measure of how schools improve their pupils' performance by the age of 15, given their expectations from test results at the age of 11. With a Muslim community that is seriously underperforming educationally, this improvement is not to be sniffed at. Tahir Alam of the MCB welcomed the results, arguing that Muslim children do better in Muslim schools than in the mainstream:

"Muslim schools have their own distinct ethos," he says. "They use the children's faith and heritage as primary motivators to provide the backdrop for their education and behaviour. This ethos is really consistent with the messages that children are getting at home so it is really a very coherent operation between the home and the school."

He believes that the growing push for private Muslim schools to join the state sector will have a big impact on raising standards for poorer students.

"It will help raise achievement for many sectors of the Muslim community. Many private Muslim schools are under-resourced and if they can be brought into the state sector this valuable experience can be extended to more children."

Scottish local authorities should take note. This quote was taken from the Independent, more of which is below.

Hat tip to my brother Sohaib for this article. As a reward do check out his Qur'an recital project.

Hate mail

I receive my fair share of hate mail, and on occasion have even been on the end of death threats from an assortment of cranks and nutters.

However, over the last couple of days since the St Albert's story broke, I've been getting quite a bit of correspondence from Catholics. Most of it has been civil, but some has crossed the line.

I'm publishing one below which is full of hate and bogotry, but is quite unique for two reasons:

1. It's from a woman and almost exclusively the idiots who write to me are men
2. It's appears to be from a Catholic but uses language akin to "go back to your own country". Normally Catholics in Scotland find their ancestry traced back to Irish immigrants, went through all sort of abuse because of it, and therefore show a lot more understanding to Muslims.

It shows how deeply ingrained prejudice against Muslims has become:

Dear Mr Saeed,

I am writing with regard to your recent comments that were printed in today's Scotsman newspaper,with regard to St Albert's primary school in Pollokshields,Glasgow.

This school is a Catholic school and it is muslims who have chosen to send their children here,instead of a secular school.They could have chosen to send them to another school,but decided on this one,and I am angry that muslims like yourself are trying to change this into a muslim school.

It doesn't matter if over 90% of the people who attend it are muslim,it is a Catholic school and I don't see why it should be turned around to suit you.

As far as I am concerned,this is just part of a plan to take over our schools and to try and indoctrinate our children with your backward religion,otherwise known as Islam.

If you want Muslim schools and don't want your children to be taught about anything other than that,then why don't you go and live back in your own Muslim countries,instead of coming to ours and trying to change our culture and way of life. You want everyone to bend over backwards for you and I won't see you try and take over our schools without a fight. You have a cheek to expect the Catholic church to go along with this. I wouldn't get very far if I tried to build a church in a muslim country,yet you expect us to give everything away to you.

Your religion is a vile one,that glorifies violence towards women and your prophet Mohammed was nothing but a dirty old paedophile who married and had sex with a child. [ENDS]

Muslim children and the Catholic school

St Albert's Primary School in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow has come under scrutiny. Despite its Catholic faith status, its school roll is over 90% Muslim. Complaints have surfaced after Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of Scotland's Catholics, made controversial comments about liking "them [people of other faiths] to realise that they are living in Scotland as a Christian country".

A number of faith and ethnic groups took offence at the tone of the comments. Following them, the situation at the school has been highlighted. Muslim parents have complained that their children are forced to take part in rituals such as the Lord's Prayer and mass, where alcohol is on display. Despite parental protests, they've been told simply that it is a Catholic school.

Many Muslims like to send their children to Catholic schools because of the multitude of shared values. Sharing values is one thing, forcing practice on each other is another - even if it does mean exempting virtually the whole school from them. This state of affairs is on impeccable authority from multiple sources. I've spoken with senior church officials who have said this should not be happening, and hopefully they will now resolve the matter.

This has led to questions about the long-term future of the school, even though it's a separate issue. The Willowbank campaign in Glasgow's westend, has brought calls from parents for something in the more densely populated southside. Clearly if this was to happen, and the 300 Muslim children at St Albert's moved over to a new Muslim school, it would leave the former completely nonviable as a school.

I've been asked if that means Muslims would like to see St Albert's converted into a Muslim school. All I can say is that if the boot was on the other foot, and 90% of a Muslim school was attended by Catholics, I'd have no hesitation in handing it over. I'm informed that the church would be receptive to the idea. In 2003 they admitted it was "de facto not a Catholic school". Certainly there needs to be dialogue and hopefully a positive resolution for all.

See media overage for this - Scotsman and the Herald.

UPDATE 19/01/06: The Scotsman has a two-page feature on the story today.

Cackhanded initial response to Willowbank campaign

Glasgow City Council have given an initial derisory response to the campaign to prevent the closure of Willowbank Primary School by converting it into Scotland's first ever state-funded Muslim School.

Responding to a call for a consultation on the issue by the SNP in the council chamber, deputy education convener Gordon Matheson said:

"Our education services will consult on the general principle of creating a Muslim school if a well developed proposal and widespread community support comes forward.

"So far no development proposals have been brought to us and there is no widespread community support, so we have no intention of consulting on a Muslim school."

Clearly GCC have been caught on the hop by the campaign. Community support could not be more "widespread" - every major mosque and Muslim organisation has backed the proposal.

And it is not for voluntary groups to draw up detailed proposals for the well resourced council. As SNP group leader John Mason said in response to Matheson

"No other group of parents are asked to bring forward a "well developed proposal". The normal method is for the Council to develop a proposal which they then put to parents for comment. This is what happened with the merging of the primary schools, school closures, the new school for deaf and blind children, etc.

"Why should Muslim parents be treated differently and be expected to develop a proposal themselves? I think it is a very shabby way to treat this large ethnic minority group in our city."

GCC are going to have to do better than this as the heat is turned up during the next month in expectation of the decision in February. The council should now open dialogue with the community rather than try to avoid the issue - it will not go away. Muslim community grandee Bashir Maan is also backing the campaign, and has set about arranging meetings with council leaders in the New Year.

Do faith schools cause division?

Obvious answer according to conventional wisdom - yes. But no one has ever produced any evidence to back up the proposition at all.

Meanwhile, we have the fact that bigotry, sectarianism and anti-Semitism all existed before the advent of faith schools. And would undoubtedly still exist if they were ever abolished. There is not a single Muslim school in Scotland, yet Muslims still suffer epidemic levels of Islamophobia. Schools are clearly not a part of this equation.

There is a more dangerous element to the division argument though. It blames the victims of hate for their plight. Scottish Crown Office statistics show that Catholics are by far the most likely group to be on the receiving end of sectarian crimes (despite it being portrayed as an equal two way problem and there being a lot less of them compared to Protestants), yet the onus is put on them to end Catholic schooling and suddenly the problem would magic away. It's like blaming Jews for anti-Semitism because they have a school. Schools don't cause bigotry, bigots do.

Respecting communities

This comment from Pauline Gilgallon, chairwoman of Carnwadric Primary School Board, which is another Glasgow school threatened with closure and merger with nearby Arden Primary struck me:

"Carnwadric and Arden may be separated only by a main road, but they are separate communities. Don't we have a right to maintain those separate identities?"

People just yards away from each other worrying about assimilation and loss of identity. It doesn't mean they're not integrated into wider society or they fight wars against each other. It's just their community and their local way of going about things. Isn't it right and understandable then that people of the Islamic faith with such a rich tradition, heritage, and identity, should want to be recognised and respected?

Glasgow uni academic blasts Muslim schools

Mona Siddiqui has emerged from the ivory towers of Glasgow University to bash the campaign for a Muslim school at Willowbank.

Her main points are that Muslim schools will not solve all of the myriad problems that the Muslim community faces. Her "more basic issue" though is that Muslims are incompetent and can't run schools. Read her article in the Sunday Times here.

The latter point is totally out of order, and the reason "nobody dares raise this concern" is because it is completely untrue, tars a whole community in a manner inimical to the world of academia, and is offensive to Muslims within the teaching profession. It also flies in the face of the success Muslim schools have had in England, particularly in the state sector, which is what is being argued for at Willowbank.

On the first point, no one is arguing that Muslim schools are a silver bullet solution to all the problems of the Muslims. Rather, they are one important bullet in a very complex situation.

Write to Glasgow City Council

The launch of the Willowbank Muslim school alliance garnered quite a bit of media coverage. See:

• BBC Reporting Scotland
• BBC Online
• Evening Times
• Scotland on Sunday

STV's Scotland Today and the Glaswegian newspaper also covered it.

Talk of the campaign has been spreading around Glasgow City Chambers. Have you written to people at Glasgow City Council about it yet though?

• Glasgow residents can find their councillor's details by entering their postcode here
• The Leader of Glasgow City Council is Steven Purcell and he can be emailed on steven.purcell@councillors.glasgow.gov.uk
• The Director of Education is Ronnie O'Conner and his email address is ronnie.o’connor@education.glasgow.gov.uk

These people will be making the decision come February. A Muslim community making its voice heard loud and clear will be difficult to ignore. If we say and do nothing, we get nothing.

Muslims unite to back Willowbank campaign

For the first time ever, all of Glasgow's main mosques and Muslim organisations have formed a coalition to back a political campaign. A press conference was held in Glasgow's Woodlands area this morning to unveil the alliance calling for Willowbank Primary to be saved from closure and converted into a state-funded Muslim school. For more background click here.

It's an unprecedented development which achieves exactly what it is intending to do - demonstrate the clear demand to Glasgow City Council that exists in the community for a Muslim school. If national policy is truly that faith schools should be set up wherever the demand exists, the ball is very firmly in the council's court now.

The institutions backing the campaign so far are:

• Amina – Muslim Women’s Resource Centre
• Glasgow Central Mosque
• Federation of Student Islamic Societies
• Al-Farooq Mosque
• Al-Furqan Mosque
• UK Islamic Mission
• Islamic Society of Britain
• Al-Meezan
• Muslim Association of Britain
• Scottish Muslim Educationists Association
• Scottish Muslim Parents Association
• Noor Mosque
• Quran Karim Committee

Support has been coming from all quarters - mosques, parents at the school, womens organisations, student organisations, community groups and Islamic movements. It has also transpired that the head imam of Glasgow Central Mosque, Imam Habib-ur-Rahman, actually has two children at the school, giving him even more personal impetus.

On top of all these Muslim leaders coming together, we estimate that over 600 Muslims responded to the council's consultation on the matter - a very healthy total for only 10 days work. People rushed to make their voices heard. They felt it is only right that there should be a choice on how to educate your children.

This however, is only phase one of the campaign. GCC will now process the consultation forms, and then there will be a committee stage in the council to discuss the proposals in February. In the mean time we must keep the pressure up. More details to follow.

Willowbank campaign gathers momentum

The campaign to save Willowbank Primary from closure and ensure its long-term viability as a state-funded Muslim school is gathering pace.

The Evening Times splashed the story on its front page on Wednesday. Hundreds of people filled in Glasgow City Council's consultation on the issue after jummuah today in mosques around the city.

The response from the community is overwhelmingly positive. A number of organisations and mosques have pledged their support to the campaign. They include:

• Al-Furqan Mosque
• Amina - Muslim Women's Resource Centre
• Islamic Society of Britain
• Muslim Association of Britain
• Quran Karim Committee
• Scottish Muslim Parents Association
• UK Islamic Mission

Discussions are taking place with the remaining mosques and organisations. If you want to add yours to the list please get in touch - the campaign will only succeed if the Muslim community collectively makes its voice heard.

If you haven't filled in the consultation form yet, download it here and find instructions on how to fill it in here. Please reply once you have sent it away so we have an idea of how many people have done it.

For more background on state funded Muslim schools, visit Will the state protect Islamic teaching? and What our children need

Best chance of a state-funded Muslim school in Glasgow for a generation

Glasgow City Council are proposing to close Willowbank Primary, 98% of whose pupils are Muslim, and amalgamate it with four other closing schools.

This gives the Muslim community an opportunity to campaign to keep Willowbank open - as a state-funded Muslim school. None of the usual bogus arguments about segregation and isolationism will wash here. The west end school is already Muslim in all but name.

Indeed, it would not cost the council anything to set it up. No building would have to be found. There would be no need to source new staff. All that would be required is for something to be built into the structure of the school to provide guidance on ensuring a Muslim ethos.

The school would thus be saved, and made viable. The current 76 pupils would be joined immediately by scores more Muslims who have yearned for a school for so long.

For this to happen, Muslims must respond to the consultation that the council is currently running. Download it here. Instructions:

• Fill in your details at the top
• Tick whether you're a Glasgow resident, friend of Willowbank, or a parent or teacher at the school
• Tick "Alternative proposal"
• Fill in in Section B that you want to see a state-funded Muslim school set up at Willowbank

Send it by 9th December 2005 to:

Pre12 Strategy Team, Education Services, Wheatley House, 25 Cochrane Street, Glasgow G1 1HL

Glasgow City Council will have to one day provide a Muslim school to its taxpayers. There will never be an easier or smoother opportunity to make it happen.

Radio 4 goes into a Muslim school

BBC's Radio 4 has done a programme on a Muslim school in Lancashire. Its findings were broadly similar to what Muslim schools campaigners say - that they improve the flagging educational attainment of the community.

You can read a preview of the programme here. I don't think the burqa on the page is fair, as I doubt from other pictures on the site she would wear that at any other time than being photographed for the BBC to broadcast it to the world.

The report though found the school to be 'claustrophobic', and if I was envisaging a school I wouldn't want the curriculum to be curtailed the way the article describes. However, as it is a private school there may be funding issues with respect to getting the relevant teachers in.

Overall though, it's clear the school was of benefit, getting middle-class results in a working class area. And importantly, the pupils enjoyed it.