Welcome back! I hope you had a great summer and that the start of the new school year has not been too stressful. If it has been, remember to keep chanting the infallible stress-busting mantra, ‘Ed Balls, former Minister at the Department for Children, Schools and Families’.
You may well have missed a wonderful story while you were getting that all-over-tan on a Spanish playa. It concerned John Dixon, a Lib-Dem councillor in Cardiff, who was on a trip to London when he passed a Church of Scientology shop. He sent a message to his friends and constituents via Twitter: ‘Didn’t know there was a Scientology “church” on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.’ A few days later, he noticed the Church of Scientology had joined his Twitter readers, so he further tweeted: ‘Just realised the Scientologists are following me. Quick everyone, pretend you’re out.’
A Scientologist then complained, about the use of ‘stupid’ by an elected councillor, to the Ombudsman for Public Services in Wales. Now you might have thought that the Ombudsman would have considered such a complaint just proved the epithet ‘stupid’, but instead the complaint was judged to be valid and passed on to Cardiff City Council’s standards and ethics committee to consider whether Mr Dixon had acted disreputably.
I don’t know if the beliefs of Scientologists are stupid. I have talked to Scientologists and have even looked at their website and I still can’t work out what they actually believe, other than vague pieties such as ‘brotherhood with the universe’ and ‘give us all your money’. I’m inclined to the view that people who are sucked into Scientology are deluded, misguided and quite possibly stupid, but I’m not biased or discriminatory. Personally, I think most Christians, Muslims, Hindus and followers of Judaism are also deluded. I know I’m in a minority, and I’m willing to have my views changed, but that’s what I think, so I wish Mr Dixon luck in defending his views.
So what’s this got to do with schools? Well, last term, one of our neighbouring primary schools had a disastrous OFSTED inspection. It’s a nice, friendly village primary with a hard-working staff. It was hammered by OFSTED because the school had no accessibility policy. It is a statutory duty for schools to have an accessibility policy, so this did represent a major oversight. Tellingly, OFSTED did not find that the school was inaccessible – indeed it was friendly and welcoming. Neither was it inconsiderate of children with special needs – who were well provided for. So the school was not condemned for not being welcoming, or considerate or accessible – it was condemned for not having a policy document that said in writing that it was. As a Chair of School Governors, I have to consider application forms for jobs mindful of our racial equality policy promoting ‘equality of access, provision and treatment for all, regardless of their race, culture, language, nationality, religion and other differences’. So I can’t reject for religious reasons an application that says, ‘GOD WILL DESTROY THE UNBELIVERS!’ in the bit that asks, “is there anything else you wish to say in support of your application?” Neither, for religious reasons, can I toss on the reject pile an application stating ‘DEAF TO ALL INFIDELS!!!!!!’ in green ink. I can, thankfully, still reject them on the grounds of looniness and/or poor spelling, but I fear that even for these reasons I may soon be joining Mr Dixon before some panel considering whether I have brought school governance into disrepute.
Another school policy requires that I respect and appreciate cultural and religious diversity. When we revised this one, we had quite an argument. I pointed out that I neither respected nor appreciated cultures that advocated slavery or the suppression or mutilation of women and I was not prepared to accept such views as a manifestation of cultural diversity. Neither did I respect aspects of Roma culture which condone the cultural rights of gypsies to remove their daughters from secondary school. Of course, I gave in.
Perhaps it’s time, while the coalition is still in its new broom stage, to consider whether our society is becoming too polite.
There are plenty of people out there who deserve to be offended. There are petty officials, special interest groups who want their obsession on every school curriculum, fat parents of fat children, and a hundred and one people who all know better than you what you should be teaching. If you agree with me, you’ll support Mr Dixon. If you don’t agree with me – well, you can just p*** off!