Holmwood John - Countering extremism in British schools?: the truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse affair

JOHN HOLMWOOD
THERESE OTOOLE

COUNTERING EXTREMISM IN BRITISH SCHOOLS?

The truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse affair

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

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ISBN 978-1-4473-4413-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4473-4415-5 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4473-4416-2 (Mobi)
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Preface and acknowledgements

This book is a detailed examination of what came to be known as the Trojan Horse affair involving a claimed plot to Islamicise schools in Birmingham, UK. The affair first hit the headlines in March 2014 and was subject to intense media reporting, as well as government action through a number of different agencies and inquiries. School governors and teachers lost their positions and disciplinary proceedings were later brought against teachers with the possibility that they could be banned from teaching for life. The hearings were conducted through the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE), and they dragged on until July 2017, with sporadic media reporting unfavourable to the teachers.

Early on a narrative was established that the affair represented a failure of multiculturalism, where conservative and religiously motivated individuals took advantage of a situation in which local politicians and other authorities were unwilling to challenge ethnic minority representatives, even where those individuals were acting in direct contradiction of dominant values of democracy, pluralism and tolerance. The affair, it was argued, represented the failure of some Muslims to integrate and instead to pursue a hardline agenda of separation.

From the outset, it seemed to us that there was no basis at all to this narrative and, indeed, that the school at the centre of the affair, Park View (and its multi-academy trust, Park View Educational Trust), was the opposite of how it was described. It was a highly successful school, expanding the opportunities for its pupils and preparing them very well for life in modern Britain. The puzzle is how it came to be understood otherwise. This book is an answer to that puzzle. Equally importantly, it also seeks to redress a serious injustice, that of the arbitrary and severe consequences that followed for the governors and teachers who were caught up in it and were widely vilified in the press. A significant number of teachers and school governors have had their careers and reputations ruined. And children at the schools have had their life chances seriously diminished as examination results have declined.

Matters took a dramatic turn when the NCTL case against senior teachers at Park View Educational Trust (PVET) was discontinued at the end of May 2017. This was associated with the failure of the NCTL to disclose documents (approximately 1600 pages of them) that were relevant to the case and, it transpired, familiar to solicitors acting for the NCTL since October 2014. Indeed, it also transpired, after initial denials, that these documents had formed part of their preparation of the case against the teachers and should, therefore, have been disclosed to lawyers for the defence. Failure to disclose them was initially presented as a departmental misunderstanding, implying that they had not formed part of the preparations. However, it emerged in early May 2017 that the Professional Conduct Panel had been deliberately misled about their role. In discontinuing the case, the Panel judgement stated: there has been an abuse of the process which is of such seriousness that it offends the Panels sense of justice and propriety. What has happened has brought the integrity of the process into disrepute.

In reaching the judgement the Panel also commented on the investment in these proceedings, in terms of time, emotion and money and the genuine public interest and importance in knowing the findings of the Panel in respect of the allegations which have been made.

However, the teachers themselves have been left in limbo, with no opportunity to clear their names of the serious allegations that have been made against them, allegations that are repeated in media reports notwithstanding the gravity of the charges against the Department for Education and its agency, the NCTL, for abuse of process. We will show that individuals who should have been celebrated for their dedicated professionalism and contribution to equal opportunities and community cohesion in Birmingham have been subjected to an unconscionable abuse of power.

Our view that the Trojan Horse affair was radically different to how it appeared in the media and in government statements derives from our long association with the city of Birmingham. John Holmwood, currently professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham, was previously employed at the University of Birmingham, where he organised international summer schools on religion and public life in 2007 and 2008, using Birmingham as a laboratory for living together with difference. Therese OToole is reader in sociology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, where she works on ethnicity, religion, governance and political participation. She led a major ESRC/AHRC (Economic and Social Research Council/Arts and Humanities Research Council) study of Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance that examined the impact of the Prevent agenda on stateMuslim engagement in the UK at the national level and in three case study areas: Birmingham, Leicester and Tower Hamlets, and an ESRC/AHRC Connected Communities study of the local implementation of Prevent in Bristol.

All the documents discussed in our book are publicly available. These include evidence and transcripts from the proceedings of the NCTL hearings. Although some individuals are named in the book, their names are in the public domain through media reporting of the hearings. John Holmwood acted as an expert witness for the defence in the hearing involving senior teachers at PVET. Although instructed by the defence (or prosecution), an expert witness has an obligation to the court to provide well-founded opinion. In the words of the Crown Prosecution Service, Expert witnesses are under a duty to the court to provide an objective and independent opinion on matters outside the experience or knowledge of a jury irrespective of any obligations owed to the party instructing them.