We regularly hear the refrain that schools need to get back to ‘old-fashioned’ methods of teaching. But how far back should they go? And, while we’re at it, to which society? Labour councils in the north of England have attempted to clear up this confusion for us. Seventh-century Arabia, at the dawn of Islam, is their answer.
In a document titled ‘Sharing the Journey’, multiple Labour-run councils have told schools that drawing pictures of humans could be ‘idolatrous’ to ‘some Muslim’ pupils. Music lessons could also conflict with the religious injunctions of Islam, on the grounds that ‘music is traditionally limited to the human voice and non-tunable percussion instruments as in the days of the prophet, when they were only used in marriage ceremonies and on the battlefield’. Dancing and physical activities also need to be carefully policed so as to ensure there is no ‘physical contact between male and females’, nor ‘performing in a manner that might encourage immodesty or sexual feelings’.
This is, to put it mildly, disturbing. These councils – they include Leeds, Oldham, Tameside and Kirklees – are effectively advising schools to look to the Taliban for educational inspiration. They are also denying pupils the joys of drawing, music and dancing. Any adult who isn’t chronically maladjusted knows that these expressions of creativity and affection are vital to a human’s development – indeed, they are among the most important aspects of any child’s education.
Critics might point out that drawing attention to this advice is just ‘fearmongering’ from the usual right-wing suspects. They will say that schools are simply being ‘mindful’ of the multicultural nature of 21st-century England. Of course, no student would be punished for his blasphemous doodlings, they insist.
But this would be to ignore the ways in which blaspheming against Islam is already severely punished in Britain today. In recent years, we have seen just how seriously schools take the concerns of Islamic fundamentalists when rumours of blasphemy get about. Most notoriously, there was the teacher from Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire in 2021, which happens to be located in the Kirklees council boundary. After showing pupils a cartoon of the Muhammed in a religious-studies lesson, he was first suspended by his school and then forced into hiding following death threats from Islamists. In 2023, four students at Kettlethorpe High School in West Yorkshire were suspended for ‘desecrating’ the Koran. One of them had read passages from the holy book before a friend knocked it out of his hands on to the ground, where it got scuffed.
The response to both of these incidents was telling. If you removed the name and location of the schools, you would assume these events happened in Iran or Afghanistan. The schools immediately acted on the demands of those demanding ‘punishment’ for the teacher and the students. That Britain is supposed to be a secular country, where blasphemy laws were abolished long ago, didn’t cross school leaders’ minds. One of the parents of the Kettlethorpe children was even forced into a humiliating public apology, where she pleaded with Islamists not to harm her son. The police ignored the death threats sent to the child, but made sure to record his scuffing of the Islamic holy text as a non-crime hate incident.
The new guidance confirms that the Islamic bigots have won. Their rules – their censorious worldview – now reigns supreme in the classroom.
And this same spirit of appeasement now permeates public life, too. Indeed, just this week, the Labour government formally adopted its definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’. As has been pointed out on spiked, hostility can basically mean any form of disagreement with Islam. There is every reason to think, therefore, the definition will only embolden the forces of sectarianism that are throwing their weight around British society with increasing confidence.
This has to stop. Muslims are perfectly entitled to raise their children in accordance with their religion. They are also entitled to send their children to one of the many Islamic schools in the UK, where any bans on singing, dancing and drawing they might want to impose can be enforced uniformly. But to pressure all schools to police children in accordance with Islamic doctrine is an intolerable attack on secular principles and freedom of speech. This can go on no longer.
Hugo Timms is a staff writer at spiked.
