London Islamic School Rated Failure after ‘Failing to Promote British Values’

An Islamic primary school run by a charity once described by Prime Minister David Cameron as a “front” for radical Islamism has been rated inadequate by inspectors after failing to promote ‘British values’, the London Evening Standard reports.

The Islamic Shakhsiya Foundation school in Tottenham, London is now facing action from the Department for Education after a three-day inspection found that classes are “too heavily biased around Islam” and “fundamental British values and citizenship are not sufficiently promoted.”

The report adds: “There are too few opportunities for pupils to learn about the differences between other cultures, religions and communities, and their own.”

The school was deemed to be failing in all five categories inspectors use: leadership and management, quality of teaching, achievement of pupils, behaviour and safety of pupils and early years’ provision. Inspectors did note, however, that teaching of Arabic was “good”.

Speaking while he was Leader of the Opposition in 2009, David Cameron called the Foundation a “front” for extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Michael Gove, then Shadow Education Secretary, also claimed that two of the Foundation’s four trustees were members of the group.

Hizb ut-Tahrir was originally founded in the 1950s in Jerusalem with the aim of creating a global Islamic caliphate ruled under Sharia law. There have been repeated calls to outlaw the group in the UK, but no action has yet been taken.

The Foundation said in 2012 that the Department for Education had reassured it that there were “no concerns about extremism in our schools” and there was “no involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir activists on the board of the Foundation.”

In October, five Birmingham schools were placed in ‘special measures’ after emergency inspections during the fall-out of the Trojan Horse scandal, in which radical Islamists attempted to take over the management of nominally secular schools and impose and hard-line agenda.

Although the report into the Islamic Shakhsiya Foundation school did not mention extremist links, there have been concerns about it for several years. Last year, the Daily Mail reported that the school was receiving £70,000 a year in government funding for free nursery places despite the ongoing fears.

The report comes, however, as concerns grow that school inspection group Ofsted has responded too zealously to the Trojan Horse scandal by imposing strict secular requirements on Christian schools as well as Muslim ones.

Two Christian schools in north east England have complained that inspectors asked 10 and 11-year-old children inappropriate questions about homosexuality and transsexualism, with the Durham Free School reportedly being penalised because one student did not know what a Muslim was.