In a speech to church school leaders on 1 February, Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector for Schools, talked of ‘muscular liberalism’ being used to curb religious extremism in schools and ‘under the radar’ settings.
Quoting one of the ‘British values’, she noted that in some Islamic ‘schools’ books had been found where wife beating was encouraged. This appeared in a discourse on ‘segments of particular faiths’ outside ‘mainstream Anglican practice in school’ which unfairly would include many Christian organisations and churches.
She chastised those who opposed legislation (which the government quietly dropped) which would have given Ofsted more power to inspect out-of-school groups, such as churches. And if stating that it is ‘incumbent on us to ensure that [school is used] to instill … the right values’ wasn’t chilling enough, she resurrected the idea of the Ofsted inspector sitting at the back of the church Sunday school room again.
Not reassuring
Spielman said: ‘If we are to tackle [extremism] effectively, we will require changes to legislation to give us better powers.’ Her assurances that this would ‘not infringe religious freedom’ were not reassuring. According to her logic it would be almost impossible to find ‘extreme’ groups without having a ‘troop of inspectors turning up at Sunday schools’ which she claimed would not happen.
In response, a Church of England spokesman said they will work with ‘any proposal that would target areas of concern rather than imposing a new burden of bureaucracy across the board’.
