‘Jihadist’ video shown to pupils

Ian Kershaw, who led one of the investigations into the “Trojan Horse” allegations, said pupils were shown an “unacceptable” video by a teacher and a senior member of staff failed to deal with it as a disciplinary issue.

Claims of a Muslim takeover plot in some Birmingham schools sparked outrage earlier this year leading to a series of investigations by the Department for Education (DfE), Ofsted and the city’s council.

There have also been counter claims that the original Trojan Horse letter describing a takeover plot which sparked the controversy was a hoax and the allegations were false.

MPs on the education select committee were told by the authors of two of the investigation reports that there had been attempts by a group of people to improperly influence schools with an Islamic agenda and it was possible the problem existed elsewhere in the country.

Peter Clarke, the former head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit was asked to investigate for the DfE by former Education Secretary Michael Gove. Mr Clarke said he had found clear evidence of people who had “espoused, were sympathetic to, or did not challenge extremist views”.

He said there had been “anti-Christian chanting” led by a teacher during an assembly, teachers wanting to increase segregation of boys and girls and also a “general air of intolerance towards other beliefs and ways of life,” at some of the schools he looked into. When asked if children had been exposed to influences which would make them more extremist Mr Clarke said: “In itself it might not necessarily lead to people being more extreme but I was told by several witnesses working within the schools that in their view pushing upon the pupils an unquestioning adherence to a particular mindset or ideology was such that it could render them more vulnerable in the future by taking away their natural inquisitiveness.”

Mr Clarke also said he would be “surprised” if moves to gain control and influence within schools had only been restricted to a few schools in east Birmingham.

He said: “I’m not a great believer in coincidence and I would find it very surprising if this was only happening in the few schools that we had the time and opportunity to look at in east Birmingham,” Mr Clarke told the cross-party group of MPs.

“Some of the people who were involved in promulgating these techniques of gaining control and influence in schools have had national roles in various educational bodies and I know have lectured and taken part in conferences in other cities. So I think it is incumbent on the Department for Education and others to take a very careful look now to see whether the sorts of things we found in Birmingham are indeed happening elsewhere.

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t, at least, some symptoms elsewhere.”

There have been separate claims that governors at Carlton Bolling College, a secondary school in Bradford, had attempted to pursue an Islamic agenda and that this had led to the departure of a previous head teacher. This was denied by the school’s former chair of governors Faisal Khan earlier this year.

Mr Clarke had been asked by the committee member whether the situation in Birmingham was limited to a few people, or if it was more pervasive, and if these practices would have spread if they had been left unchecked.

His report, published in July, concluded that there was “clear evidence” that there were a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of authority within schools who “espouse, endorse or fail to challenge extremist views”.

The damning document was also highly critical of Birmingham City Council, accusing the authority of failing to support under-pressure head teachers dealing with inappropriate behaviour by governors.

In his report, Mr Clarke said he “neither specifically looked for, nor found, evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham”.

Mr Kershaw, who investigated for Birmingham City Council told the Education Select Committee this morning that he found no direct evidence of violent extremism being promoted in school. However Mr Kershaw added: “That’s not to say that there weren’t examples of very bad behaviour by some individuals in schools that needed to be corrected and addressed. One example would be the showing of a film which is completely inappropriate to young people, that was known by a senior member of staff to have happened and that member of staff in a senior position did not address that as a disciplinary matter.” He described this film as a “violent, extremist video”, and when committee chairman Graham Stuart asked if it was “jihadist, violent, extremist promotional video”, Mr Kershaw indicated that it was. “It was shown in one classroom at one moment and that should have been stopped,”he said.