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You are here: Home / DDU Newsletter / Newsletter 2021-07-09: Ofsted warns schools / Taxpayer-funded lobbying / Baffled by Bard / Academics vs Atticus / Opaque BHCC / Primary England video / Sterling interview

July 9, 2021 By Nico Macdonald

Newsletter 2021-07-09: Ofsted warns schools / Taxpayer-funded lobbying / Baffled by Bard / Academics vs Atticus / Opaque BHCC / Primary England video / Sterling interview

What We’ve Been Up To

This week we held our first ‘official’ DDU Parents’ meeting at which we shared experiences, discussed how to engage other parents around these issues, and planned future events and activities. Our next meeting is on Wednesday, July 21st at 10 am. Do get in touch if you’d like to get involved, drop us a line.

News Nuggets

Ofsted has warned that schools are using overtly political materials to teach gender issues and some school staff are ‘confusing’ their legal obligations under the Equality Act with the moral and the political, says the school watchdog. According to a response from School’s Week, schools need clearer official guidance on this thorny topic.

Speaking of the politicisation of gender teaching in schools, The Taxpayer’s Alliance reports that Stonewall has received at least £2,616,102 in grants from Government bodies, in addition to fees for advisory work. The TA says: “Taxpayer-funded lobbying must come to an end so that public money is not being used to distort political decision making by advancing policy positions which taxpayers may seriously disagree with”. Not to mention the small matter of lack of accountability.

The Telegraph reports that Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ has been re-envisioned because the producer says, “I can’t relate to the characters. I don’t know why these young people take their lives”. Why produce it, then? Apparently, she has had to consult a psychologist to ‘explain’ the play to her in her effort to reduce the Bard’s work to ‘psychobabble’.  Maybe Ola Ince’s interpretation will provide fresh insights, but it seems unlikely when she is so determined to bring today’s orthodoxy about mental health to her reading this play which is about time-enduring themes of deeply felt passions, including love, hate and despair, fate and so much more. Let’s see, we may be proven wrong, but we’re not holding our breath.

This week, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has been re-envisioned because the producer says, “I can’t relate to the characters. I don’t know why these young people take their lives,”. Why produce it, then? Apparently, she has had to consult a psychologist to “explain” the play to her. Who would have thought that thwarted love and the parable of sectarian violence would be incomprehensible to denizens of the woke world or that the management of the Globe would struggle to understand Shakespeare?

Meanwhile, James Gillespie’s High School in Edinburgh has decided to remove To Kill a Mocking Bird from its list of texts as it promotes a ‘white saviour’ narrative. The management of this school has not clarified whether they believe it is better to let a man swing on a framed charge than for a white man to interfere in the proposal in the name of justice and equality.

The latest excuse for pretending not to be teaching CRT in schools whilst actually teaching it is to claim that it is just a ‘lens’. In Brighton, Cllr Hannah Clare, has responded to the complaints from DDU supporter Adrian Hart with this excuse. Presumably, rose-coloured spectacles are an optional extra. Adrian Hart has told DDU that his petition has been refused by the council because it posed questions that had already been asked before. This is Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC), the ‘ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies’ council! No point waiting 6 months to be unanswered again (as per rules) because a new rule has emerged banning Change.org petitions; although clearly not the Change.org petition that set the Anti-Racism Strategy in motion in the first place. Mr Hart has been told that he cannot make any further representations on this topic to BHCC for another six months although, obviously, the Council is fully committed to transparency and democratic processes.

Our Dummy of the Week award goes to the people who forced Fleetwood Primary School in Lancashire to delete a video that celebrated the success of the England Football squad last week. One person complained because there was “a sea of aggressive white faces”. Fancy some people in Britain being white! What a surprise! Actually, the faces were red, white and blue, and, although the video was clearly tongue-in-cheek, it was branded ‘hooliganism’. The same thing could, of course, be said of the Globe’s woke production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Finally, in anticipation of The Big Final, we also have a Hero of the Week, Raheem Sterling who, other than being the most indefatigable player in the England men’s EURO2020 team, and scorer of three goals, is exemplary of modern British culture. In a video interview in The Players’ Tribune, he reflects on the challenges he and his family faced, and their coming to the UK from Jamaica; his single-minded aspiration to play professional football, and the support he received; growing up in the shadow of the newly built Wembley Stadium, then being selected for the England team and playing there; and his Mum’s hard graft and achievements in her work and career. Sterling concludes “England is still a place where a naughty boy who comes from nothing can live his dream”.

DDU Updates

This coming week we have a regular Monday meeting (July 12th) and an Academics Group Meeting on Tuesday (July 13th) – drop us a line if you would like to attend.

View the newsletter as emailed

Filed Under: DDU Newsletter Tagged With: crt, LGBTQ, parents, performing arts, schools, sport

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