Anti-LGBT leaflets handed out outside Birmingham primary school
Protesters demonstrate against the LGBT-inclusive ‘No Outsiders’ programme in Birmingham last year (Christopher Furlong/Getty)
Leaflets attacking LGBT-inclusive education have been distributed outside a Birmingham primary school.
Anderton Park School has been one of the focal points in a wave of protests against inclusive education, alongside the nearby Parkfield Primary School.
Leaflets distributed outside the school on Thursday (April 11) on behalf of the “Anderton Park Parents’ Community Group” attacked a so-called “gay ethos.”
The leaflets claim: “This programme promotes a whole-school gay ethos. It teaches children it is OK to be gay in all religions… you can be gay and Muslim.
“It teaches 4-year-old children that they can be a boy or a girl. It teaches boys it is OK to marry your best friend Abdul.
“It discriminates against the beliefs of parents and children.”
Leaflets being handed out to parents outside @AndertonPark in #Birmingham accusing school of promoting “gay ethos”. Teachers “livid”. Parents determined to be heard. #LGBT pic.twitter.com/Jq4bjtLky4
— Sima Kotecha (@sima_kotecha) April 12, 2019
The leaflet adds: “We do NOT believe in homosexuality. Parents do not want their children’s belief changed.”
Birmingham School ‘will not bow’ to protesters’ demands
In an interview with PinkNews in March, Anderton Park headteacher Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson said the school “will not bow” to demands to censor teaching about LGBT+ people.
“Equality is a real strength of ours, the children talk about it all the time,” she told PinkNews.
“We want to usualise the language of equality.”
Parents and protestors demonstrate against LGBT-inclusive education in Birmingham. (Christopher Furlong/Getty)
Hewitt-Clarkson added: “I am utterly passionate about all equality probably because I am a woman and, as an educator, I think if I don’t educate about these things then who will?”
Staff at the school, she said, educate children about the different sexualities and genders protected by UK law, including equal marriage.
Hewitt-Clarkson explained that the school respects different religions, but its policy is to underline that equality is embedded in British law, particularly under the Equality Act 2010.
Ofsted chief: Protests ‘set terrible example for children’
Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman recently said that parents protesting against LGBT-inclusive education are setting a “terrible example” for their children.
In a speech to the Muslim Teachers’ Association on March 31, Spielman said: “I understand the strength of feeling in that community. But it serves no one well to intimidate teachers and start protesting outside the school gates.
All that does is make a difficult situation worse, while setting a terrible example for the children.”
She added: “It is children’s voices that always get lost when adults stop talking and start shouting.”
