‘No Outsiders’ programme to return to Birmingham school – but parents are still complaining
The programme was launched at Parkfield Community School to educate children on diversity
By Steve Brown
The suspended ‘No Outsiders’ programme at Parkfield Community School in Birmingham will return to the school.
Set up by headteacher Andrew Moffat, the programme was to introduce children to diversity in society and make them accept difference within the world.
However, when parents found out that their children were being taught LGBTQ-inclusive lessons, they started protesting outside the school gates and pulled their children from the Muslim-majority primary school.
The lessons were initially suspended following the outrage from the parents but now the school has announced a new version of the programme has been designed to respect the parents’ concerns, the BBC reported.
The new scheme is called ‘No Outsiders for a Faith Community’ will start in the new term this September.
A spokesperson for the school said: “As a result of the consultation ‘No Outsiders for a Faith Community’ has been especially designed for Parkfield Community School acknowledging and respecting the concerns and sensitivity expressed by some parents in the present school community.
The ‘No Outsiders’ programme was started in 2014 by Parkfield’s assistant head teacher Andrew Moffat
“Our school ethos of equality and everyone being welcome remains a key aspect of our school.”
Despite a five month consultation with parents, community representatives and the Department for Education, it seems the parents are still unhappy arguing the new is ‘biased’ towards LGBTQ issues.
In a statement, the Parkfield Parents Group said: “This is because it is well known that the original programme and now even the new programme is heavily biased towards LGBTQ, whereas an equality programme doesn’t need to be.”
One parents, Fatima Shah, said they have not been listened to and said she doesn’t want her daughter to see same-sex relationships in books.
She said: “We just haven’t been listened to.
“We have said we don’t want children in reception to be shown books with same sex relationships. It’s confusing for them.
“But the school has said it will do exactly the same as it was doing before but with a slightly different name. How is that taking our views into account?”