The Mayor of Doncaster has been the driving force behind the introduction of creationism (Via the Vardy Foundation) into the schools at Thorne & Northcliffe. The following article questions the advisability of this course of action. He is welcome to respond & any reply will be published here.

Do the Ends Justify the Means?

The Mayor of Doncaster, Martin Winter says he is committed to excellence in education, which is laudable enough. However, by recruiting the Vardy Foundation in this quest, we are forced to ask, do the ends justify the means? To answer this, it is worth considering the following information & some of the questions it raises.

The Vardy Foundation is run by people who tend to believe in an extreme form of Christian faith, which insists on a literal interpretation of biblical texts. Such people are known as, “Fundamentalist Christians” & they believe in creationism, which is the belief that the known universe, all 15 Billion light years of it, was created some 6000 years ago as described in the Bible. There are variations on this belief but this is the most common. Another name for these people is therefore “Creationists” Creationism is in total conflict with most of modern science, for example astronomy, biology, geology, evolution, cosmology, physics & a lot more besides. It has also been rejected by most of the mainstream Christian denominations. However, that has not stopped the Vardy Foundation from teaching creationism in their schools & worse of all, in science classes. This has caused a lot of public debate, but it should be made very clear that in scientific circles, their arguments have failed entirely. As creationism was getting such a hammering, the creationists decided to do a rebranding, they ditched all references to the Bible, threw in some flash sounding (but meaningless) scientific phrases & came up with “Intelligent Design”. However, it does not matter what they call their beliefs, they are unscientific & should not be taught alongside science in any school. Martin Winter says he wants to improve standards in schools. Perhaps he could explain how he believes allowing religious extremists to teach antiscience nonsense in his boroughs classrooms is improving standards. Because from what I can see his actions will have the very reverse effect & lower them (The odd thousand years or so).

The children in these schools are daily exposed to the threat of biblical damnation & hell-fire if they do not heed the Vardy Foundations fundamentalist teachings. We do not beat children into learning anymore, as it is physical abuse. I would wonder why Martin Winter then feels this teaching method is okay, because it is considered by many to be a form of physiological abuse. I have no doubt he would say that it is something he does not support. In that case what is he doing supporting its reintroduction back into the borough’s schools?

Not only have they corrupted morning assemblies & science classes, but their extremist influence also extends across the entire curriculum, with just about everything repackaged in biblical wrappings. For instance, in History, they have written that during WW2, God intervened to stop the Germans on the French coast. This is a bizarre interpretation of events to say the least. Does Martin Winter believe that the Germans stopped on the French coast because God intervened to save our Anglo Saxon skins or because a body of water 21 miles wide at its narrowest point & called the English Channel prevented them from advancing any further? What version of events does he think should be taught in the boroughs classrooms? Does he believe that teaching the Vardy Foundations versions of events is improving standards & if not why is he supporting them?

Because the Vardy Foundation is committed to spreading their biblical message in the classrooms (where their teachings are liable to do the most damage), they need to staff their schools with people who are like-minded. This means they will give priority for teaching positions to those with similar religious views to their own, not necessarily fundamentalists but religious all the same. For instance, the new principle at Trinity Academy in Thorne used to be a History & RE teacher. Before the Vardy Foundation took over, anyone regardless of religion or lack of it could have applied for (& assuming they were good enough of course) got that position. Now atheists, agnostics, Hindus etc need not apply. There is simply no way round it; this is discrimination on the grounds of religion. They would naturally enough claim that as the school was now a religious school then it is obvious that they would prefer to employ people of a compatible “ethos”. Well, aren’t we just lucky that we don’t have religious based councils or hospitals etc, because by that logic the only people who would be allowed to work in this country would be the suitably pious. The point is that they should never have been allowed to implement a policy that would result in this sort of discrimination. Unfortunately this Government has left loopholes in the law which allow this sort of practice to continue. What is worse, Martin Winter (head of a Labour Council who you thought would be sympathetic to issues of workers rights) is actively encouraging its spread by allowing creationists to take over one school & now inviting them to take over another. Should Martin Winter be supporting this sort of behaviour?

The government is handing control of more & more schools over to religious organisations such as the C of E & in this case the Vardy Foundation. Yet no one has ever given one good reason why schools should be run by religious organisations in the first place. What is it about the beliefs of the pious that entitles them to take control of large chunks of the nation’s multi-billion pound educational budget? Perhaps Martin Winter would like to give us an explanation, seeing as he is supporting this policy.

The Vardy Foundation has strong associations with an organisation called the Christian Institute, who have a passionate dislike of homosexuals & transvestites. They were responsible for the publicity stunt where donor sized cards were sent out with the wording, “In the event of my death I do not want my children being brought up by homosexuals” on them. What chance do you think a gay teacher would stand in one of these schools? I thought in this day & age that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was frowned upon. Well it is in most parts of the country, but thanks to Martin Winter, not in Doncaster. Perhaps he could explain why he is supporting homophobic practices within local government?

There is evidence that teachers in these schools are subject to an overbearing & authoritarian style of management, which in a recent case was referred to by the NUT as, “a violation of their liberties & rights”. I doubt if Martin Winter would find this acceptable, so why is he supporting people who do?

In addition, the Christian Institute’s, views on social issues are very right wing (Those at their website almost amounting to a manifesto). Yet we live in country, which is politically biased to the left, a bias that in Doncaster extends down to a local level. Should Martin Winter be supporting & empowering people who seem to hold views that are unrepresentative of the electorate? Is it right for him to be encouraging people with political agendas to be running any school (regardless of what their politics are)?

There is concern about the issue of the school governors who will be largely chosen by the Vardy Foundation with minimum involvement from local people. These of course will be chosen from the ranks of their supporters & can come from anywhere. It is hard to find details about these people, however in Middlesbrough it is reported that one of them is Rev David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond Parish Church and founder of the Christian Institute (who pulled the card stunt mentioned above). In Middlesbrough, there are seven governors, of which only one represents the local authority & only one other the local community, the rest are chosen by the Vardy Foundation. Furthermore, the local community representative has no real authority & can simply be over-ruled at will. Given that Martin Winter is supposed to be representing the local community, the question naturally arises as to what he is doing implementing policies that have an adverse affect on the ability of local people to make decisions about educational matters in their own schools? Perhaps he should try asking the Vardy Foundation to improve this situation (Rather than lamely accepting it)?. After all, if they were really as reasonable as they like to make out they are, the Vardy Foundation should have no problem with this.

Sometimes politicians say or do things that leave me seriously doubting their sanity. An example of this is David Blunkets threat to close down “Failing Schools”. When I first heard this, my thoughts turned to our local school here in Goole. What would happen if he closed this down? Well, the 1200+ pupils would have to travel daily to schools anything up to 15 miles away. These of course would have to find some way of coping with the massive changes such a move would make. This would be incredibly disruptive to all concerned & given that these problems are resolvable, it would also be completely unnecessary. After all, would David Blunket take his expensive car to a scrap yard just because it had a flat tyre? Recently there has been a new twist on this policy; rather than closing down the offending school, you knock it down & then rebuild it! (& just then when you thought it couldn’t get much sicker than this – give it to a bunch of loons). Coulby Newham School (Taken over by the Vardy Foundation in Middlesbrough) was apparently less than 25 years old when it was replaced. In Goole, the main school is nearly a century old & according to East Riding County Council, “one of the worst school buildings in the county”. The rebuild costs are estimated at around £20 million & it could be years before anything is done about it. Surely it is only fair that the vast sums of money needed to finance these large projects should be based on some objectively arrived at criteria that assesses the state of repair of ALL the countries school buildings then allocates resources based on this criteria, instead of totally irrelevant factors such as the strength or weakness of a particular management (which I believe is encouraging local authorities to deliberately pick fault with schools) or an affiliation to one or other of the hundreds of thousands of religious sects currently on the go? Does Martin Winter think it is fair that his department should be allowed to push it’s way to the front of the queue like this?

Here are a few things that help schools achieve; Good Teachers, Good Managers, Good Facilities, a Good Reputation, Bright Pupils, Motivated Parents etc. The religious beliefs (or lack of them) of the staff & pupils are completely irrelevant. (The Vardy Foundation just love to bash on about their so-called “ethos”.) This raises the question that given the controversy over the teaching by the Vardy Foundation of Creationism, why is it that they do not remove or tone down these more contentious issues? Has Martin Winter considered asking them to do this? After all this would be one way of resolving this issue. Personally, I would not hold my breath, the Vardy Foundation like to downplay the more extreme nature of their plans, but they are no more liable to be interested in removing creationism from the syllabus than an alcoholic would be in drinking vodka & coke without the vodka.

Finally, I think it is about time that people were a little more questioning of the Vardy Foundations assertions of superiority. Surely, Doncaster’s Schools have staff that are competent, hard working, dedicated & need help or praise rather than being demoralised with these constant, demeaning & unfair comparisons. Emmanuel School, Gateshead has done well, but that is not so surprising when you examine some of the reasons for it. Not even the Vardy Foundation are promising this level of performance in Doncaster, which raises the question as to just how much better these schools are going to do under them compared with the existing management who have committed themselves too (& were achieving) higher standards. The returns are only liable to be marginal & cannot justify the many problems (only some of which I have highlighted here) such a move would create. Perhaps Martin Winter would like to consider other means of improving standards that do not involve exposing children to the nonsense of “creationism”.

At the beginning of this article I asked a question; “Do the ends justify the means”? Well, I personally have no problem in answering this, because as far as I am concerned the ends (the emergence & spread of a new form of religious extremism) are just as horrible as the means.

Alan.