- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
MORE than 300 parents and children gathered outside the Parkfield Community School in Birmingham yesterday (14) to protest against lessons on homosexuality.
Students who joined the protest were seen holding placards that read “Education not indoctrination.”
Parkfield Community School is in the predominately Muslim Alum Rock area of Birmingham.
Angry parents claimed they have not given their consent to their children receiving lessons on homosexuality and gender equality as part of the No Outsiders project run by Andrew Moffat, the openly gay assistant headteacher at Parkfield Community School
Fatima Shah, a parent, told a local media report that she has taken her 10-year-old daughter out of the school over the lessons.
“It’s inappropriate, totally wrong. Children are being told it’s OK to be gay yet 98 per cent of children at this school are Muslim. It’s a Muslim community.”
Protester Mariam Ahmed, whose four-year-old daughter attends the school, organised a petition against the No Outsiders project, which covers topics such as disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
She told MailOnline: “What they are teaching is not right, they are too young. There are nine parts of the Act and they only seem to be focusing on one, homosexuality, and that is wrong. They need to have an ethos which reflects the area.
“It’s not just because we are Muslims, there are Christians here too. We don’t have a vendetta against homosexuals and we respect the Act. We respect that Mr Moffat is gay and we are happy for him to teach.”
Moffat, meanwhile, said he has tried to meet parents to address their concerns, but stopped when they started getting aggressive.
Responding to the controversy, Parkfield Community School said it wants pupils to be “accepting and to welcome anybody.” The school however added it had “no plans” to drop the “successful” No Outsiders programme.
Moffat’s programme was first piloted in 2014 at Parkfield Community School and is now taught at several other schools in the UK.
