London, England, Jun 27, 2017 / 07:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Jewish girls' school has received a failing report from a British education standards monitor because it did not teach its pupils about sexual orientation and gender reassignment.
The report concerns Vishnitz Girls School, an Orthodox Jewish school in the London borough of Hackney for students up to age eight. Inspectors charged that the school did not give its students a “full understanding of fundamental British values.”
The British education standards office, informally known as Ofsted, faulted the school’s lack of instruction about all legally protected characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender-reassignment, the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reports.
Ofsted charged that this means students have “a limited understanding of the different lifestyles and partnerships that individuals may choose in present-day society.” It said school policy “restricts pupils’ spiritual, moral and cultural development and does not promote equality of opportunity in ways that take account of differing lifestyles.”
The school monitor has inspected the school three times in less than a year. Its report suggested school officials are aware school policy does not fulfill U.K. equality laws.
The school’s annual tuition is about $6,600. The Ofsted report did praise the school’s resources, its teachers’ expertise, and its improvements in areas like safeguarding children and leadership.
However, failure to meet Ofsted’s requirements could shut down a school.
The British Department of Education has required schools to teach “fundamental British values,” in reaction to reports that extremist Muslim groups were trying to infiltrate schools. In November 2014, these requirements were strengthened, with all schools being required to promote equality and diversity, as defined by the education department.
At the time, the British newspaper The Guardian reported these rules were likely to conflict with Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and other religious schools because they require them to prioritize secular law over religious teachings.
In 2014 a highly ranked Catholic school in Suffolk drew criticism from government inspectors for allegedly failing to prepare students for modern life in Britain.
The school filed a formal complaint about the investigation. The school said parents complained that the inspectors asked children as young as ten about same-sex sexual acts and transsexualism.
Ofsted and the “British values” requirement drew criticism from Catholic leaders like Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain. He charged that Ofsted “appears to be guilty of trying to enforce a kind of state-imposed orthodoxy on certain moral and religious questions.”
Article Archive
Refusal to teach LGBT issues could fail a Jewish school in Britain
Related Articles • More Articles
Pope Francis waves while traveling by boat in Venice, Italy, for a meeting with young people at the Basilica della Madonna della Salute on April 28, 2024. Earlier in the day he met with inmates at a women's prison. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Pope Francis opened his one-day visit to Venice on Sunday morning with a meeting with female inmates where he reaffirmed the importance of fraternity and human dignity, noting that prison can be a place of new beginnings. "A stay in prison can mark the beginning of something new, through the rediscovery of the unsuspected beauty in us and in others, as symbolized by the artistic event you are hosting and the project to which you actively contribute," the pope said to the female inmates gathered in the intimate courtyard of the Women's Prison on the Island of Giudecca. Pope Francis left the Vatican by helicopter at approximately 6:30 in the mo...
Pope Francis prays in front of the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist inside St. Mark's Basilica in Venice on April 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 09:35 am (CNA).Pope Francis had a full slate of events Sunday during his day trip to Venice, a trip that tied together a message of unity and fraternity with the artistic patrimony of a city that has been a privileged place of encounter across the centuries. "Faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God's love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner, and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid," the pope said to over 10,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Mark's Square. Framing his homily during the Mass on the theme of unity, one of the central points articulated throughout several audiences spread across the morning, Pope Francis reminded Christians: "Remaining ...
Prayer house at San Simeone, Italy, September 2012. / Credit: Courtesy of Ricostruttori nella preghieraRome, Italy, Apr 28, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across Italy there are houses of prayer run by the Ricostruttori (Reconstructors) community, a Catholic movement dedicated to people who are far from the Church but attracted to spirituality, particularly Eastern meditation and Buddhist practices. The Reconstructors was founded in 1978 by Jesuit Father Gian Vittorio Cappelletto. "During the postconciliar period, the Church was faced with the need for new forms of evangelization and apostolate, to reach out to people who were drifting away," Don Roberto Rondanina, priest and superior of the Ricostruttori, explained to CNA. "It was a time when Eastern meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age ... were beginning to spread in Europe." "Father Cappelletto, who lived in Turin, sought to understand the meaning of this 'flight to the East' and felt the need to find new forms of sp...