Paul Stokes, "Staff and parents fight to stop takeover by academy that teaches 'creationism'" (2004)

Staff and parents fight to stop takeover by academy that teaches 'creationism'
By Paul Stokes
(Filed: 21/06/2004)

Teachers, parents and pupils in a former mining town are fighting to prevent their "failing" comprehensive school being replaced by a new £24 million academy run by a foundation that encourages the teaching of creationism in schools.

The protesters staged a march at the weekend against the plan by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation to open its fourth college in northern England.

It came days after Richard Dawkins, the Oxford geneticist, criticised the teaching of creationism, which rejects Darwin's theory of evolution, as "educational debauchery".

Northcliffe School, in Conisbrough, near Doncaster, south Yorkshire, has been classed as "failing" by Ofsted and made the subject of special measures, despite returning its best exam results.

The Emmanuel Foundation, based in the North-East, is part of a charitable trust set up by Sir Peter Vardy, the wealthy entrepreneur behind the Reg Vardy chain of car dealerships.

It already has two colleges, in Gateshead and Middlesbrough, and is sponsoring a third city academy, due to open in September next year at Thorne, near Doncaster.

The foundation became the subject of controversy when it was disclosed that its pupils were being taught the Old Testament belief that God created the world from nothing in six days.

Opponents of the Northcliffe proposal are angry that £22 million of taxpayers' money would be used to build the new school while the foundation, which would put up only £2 million, would assume control.

Martin Winter, Doncaster's elected Labour mayor, has welcomed the foundation into the borough. But the move has prompted strong objections from Northcliffe parents and teaching and public sector unions.

Tracy Morton, 42, a youth worker whose daughter Sophie, 12, attends the school, has helped organise a parents' action group.

"We had a good Ofsted report three years ago and attendance levels and exam results were up," she said. "Unfortunately a government inspector placed the school in special measures earlier this year.

"This is the only comprehensive in the Conisbrough area so we will have no choice. We are worried that the Biblical perspective will run through the whole timetable and we will have no real local representation in running the school."

Matthew Bailey, the school's NUT representative, said the school was effectively being taken out of local hands.

Formal consultations with staff, parents and pupils have already started and Doncaster borough council's ruling cabinet will meet on July 28 to consider its recommendation to the local schools organising committee.

Aiden Rave, Doncaster's deputy mayor, said: "We are not imposing this academy on Conisbrough. It is all about what is happening 10 or 15 years down the line."

A spokesman for the Vardy Foundation said Sir Peter was a Christian and was not "fundamentalist or evangelical". She added: "It is an altruistic and philanthropic way of doing something for the community. We do not go touting for business."

The school's facilities would be available to the whole community and pupils would be chosen from all abilities, backgrounds and faiths.

"Our academies do have a Christian ethos, but it is a backdrop to the way they operate. Our pupils are taught the national curriculum, we have Ofsted inspections like any other school and our academies are not indoctrination centres."

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