British School I heard about....

i was reading around and i came upon some information about a british school being funded by taxpayer money that doesn't teach evolution and instead teaches creationism.

i know that it's part of a program in which an individual fronts a certain amount of money and gets something in the way of 5-10x as much to build the school, and then running costs in perpetuity.

anyone have more information on this?

Can you remember where you read this?

I don't recall ever hearing about any such school, so some sources/links would be good so we can take a look at the issue.

Originally posted by Ste2652
Can you remember where you read this?

the god delusion.

I don't recall ever hearing about any such school, so some sources/links would be good so we can take a look at the issue.

all i remember was that it was some sort of flagship program that was blair's pet project.

i go and dig around in the book for it again

I think I know what you are referring to, I recall the program
(Richard Dawkins is always a 'must read/watch' IMO).

It's not a 'type' of school its to do with who the Gov will allow to run a school under the new community/business partnership funding arrangements.

If a certain % of the building costs were put up (was it 15%?) those putting up that finance could 'run' the school - in this instance as a religious institute of education.....ie a 'Church school'.
(Sorry it was a while back I saw this & I can't remember if that was just for brand new build or if it also included a refurb/rebuild or even the day to day running costs too)

I don't know what safeguards have been established but I did hear an explanation of what was then proposed and I have to say that it made my hair stand on end when it came to the involvement of certain types of 'Evangelical' fundy 'creationist/intelligent design' types running things.

I'm all for schools involving the local community and I can see that some sort of business involvement is probably not such a bad thing in itself but when those arrangements involve religious zealots (of any brand) I start to get concerned.

Having said that the UK has had C of E, Muslim, Presbyterian and RC 'Church schools' (to name a few) for a very long time without too many problems or traumas.

I doubt very much that whether any 'Church' school can just ignore the national curriculum and it may well be that those initial proposals which were the grounds of some reasonable & well founded fears were later addressed as these proposals made their way through the Parliamentary stages.



[edit on 14-6-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

as i understand it, if a school (faith) can fund itself (more than 60%) it can choose what to teach so long as it makes provisions for alternative classes.

but the chances of more than a few small faith based schools popping up is low...lets face it they have leaky roof's to fix and brass bands to fund before they even start to think about educating the masses.

but saying that PFI (private finance initiative ) schemes worry the jebus out of me, No child should be taught at the "coca-cola enterprise uk ltd center of primary education"

booo i say boooo to pfi