A Charedi girls’s school in Gateshead has complained to Ofsted over what it believes was a disproportionate emphasis on its policy not to teach about LGBT identity.
Ateres High was rated good for its education and for pupil behaviour but overall received a “requires improvement” grade in its latest inspection — just as it was two years ago.
But inspectors criticised the independent girls school — where 96 per cent of the pupils achieved at least five GCSEs at grade 4 or above this summer — over its relationship and sex education curriculum.
Ofsted said Ateres “does not teach pupils about sexual orientation and gender reassignment” and although the school’s published sex education policy included these topics, “all parents exercise their statutory right to withdraw their children from sex education lessons”.
However, these issues were part of compulsory relationships education, Ofsted noted. “The school’s relationships education programme does not provide pupils with sufficient knowledge, including about lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender relationships. Also, pupils do not learn in enough depth about important issues, such as enough depth about important issues, such as sexual harassment, sexual violence and coercive and controlling behaviour.”
Inspectors found a “calm and orderly” atmosphere at the school, where pupils showed “respect and kindness to all”. Girls achieved well at GCSE and were well prepared for the next stage of their academic education, showing interest in their learning and working hard in lessons.
In its complaint to Ofsted about the report, the school said “limited weaknesses” identified in the relationships curriculum should not “overshadow” other areas of pupil development.
For students educated in the school’s religious culture, “using explicit terminology in RSE would be counterproductive and conveys to students the opposite messages from what is intended,” Ateres told Ofsted.
Its relationships education policy states that the laws of tzniut, modesty, “prevent us from discussing issues relating to relationships and intimacy in open forums and require us to give due sensitivity to the nature of these issues”.
Some inspectors, Ateres told Ofsted, had become “obsessively transfixed” with the issue of the precise terminology schools used for relationships eduction and had “allowed it to become a huge focus of their inspections and the defining factor in awarding their judgment grades for PD [personal development] and L & M [leadership and management]”.
It was “farcical how much of our Ofsted report is dedicated to the minutiae of this one area out of the hundreds of aspects that a school is supposed to focus on!” the school contended.
Approached for comment, Ofsted said, “We don’t have anything further to add beyond the published report”.
