Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- One School governing: a moment in time
- Two The Trojan Horse affair: media phenomenon and policy driver
- Three School governors in the media
- Four Framing the work of school governors, 2008–15
- Five Democratic accountability: governors in a changing system
- Six Governors making sense of their work
- Seven Post-Trojan Horse: changes to policy and practice since the Trojan Horse affair
- References
- Index
Two - The Trojan Horse affair: media phenomenon and policy driver
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- One School governing: a moment in time
- Two The Trojan Horse affair: media phenomenon and policy driver
- Three School governors in the media
- Four Framing the work of school governors, 2008–15
- Five Democratic accountability: governors in a changing system
- Six Governors making sense of their work
- Seven Post-Trojan Horse: changes to policy and practice since the Trojan Horse affair
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction: a media frenzy
The Trojan Horse affair made headline news on 2 March 2014 with an article by Richard Karaj and Sian Griffiths, writing in The Sunday Times newspaper. Karaj, an established journalist within the Murdoch Group, known for his extensive writing on Islamic matters, had a reputation for provocative writing and the use of polarising emotive language (Griffiths et al, 2013).
The article, with the title ‘Islamist plot to take over schools’ (Kerbaj and Griffiths, 2014), ran with the leader ‘Leaked paper reveals an alleged plan to target ailing schools, force out heads and convert classes to Islamic principles’, and reported details of an apparent plot by Muslim fundamentalists to destabilise and take over state schools in England. In order to appreciate why this article was so powerful, and why it became so influential, it is outlined in full in Box 2.1.
Box 2.1: Article as it appeared in The Sunday Times, 2 March 2014
AN APPARENT plot by Muslim fundamentalists to destabilise and take over state schools in England is being investigated by council officials and monitored by police.
Birmingham city council began an inquiry after the circulation of what purport to be strategy documents outlining ways of ousting head teachers in Muslim areas of the city in order to establish schools run on Islamic principles.
The anonymous documents were passed by the council to West Midlands police. The paperwork, which appears to have been written by disaffected Muslims, has been leaked to The Sunday Times. It is not known whether the council’s investigation which was opened in November, has established the authorship of the documents.
The revelation comes as a further setback for the government’s academies and free schools programme, where institutions are freed from council control and run as semi-independent bodies by a sponsor or trust.
The documents highlight a five-step strategy, allegedly written by unnamed Salafists – fundamentalist Muslims – to remove unwanted head teachers. The schools targeted include failing institutions that could be turned into academies.
The Sunday Times revealed last week that Park View Academy in Birmingham is being investigated by the Department for Education for allegedly side-lining non-Muslim staff and trying to teach Islamic studies, despite not being a faith-based state school.
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- Information
- School GovernancePolicy, Politics and Practices, pp. 33 - 50Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016