Exposed: Evangelical Senior Teacher Behind Channel 5 “Exclusive” on Golden Hillock School

A couple of days ago Channel 5 ran an “exclusive” which stated that officials had ignored warnings over extremism. The comments were made by an “anonymous” former senior teacher at Golden Hillock School, depicted in a shadowy short-clip in which she made her revelations. As with most of the reports regarding the Trojan Hoax allegations, most of the sources have not been named. Wilshaw claims to have spoken to many heads in Birmingham for instance, however, dubiously, he does not mention the names. I say dubiously, because given the agenda of some evangelical teachers in Birmigham, his track record, and affirmations from (non-Muslim) sources that he is a Gove-lackey, an extra level of scrutiny is required with regards to the allegations which come out.

As for the “exclusive”, who is the source for this report?

KAREN SLATER

Slater is another practising evangelical Christian linked to the controversial Riverside Church and is alleged to be the “whistleblower”. Her background is interesting. Slater had applied for a deputy role at Golden Hillock School against the advice of Matthew Scarrott, the head teacher. Sure enough Slater did not make the grade (much like most of the students who have been let down there for the past 4 years) and fell through the recruitment process against stronger candidates.

The above would generally be sufficient to dismiss her claims as a disgruntled employee getting her own back. However the “plot” thickens.

Matthew Scarrott was married to a Christian Indian lady. According to sources in Birmingham, it is a well-known fact that when the couple separated a close relationship developed between Scarrott and Slater, to the point that even school children in the playground made jokes about them.

In other words, Scarrot and Slater are linked and given the fact that Scarrott is one of the alleged individuals behind the Trojan Horse letter/instigation of the investigations, it is more than a mere coincidence for Slater to come out and add to the chorus of allegations against the schools in Birmingham.

Allegations against Golden Hillock School

Sources in Birmingham have been able to confirm whether the allegations made by Slater have any validity. Many of her allegations distort and ascribe falsities to the school and their governors.

Slater: “they banned sex education, pressured some staff to wear headscarves and ran a campaign to oust non-Muslim senior teachers.”

According to sources in Birmingham who have confirmed with the school, this is a,

“patently false claim which is deliberately designed to feed into the Trojan Horse claims”.

Exposed: Evangelical Christians Behind Trojan Horse Letter

I would like to state from the outset that the intention of this exposé is not to inflame communities, or to posit one community against another. It is rather to establish the truth which has been the first victim of this war against Muslim-majority schools in Birmingham.

Before delving into the purported names and details of the individuals alleged to have written the Trojan Horse document and actively instigated the Gestapo-esque investigations, it is worth getting some history on the schools in Birmingham.

Most of the schools targeted were previously failing schools.  New governors have come in and results have drastically improved. A governor whose school was one of the schools targeted in the press as well as the Trojan Hoax investigations, highlighted that,

“Traditional leadership were in their comfort zone. There was no sense of a drive for achievement. No real concern that some of schools were hitting barely 30% GCSE pass rates.” 

The reason for this was that the governors consisted of broadly two groups.  The first group were mainly Muslims, who really did not know what their responsibilities entailed.  In many cases in Birmingham, the governors barely spoke English. The second group was somewhat passive; they did not really engage the school teachers, but seemingly made the effort to be there.  For instance, Lynn Morris, a practising Christian and the former principal of Joseph Chamberlain lives in Shropshire, yet would travel down to attend governors meetings at Golden Hillock school. Incidentally, her successor at Joseph Chamberlain College, Elly Tobin, is known to be a “racist” according to employees in the college and has allegations of use of intimidation against employees when her anti-Muslim attitude was brought to the attention of local MPs and the college was investigated in 2011.