UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 581-iv

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

EDUCATION AND SKILLS COMMITTEE

 

 

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

 

 

Monday 22 May 2006

MR SIMON GOULDEN, DR MOHAMMED MUKADAM,

MR NICK McKEMEY and MS OONA STANNARD

Evidence heard in Public Questions 264 - 328

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Education and Skills Committee

on Monday 22 May 2006

Members present

Mr Barry Sheerman, in the Chair

Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods

Mr Douglas Carswell

Mr David Chaytor

Mrs Nadine Dorries

Jeff Ennis

Helen Jones

Mr Gordon Marsden

Stephen Williams

________________

Memorandum submitted by Mr Simon Gould,

United Synagogue Agency for Jewish Education

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Simon Goulden, Director, United Synagogue Agency for Jewish Education, Dr Mohammed Mukadam, Chair, Association of Muslim Schools UK, Mr Nick McKemey, Head of School Improvement, Church of England Board of Education, and Ms Oona Stannard, Chief Executive and Director, Catholic Education Service, gave evidence.

Q264 Chairman: Can I welcome Nick McKemey, Oona Stannard, Simon Goulden and Dr Mohammad Mukadam to our proceedings and say again that we always are very grateful when people give their time to come in front of our committee. Of course, we know that we can make you come if you did not want to but it is very nice when witnesses eagerly attend, so thanks very much for your attendance. We are something like halfway into our inquiry into citizenship education and we are getting ourselves into some very interesting territory. Some of the questions are quite philosophic, spiritual, whatever, but they are fascinating. Some of the evidence that your organisations have given us today has been very interesting and some very challenging. I intend to start these proceedings by giving each of the witnesses a chance to make a very short introduction, not to repeat their CV but to say something to the committee to get the discussion moving.

Mr McKemey: My own reflection is that this was a very difficult subject to get a grip on. I have attempted to do some sort of survey of what is going on in Church of England schools and alongside that I have looked at what we have in terms of some kind of emerging policy on citizenship and so I may refer to the two speeches by the Archbishop of Canterbury made in the last three years, both of which have some pointers to and indications of what could be surmised as the Church of England stance on this, but I say that with some hesitancy.

Q265 Chairman: Why do you say it with some hesitancy?

Mr McKemey: Because it is very difficult to get a complete picture. As an education provider we probably have the most diverse run of schools in the whole faith provision, partly because we have voluntary foundation schools and now academies and we also have voluntary aided schools and those schools very broadly have somewhat different types of character and they certainly have different types of governance, so there are differences there. If you then apply the broad range of churchmanship across Church of England schools and the degree to which schools adhere to some form of distinctive Christian character you have a very wide range. Then again, if you add the populations within the schools, we have schools which are 100 per cent UK white to schools that are well over 90 per cent of Asian and Muslim origin. If you look at that it is very diverse; hence I hesitate to come out with a simple picture of a Church of England school.

Q266 Chairman: There is no simple picture.

Mr McKemey: There is no simple picture but a very complex one.

Ms Stannard: I too have been talking to various heads and inviting schools to comment and advise me in advance of today. By way of introduction all that I would want to say is that I have been strongly reminded by those to whom I have spoken that being a good Catholic involves being a good citizen and the notion of citizenship as service is something which is held dear in the schools. When people have discussed that with me they have also been very keen to remind me, as if I did not know already, that being a Catholic school does not mean that it is populated entirely by Catholic pupils. There is a feeling that the sense of citizenship as service is something that they are practising throughout the school, whatever the range of pupils, and that it is built on the Christian values of the school.

Mr Goulden: We clearly all have been doing our homework. I too have been contacting Jewish schools and find that the whole subject of citizenship is one that is very difficult to decouple from the very life of the school itself. Clearly, having heard my two colleagues on my right and, I would guess, my colleague on my left, the idea of a faith community not being imbued with ideas of citizenship and everything that brings with it is something I find very difficult to decouple. Judaism believes that education is the process of becoming a citizen, becoming articulate in the law, in collective responsibility, responsibility for the world around us, and so to have citizenship as a discrete and separate subject is one that has been quite challenging for the Jewish community and its schools. We have very much built it into religious education because religious education and religion imbues our lives and that focuses on citizenship subjects. It has been an interesting bit of research and clearly one where there is a lot of work going on but I would be interested to hear what others have to say.

Q267 Chairman: Are you saying that the problem is very different if you are in a non-faith school, that the question of citizenship is quite different if you step outside the faith school sector, that you need citizenship there because there is not a religious core, a spiritual core, that is already part of making people aware of the need for citizenship?

Mr Goulden: I cannot, of course, speak for the non-faith school community because that is not one that I am over-familiar with, but I certainly do know in the Jewish community that our faith drives our view of citizenship and the demands of the faith and of citizenship do not seem to be at odds at all, quite the contrary. Exactly what goes on in the rest of the state sector, because the vast majority of our schools, of course, are voluntary aided schools, I am afraid I am not really qualified to answer.

Dr Mukadam: The Association of Muslim Schools UK has some 125 mostly independent Muslim schools up and down the country. Citizenship is something which is not new for many of our schools because from an Islamic point of view a good citizen is a good Muslim, a universal citizen. Of course, there are many challenges for us in schools. Some of them have just started, like lack of resources, lack of training, trying to get to grips with many other things associated with running schools, but on the whole every school that I have visited or spoken to warmly welcomes this debate and is engaged actively in teaching young people citizenship. Many are engaged in looking at different methodologies because of the diversity within the Muslim communities. Some take a traditional role and teach it as a separate subject, try to Islamicise it; others will take a different approach and integrate it throughout the curriculum. There is a variety of approaches but in essence it is a debate that is welcomed in Muslim schools in order to face challenges and see how we can continue to improve our teachings to churn out better educated British citizens.

Q268 Mrs Dorries: All of you have demonstrated that citizenship is something which is imbued in the day-to-day life of your schools as part of the faith which is what drives your schools. The Chairman raised an important question about whether you think it does not happen outside. Do you think that you need citizenship as a subject within your schools and, as an add-on to that, do you think that if you do not other schools do?

Dr Mukadam: I suppose a properly run Islamic school would not require a citizenship programme at all because within its philosophy, its teachings and its holistic approach is what I would call the effective domain which seeks to turn young people into good human beings with universal values. A good Muslim should really be a good universal citizen no matter which country he lives in. In that respect, if you analyse what citizenship looks for and you look at the ethos and the effective domain that exists within Islamic schools you will find they are in parallel and in some cases they go well above what is required in the citizenship programme. This addresses not only the cognitive domain but also the effective domain in making sure that those values are understood and internalised. Yes, in one sense, if the citizenship programme did not exist we would have no problem in churning out good, well-rounded British citizens.

Ms Stannard: It would be disingenuous to say that when citizenship came on stream under that name I did not hear complaints from Catholic schools who were saying to me, "We are doing this anyway. Why do we have to jump through these hoops?", and there was great concern about trying to find the time in an overcrowded curriculum. That said, having moved on and with schools having more experience now of delivering citizenship in terms of present expectations, there is a much more positive response. Many schools say, "We enjoy what it has made us think about and focus upon and many of the activities and so on that we have planned and got involved in in the name of citizenship", and they say that whilst still moaning about curriculum pressures and the pressure of finding the time. Typically there will be citizenship occurring through the medium of religious education but also in PSHE and other subjects and by other strategies as well.

Q269 Mrs Dorries: We have PSHE, we have English, we have history, we have religious education. Why then do we need citizenship as well? How come the teachers are complaining about the additional curriculum pressure? Why can they not teach what they are teaching as citizenship through those routes or channels? Why do they have to have it isolated into a different heading or subject?

Mr McKemey: One of the difficulties we had was getting a comprehensive picture and maybe that is what we are going to embark on now. A headteacher rang me up the other day and made a very forceful statement for delivering citizenship across the whole curriculum within a school that has a distinctive Christian character, and he talked about worship right through to PE, so it was through the whole thing and it was really about identifying those strands. Most of the headteachers that I have spoken to and most of the schools that I visit approach it in that way and that is when it seems to work best. One of the problems with PSHE was when it got detached and became a thing in itself. Years ago as an Ofsted inspector I remember inspecting some pretty dreadful PSHE lessons, and one of the things that we are concerned about, as with our Catholic colleagues, is that the thing could be counterproductive if it is delivered in the wrong way. Certainly I think we would feel that it would not only be embedded in the Christian dimension of the school but also through the whole curriculum as a holistic approach.

Q270 Mrs Dorries: Citizenship seems to be the essence of what you do in your schools anyway as faith schools. It seems to have taken the essence of what you teach through every lesson every day and crystallised it into a subject with "citizenship" above it. Do you think it is the Government's place to do that, to tell you to take out the best of what you will teach anyway and to put it into a new subject and define it?

Mr Goulden: I think it would be disingenuous of us to suggest how the Government should focus the national curriculum for the future, or even the present, but it does seem, certainly from my point of view, that we have tried to find a subject heading for something which, certainly for a faith school, is the warp and the weft of everything we do. I was listening just now to what Oona said and could not help but feel that she could have translated that exactly into what our schools are doing and have been doing, and I assume I speak for my other colleagues as well. This is not difficult for a faith school to do. It just means that we have to re-focus and re-compartmentalise the work we do so that it fits nicely into the citizenship curriculum and the curriculum headings and outcomes et cetera, but it is not new territory for us. I think it is new territory for a number of non-faith schools, or rather state schools. I think we can get an idea of the dimension of that if you try and see how many colleges and universities run specific PGCE courses in citizenship. There are fewer than a dozen in the country and many of those do that as part of citizenship and history, citizenship and literacy or citizenship and English. It strikes me that the non-faith schools system might be needing to catch up with where we as faith schools have had little difficulty in understanding citizenship for many decades.

Q271 Mrs Dorries: This might be an unfair question to ask people who are already familiar with the concept of citizenship through what you do on a day-to-day basis but, given that we have so many coasting schools in the UK and schools where we have - and I cannot remember the statistic; I have not brought it with me - is it one in six children still not reaching the right literacy levels by the time they leave school, do you not think that the Government should be concentrating on the three Rs, as it were, the basic education, and leaving citizenship to history and PSHE and religion and not taking curriculum time to add another subject on?

Ms Stannard: First, could I say that I think you can deliver citizenship education as something discrete or across the curriculum or, when done best, as a combination of both. I take your point about standards and I am sure we all feel that those are critically important, but citizenship education done well offers a good medium in which to be developing work on those standards. Some of the activities in which children and young people have become involved as a result of citizenship are quite motivating, they give the pupils work where they are having to write, having to be numerate, having to undertake pieces of analysis and so on, which arguably you could say help to develop those core skills. Another benefit of citizenship education done well is the building of the self-esteem of the pupils. What some of them are achieving and experiencing is very rewarding for them. In a sense I might even be tempted to argue that having created something with a label called citizenship, even though we believe we can do it very well without that label, does also mean that schools are put on their mettle to check what they are doing in citizenship and it has stimulated innovation. For example, in our diocese of Brentwood the Bishop has initiated annual pupil citizenship awards which are given out in a big ceremony within the cathedral. The pupils are very proud of them, as are the parents. They are very keenly reported upon and sought. I think there are all sorts of additional benefits that can come from citizenship and I do feel very keenly about pressures on the curriculum and the timetable for teachers but I think there is a balancing act that can be done.

Mr McKemey: In common with my colleagues we have schools that are serving communities in which the children presenting at the reception stage have barely any social skills at all. If we see citizenship as having an impact on the development of, if you like, socialisation of children, the needs for these children are particularly acute. I was in one of our secondary schools recently which is in fact serving the population of two previous failed schools and the issues are very acute. The parental generation is the one that was failed and their model of schools and their attitude to education is extremely negative, so the school is in a sense trying to educate two generations at once and the children are coming in, as I say, with virtually no social skills. A good example is that their model of dealing with problems is anger or violence and so on, so I think that there are some real issues. At that level that socialisation has to be embedded in what the school does, let alone what its values are and what it stands for. I think there are some acute needs for this. Coming back to whether the Government should have a programme for this, there clearly are needs in those kinds of circumstances.

Q272 Jeff Ennis: I would like to follow the line of questioning that Nadine has been pursuing in response to an earlier reply you gave, Oona. Do you think one of the reasons why the Government have pushed the citizenship agenda, if you like, is that they feel it may be in danger of being part of the implied curriculum in certain schools, and I am not singling out faith schools when I say this, rather than the actual curriculum which they obviously want to see happening across every school, not just the faith schools?

Ms Stannard: Can I just check that I have understood your question correctly? You are wondering if my view is that it being overt in the curriculum is to ensure that it happens and it happens well?

Q273 Jeff Ennis: Yes, because in any school curriculum you have the implied curriculum, which teachers are supposed to teach, and then you have the actual curriculum which they end up teaching. Quite often there is a disparity between the two and I am just wondering if education for citizenship can fall into that disparate sort of situation on occasion.

Ms Stannard: I am sure that it could. Every school is different, every school approaches what it has to do differently and with different interests and particular enthusiasms. I think having citizenship as something named and looked at ensures that those running the school undertake the review and the evaluation of citizenship, but I would also agree with you entirely, if I have inferred correctly, that citizenship is not something that is only taught but is also acted and is present in very many of the extra-curricular activities that I see going on, for instance, in older students participating in justice and peace groups in our schools, running a Fair Trade shop, Fair Trade cafés, all that sort of thing.

Q274 Jeff Ennis: I have a supplementary question to an earlier response from Nick McKemey in terms of the fact that it appears to me that education for citizenship can be used as a very positive tool in promoting behaviour management across the whole spectrum of all schools, Nick, and I wonder if you agree with that philosophy.

Mr McKemey: Yes, I do. That picks up the comment Oona made a minute or two ago, that if the school is not simply focused on the hard academic curriculum but also on developing positive attitudes to learning and raising self-esteem and that sort of capital which you need in order to develop and proceed to greater achievement, then yes, I do see that as a coherent approach.

Q275 Jeff Ennis: I wonder if Simon or Mohammed have any views about either of the questions I have put to the other two witnesses?

Mr Goulden: One of the difficulties I see is that citizenship should be for everybody a way of life. That is what we should all be. Clearly, in a religious school or a school of a religious nature, that religious life is a way of life as well. For the religious school the two are perfectly matched. I do not know whether the Government decided to put citizenship in the curriculum because it is not a way of life, sadly, any more for a percentage - whether the vast percentage or not I have no idea - of the British population. I do see that there is this tripartite compact of the school, the community (for me the faith community) and the home, and you cannot leave the home out. We know that a triangle is the strongest structure possible and if you have a strong triangle then almost nothing can destroy it. My concern is that somewhere in our recent past, I would imagine, the concept of citizenship for the majority of people in the community has become far more Putnam's Bowling Alone syndrome and ideas of citizenship have tended to disappear with the "me" generation: "I want it all and I want it now". I think a faith grounding goes some way to redress that balance. I do not know, I genuinely do not know, how that plays out in a non-faith environment.

Dr Mukadam: I would like to try and separate two issues here. One is, I would say, the values and self-esteem and things associated with those in faith schools that we find are done effectively through religious education, collective worship, et cetera. Where I do find citizenship really useful is when it acts as a conduit for debate and allows young people to have discussions about human rights, for example, and the sharia, what sorts of differences there are and how does a Muslim in a western country look at and discuss those differences and so forth. There is also democracy. If you give year 7s or Key Stage 3 kids a chance to play, for example, the Prime Minister it is a wonderful inspiration for them. I think it is a very useful subject in which to develop attitudes, skills and other things associated with democracy so that they understand it and have an opportunity to discuss their own faith perspectives within that framework. It would be right to say that the core values which make a good global citizen in our opinion are formed effectively within the religious domain of the school's life.

Q276 Jeff Ennis: What degree of flexibility should schools and other institutions be allowed when it comes to providing citizenship education for pupils in their care? Are there things which categorically should be left out and things which should definitely be included within the citizenship curriculum of a school?

Ms Stannard: Could I submit a dissertation to you on that in three years' time please? I really think it is so profound and important a question that I just could not do it justice off the cuff like that; forgive me.

Q277 Jeff Ennis: That is very honest of you. I can tell you are a Catholic. Can you give me one or two issues that you think definitely ought to be in? What are the main issues that should be in the citizenship curriculum and what are those that definitely should not be touched?

Ms Stannard: I certainly would include, for instance, the importance of democracy, the importance of valuing each person equally, and for me, of course, I would put that as the dignity of the human being, seeing Christ in everyone you encounter and what that demands in terms of how you treat every individual, and from there what that should mean in terms of the structures of your life and the way you live your life and that life of service to others. It is harder to say what should not be in, I am afraid.

Q278 Jeff Ennis: Exactly!

Mr McKemey: Can I approach that in a slightly different way? When you look at the national curriculum remit for citizenship it is relatively comprehensive or potentially comprehensive. The thing that would concern me is, if you like, the quality and depth of the provision. An area that we are very interested in and which Archbishop Rowan reflected on in his speech in March, Faith in the Future, was in our case the way a faith school can engage with those of other faiths and no faith as well as their own faith, and how that relationship can be enriched and developed. This goes way beyond what he calls passive tolerance. It is a real engagement. One of the values that we have heard expressed that a faith school might have is spiritual security and that encompasses the ability for children to be able to develop and profess belief or no belief in in the complete security of not being bullied, put down or undermined by other people. We think there are some key issues there. I have to say that when you take the national curriculum and suggested programmes of work and all the rest of it they do not really start to make inroads into that process. I think there are some dangers in a simplistic approach to tolerance because it fails to understand the range of different values, approaches and so on that people bring to their thought, belief, philosophic processes or none. I think probably the biggest challenge we are facing in our education is with those who have not got the beginnings of any kind of social or moral code with which to deal with life, whether that is agnostic or from a faith. That is the key issue and too many things are being ring-fenced off into tolerance or finding out what the superficial features are of this or that. That is why I worry. Rather than leave something out I think it is more about the quality of what you do.

Mr Goulden: In the Jewish community we are a little concerned about the use of the word "tolerance". Somebody once said that you tolerate toothache but it is respect for all people that Judaism teaches and that is an area that I would like the national curriculum and citizenship to concentrate on: respect for the other, something which I think the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality said a few months ago, I think when he was giving evidence here but I am not sure; it may have been in another place. That is very important. There is another feature. Whilst I would agree that the national curriculum programmes of work are pretty comprehensive, I do not think I would like to take anything out - perhaps that needs another PhD as well, three years of research - but I think the important thing as far as we are concerned is the close connection between giving and belonging. The Chief Rabbi made, I thought, a very good analogy: in a house in which you take refuge you are just a guest but in a house which you help to build you can say, "It is my home". I think if we as faith communities can help to build the house that is Britain we can truly say, as we certainly do, that we belong.

Dr Mukadam: I would agree with what my colleagues have said. It is very difficult to see what should or needs to be taken out. It is a wonderful thing that those who are involved in it have put through. One thing I would like to say is that flexibility in terms of delivering the citizenship programme needs to be maintained because there are different approaches. Those who have a faith perspective have a different approach and sometimes it is not understood by those who do not have a faith, not realising that it has worked for people of faith for many years and it is more effective to teach this because of the different backgrounds and so forth. I think on the whole it should be maintained but equally important is flexibility in delivering that so that it is delivered through different philosophies, different understandings, rather than having this one-size-fits-all approach which is dominated, I think, by the comprehensive schools and a faith-free approach. I would be quite worried about anything that said it had to be delivered in a particular way.

Q279 Chairman: Is there not a touch of complacency in some of the things that the four of you are saying in the sense, "Everything is all right in our bailiwick but what is happening in the non-faith sector is probably where the problem lies"? Rather unpleasant characters that are not very good citizens emerge from your schools, from Catholic schools, from Anglican schools and from Muslim schools, do they not? It is not the fact that faith schools do the job of citizenship brilliantly well. We are all human beings, are we not?

Mr Goulden: We are indeed, Chairman, and we all have the ability to rise higher and do better. What I am saying is that the underpinning of citizenship education through a faith lens - and I am mixing my metaphors so you must forgive me - I personally find easy to do because that is something which we do as part of our faith, culture, religion, philosophy, ethos. I am not saying that everybody is perfect. That is, of course, what we pray for every day. We are not there yet but I am saying that we are trying very hard and we do not have a difficulty with teaching citizenship because it is meat and drink to us.

Q280 Chairman: Most of the state schools I visit, the good ones, have a pretty clear code of what a good citizen is and that is not only taught in citizenship classes; it imbues the behaviour and activity of the school. Is that not the case?

Mr Goulden: I am sure you are right but I am here representing Jewish faith schools and I cannot talk for the others.

Q281 Chairman: There was just a little bit of, "We are all right but we are worried about the rest of the world".

Ms Stannard: May I step out of my Catholic role for a moment and look back to my time as an HMI and also the time when I acted as a consultant to the National Healthy Schools standard? I have no doubt that there are other schools that do citizenship very well too based on good human values which, of course, people will say come from good Christian values. I am not knocking other schools and saying we do everything supremely well by any means. I think we can find some jolly good examples if we look at things like the National Healthy Schools standard and work in community schools too.

Q282 Chairman: The British Humanists have given evidence to us on this: some people might argue that faith schools are the problem, that the last 1,000 or 2,000 years has been a history of different religions fighting each other in the most unpleasant way, whether they be Catholics, Protestants, Jews or Muslims. The faith is the problem, not the answer.

Ms Stannard: Mr Sheerman, I could not possibly agree with you on that one. What we might be hearing about is tribalism at times rather than religion and I think also the different faiths have an amazing history of providing education to people who become well developed and assimilated citizens serving very well the wide diversity of the society in which they live.

Dr Mukadam: I think it is about how schools and the education institutes teach citizenship through a faith perspective; that is the important thing. Done properly I think it will show and it does indeed show that young people can become very good citizens because they have a solid base, their own faith. All faiths teach a belief in God and to treat every human being as they would themselves like to be treated. It is how it is taught which is important and in my opinion in our comprehensive schools we employ a very reductionist approach because we do not provide a full faith perspective in developing good citizenship. As a person coming from a faith background I feel that we are denying an opportunity to our young people to develop an inquiring mind to search for the eternal truth and then to find universal values that will help throughout life's struggles to become good citizens. From a faith perspective I do feel that there needs to be a good debate on how good citizenship can be taught but taught from a faith perspective. That is a debate that I would welcome, not just for faith schools but also across different schools, those schools of no faith, simply because it is important to give young people a holistic approach in education rather than the one that exists in many of our schools which I term a reductionist approach.

Q283 Mr Chaytor: Can I pursue that line of argument and ask each of our witnesses are you confident that, in the schools you represent, within the citizenship component of the curriculum the school could manage an objective discussion of the issues surrounding the war in Iraq? I would like to hear from each of you. How would the faith perspective come into that discussion?

Mr McKemey: I think the best answer I can give there is that we would expect that that discussion would be freely undertaken and that all the issues could be discussed openly and freely. In our case we talk about Christian values driving the school and two of them are openness and honesty. Over the last two years I have been involved in developing a new section 48 system for our schools and somebody in one particular diocese said, "But it is not really very Christian to criticise, is it?", and we said, "Actually, we think that is the essence of our belief, that we are open, we are honest, but we can do that in a loving and supporting way, so we would expect that any issue can be dealt with". Obviously, you have an enormous range of approaches you need to bring to that, depending on the age, the size of the school, the kinds of pupils you have got, if you have pupils in the school who are particularly associated with that. For instance, that school used to be full of service families who are in Iraq and this was very much part of the open agenda in that school. That is what we would expect. I could not possibly sign for every single Church of England school to say they do but that is an expectation which I think they would share.

Q284 Mr Chaytor: Had the Archbishop of Canterbury made a statement about the moral issues involved in that war or another war would that influence the way in which the issue was discussed within Anglican faith schools?

Mr McKemey: I think it could do if it was a particular headline issue and the teachers had noticed and it had been taken on board. I think anything the Archbishop of Canterbury said would probably be broadly reflected across other areas of the church anyway, but others would differ, so there would be a range of views on that which would equally be explored.

Chairman: I think we had better contrast the last Archbishop with this one. We will not go into that! David?

Q285 Mr Chaytor: I am just interested in our witnesses commenting on this question.

Ms Stannard: We are educating pupils in citizenship; we are not indoctrinating them, so the importance of being able to hear evidence and listen respectfully to one another's views and discern from that would in my view be one of the most critical aspects of good citizenship education, so I would hope that that which you are asking would in fact be done well in our schools, whether it is directly under the title of citizenship or there would be other areas of the curriculum it could come into as well. In fact, I was interested when I was getting feedback from some of our schools in advance of today to hear from one school in an area close to Army bases where the Army has been in and working with senior pupils to do simulations of the issues facing the peacekeeping force, in this case in Bosnia and the problem-solving and so on that goes with that. Giving people the space to share their views, to share opinions and to delve down further I think is one of the positives in this.

Q286 Mr Chaytor: Had there been again a statement from the Vatican would that influence the nature of the discussion and the amount of space that a Catholic school could provide for that discussion?

Ms Stannard: Certainly it could influence the manner in which the work was introduced and the material that would be covered and perhaps where it would be covered. In our schools we expect that ten per cent of curriculum time will be given to religious education, so something coming up from the Vatican in that way may well find a very quick home there and plenty of time for it, but even coming from the Vatican does not mean that it does not get discussed and even possibly tossed around and questioned by some people.

Q287 Chairman: Are there any questions in your Catholic schools that you would evade because they are too difficult; they are uncomfortable?

Ms Stannard: I certainly hope not, Chairman, because to evade such questions would run counter to good education. I think what I would not in any type of school be dwelling upon is where there is a prying into the particular lifestyle, relationships and so on of the members of staff in that school. Whether that is more likely to happen in citizenship is not something I am suggesting.

Q288 Chairman: Or it might be Catholic teaching on contraception that you were discussing, the high rate of teenage pregnancy, say, or the attitude to contraception in Africa where HIV/AIDS is such a problem.

Ms Stannard: I do not think the discussion would be avoided.

Q289 Chairman: It is a difficult area, is it not?

Ms Stannard: It is a difficult area but it would be very likely to come up and it would not be evaded. It would be discussed as is appropriate to the age range of those pupils. In fact, it is important that it does come up when they are reading about it in the media and so on.

Mr Goulden: On the war in Iraq, I have no doubt that there have been a number of lively debates, particularly in Key Stage 4, discussing the morality of war as an overarching subject. There is a religious imperative and there are certainly Jewish religious attitudes towards war and whether there is such a thing as a just war and who can wage war and why and a whole range of things and what you can do and what our texts teach us about what happens when a war is waged, what you do with prisoners of war and the like. There are texts going back 3,500 years to teach us that. Whether specifically the rights and wrongs of the war in Iraq have been discussed I could not say.

Q290 Mr Chaytor: Should they be?

Mr Goulden: As opposed to any other war, Chairman? Just the war in Iraq or every other war?

Q291 Chairman: The difficult ones; the crisis in the Middle East, Palestine and Israel. They must be difficult.

Mr Goulden: Undoubtedly there are many lively discussions on the subject of the situation in the Middle East and it is inevitable in a Jewish school that that would happen. It is inevitable when you find that in many of the schools the pupils will be taking trips, either on their own or in school groups, to Israel. It is undoubtedly a question that is raised and discussed in enormous detail. The subject would not be shirked. I do not think the Chief Rabbi has come out about the war in Iraq though.

Q292 Mr Chaytor: On the question of the discussion, each of you is saying that the discussion would take place, but the question is would the framework for discussion be objective and balanced? That is the issue, is it not? Could a Jewish school have an objective and balanced discussion about the election victory of Hamas, for example?

Mr Goulden: of course.

Q293 Mr Chaytor: And you would expect that to be a principle of the teaching of citizenship within a Jewish school?

Mr Goulden: Of course, it is not British citizenship but we have strayed a little bit into international politics, which is a fine discussion. I have no doubt that a whole range of subjects could be dealt with within history, within citizenship, indeed through literature and all of these different things. The subject would not be swept under the carpet; that is an absolute certainty. The phrase "two Jews, three opinions" is one which should always be remembered.

Mr McKemey: We would see the purpose of citizenship as being to equip young people to be able to undertake those discussions and to be able to work over a range of topics, and probably also to be able to cope within what we would like to think is a Christian learning community with a range of possibly violently different opinions and views and still remain a cohesive community. That is part of the skill base that we would be looking to develop in the sense that you may have rather extreme views about somebody else's opinion but that is not tantamount to the view that you have about the individual. We would want to put it in that context. The other point I would make is that I do not think any faith school could be hermetically sealed from the outside world and those discussions will occur whether the school is consciously engaged or not.

Dr Mukadam: The straight answer is yes, we would not only allow it; we would encourage discussion on difficult issues, and in principle that can be done in an objective fashion because the highest object is the truth within a faith school regardless of your affiliation to a political party or this party or that party. The highest object is the truth. In that sense in principle there is no objection at all and it would pose no problems to have an objective discussion on issues such as the war in Iraq or, for that matter, any other thing. I believe it is important that these discussions take place in school. The only problem is that we need to make sure that it is the right teacher who has a good knowledge about Islam and also a broad approach in seeking to establish that young people are thinking things through in a way that will benefit society, always bearing in mind that object, the truth.

Q294 Helen Jones: Following on from what David asked you, what do you think the advantages and the disadvantages are of trying to teach citizenship in faith-based schools? You have outlined the advantages for us of a very clear religious framework. Are there not also disadvantages in a multi-faith, multi-ethnic society of having to try to teach citizenship in a school where your pupils perhaps come from very similar backgrounds and, if so, how do you overcome those disadvantages? How do you engage not simply with your own community but also with the wider community?

Mr Goulden: I think it is a mistake to think that a faith-based school, even a school where 100 per cent of the children are of the same faith, is necessarily a homogeneous school. All of our schools are comprehensive in their intake. Many of them will have children from homes where English is an additional language and many of them are first or second generation in this country, so to think that they are homogeneous in the way that perhaps a school in Cornwall or Cumbria might be is perhaps something that needs to be reflected on. How one teaches in a single faith school about other faiths is by engaging with other schools. I certainly know of Jewish schools which have joint programmes and meetings with pupils from other faith schools and other state schools. A number of schools have programmes where they bring in experts, imams or others from Christian denominations, to talk about their religion and what it is like to be a black West Indian in London or Britain today, and going out into other schools, having inter-school football competitions and chess competitions and debating societies. It means that the schools are not hermetically sealed, nor indeed should they be. That is very important. I hope I have answered your question.

Q295 Helen Jones: You have partly answered it. What I am trying to get at is this. You can teach citizenship within Islamic schools, Jewish schools, Muslim schools, I understand that absolutely; my own background is all in Catholic education, but the difficulty, it seems to me, when you are doing that, and perhaps another member of the panel might try and answer that, is that what children miss out on is daily interaction with people from different backgrounds, different faiths and so on. How do you promote the kind of respect, tolerance, acceptance, which I think was a word that Simon used earlier, which we want our children to grow up with in a very mixed society?

Dr Mukadam: That is a very important question you have raised and one which is quite often put to us by many different people. I would point to the evidence which is around us. If you see young people who have gone through faith schools, we need to follow them through to further education colleges, which tend to be comprehensive, the universities and, of course, into their own careers, and then look at the evidence to see whether there has been a failure or a success in terms of promoting good citizenship. We can make judgments on whether or not these young people find it easy to integrate with members of different communities and whether or not these people hold deep respect for their fellow citizens, regardless of their faith or no faith and so forth. There are factors there and empirical evidence which needs to be looked at and so forth. In so far as the Association of Muslim Schools, and of course I am sure my other colleagues would say so as well, we have had some evidence which shows that young people who come from faith backgrounds do not have the facilities to be able to interact, in their foundation years and secondary years, with people of different faiths on the whole within the school. However, I would like to say that the values we teach, nurture and develop within them, such as having deep respect for fellow human beings, the skills to communicate and so forth, are so profound that when they do go into colleges and universities and take up their rightful place in our wider society, you will find that there is no problem, they are good citizens and, in a sense, they find it quite easy to integrate, to play their rightful role in society. I would also like to point to the evidence which exists regarding those disturbances in our northern cities and, indeed, the atrocities which we all know about. To the best of my knowledge, I have not seen a single person who was caught, let alone convicted, who went to a faith school. If we separate our preconceived understandings and notions from the empirical data that is around we will find that generally speaking there is not a problem or a disadvantage so long as the teaching within those faith schools promotes the universal values which are, of course, to treat any other human being, regardless of his or her faith or background, the same as you would like to be treated yourself. These fundamental values ensure that although they do not have the practical opportunity to interact within schools, but let us face it school is only part of their lives, there are other areas where they can put that into practice. The data which is available clearly shows that if we use different approaches it does not necessarily disadvantage these young people in the way that we are talking.

Q296 Helen Jones: Can I ask about some of the practicalities before we go on. I appreciate what you are saying, Dr Mukadam. If there is any evidence that you would like to give us later that would be very helpful. When we look at citizenship, we are also looking at active citizenship, about people becoming engaged within communities. What steps do faith schools take, in your experience, to ensure that when we talk about community engagement, for instance, it is not simply their own faith community? We can all stay within our own comfort zones, can we not? How do we overcome that?

Mr McKemey: If I can add a little footnote to the previous question. 38.4 per cent of all children in Church of England schools are in rural schools and a lot of those are very small schools and are mono-cultural. We think the issue of developing notions of broader citizenship across British society in those contexts is extremely important. Very often the local perspectives are, "Why do we need to know about other cultures and faiths because they are not here?" Equally, those children are probably going to grow up and go and work in Birmingham or London or somewhere else and make their way in the world, so we think there is a duty there to them, and I just wanted to put that down.

Ms Stannard: I am pleased that you have asked that question. When I was preparing for this I was delighted at the number of examples that came through which show citizenship as a catalyst for young people working in many activities beyond their own school. I think that is important if we are talking about faith schools or community schools. I would certainly refute any idea of faith schools being insular and not seeking all sorts of opportunities to work with others. For example, getting heads and others telling me about local youth forum, things like the Young Essex Assembly, shared mock magistrate trials, youth parliaments, running Make Poverty History campaigns together, Amnesty International campaigns across schools, and hearing about some schools in Bradford where the Catholic school had been working with a school where there were many Muslim pupils to offer a lunch club to the women of the area to get them meeting and talking together. I think things like that show where citizenship education is doing a lot to prompt working across communities rather than seeing citizenship in faith schools as necessarily being any more separatist.

Q297 Mr Marsden: In your opening statements all four of you talked about the importance of citizenship being absolutely interlinked with what you are trying to do as faith schools and therefore, I think, if I remember rightly, all four of you said it was so closely interlinked with everything that those schools should be doing. Interestingly enough, as we drill down with some of the questions from my colleagues, particularly the questions which David Chaytor asked, what appears to me to come out very strongly is that some of the most striking ways in which you address those issues are through looking at specific subjects. I hesitate in present company to say the devil is in the detail, but is there not some case - I will start off with you, Nick, because you were the one who talked about the immense breadth of the sorts of schools you represent, and as a fellow Anglican I well understand it - for saying that perhaps you should take a closer look and see whether in fact some of these citizenship issues should not be more ring-fenced in order to provide the very valuable opportunities which you have all given specific examples of?

Mr McKemey: Do you mean there should be a specific focus on a particular point?

Q298 Mr Marsden: What I think I am saying is you gave some indication - if I am misconstruing it, forgive me - of the preference for the idea that citizenship should go through the whole ethos with the school rather than saying, "This is citizenship half hour, and this week we are going to discuss Iraq or contraception" or whatever it might be. The point I am putting to you is given the enormous variety, particularly of Anglican schools, would it not make more sense not to assume that all schools will do what the best schools will do, which is to do both, and look more specifically at ring-fencing sometime to discuss the sorts of issues which you have all agreed are valuable?

Mr McKemey: I think to some extent within the curriculum it is going to be about the quality of the broad curriculum, including areas where you might identify something like opportunities for social service, which is something that a lot of their schools, for instance, were keen on, or areas for developing the ability to discuss, debate and weigh arguments and so on. In that sense, we would agree with that approach and that is why I think we would like to support not just a notion of citizenship but some more clearly defined ideas as to what we are looking at there. When I talked about shallow tolerance, in a sense that is a rather lazy concept, it is about going beyond those things. Broadly, whether it is delivered through the subject curriculum or in other ways - and in small schools these things, by and large, are delivered as cross-curricula holistic topics, so that can be done - it is more complicated in large secondary schools. I think there are bigger dangers in large secondary schools of getting inept pockets of something, because it is there they are going to do it. I think it is very much about the quality with which you deliver it. I would agree that we need to pick out certain areas. I think it comes back to the point I was making that we have a focus in this inspection forum that we have got which is about how does the distinctive Christian character of the school meet the needs of all learners, and within that there is the focus on developing the whole child in every aspect, and we would see citizenship within that. What you are saying is you need particular things to make it work and, yes, we would agree with that.

Q299 Mr Marsden: Again, speaking earlier you talked about - I think you mentioned it more than once - some of the feedback you have had from your heads about the pressure on the time on the curriculum and so on and so forth. Again, given the vast range of schools that you are representing, is there not a danger that if there is not some quite specific ring-fencing the good schools will always do the mixture of working across the curriculum, doing the specific stuff and indeed picking up the volunteering and community service which you referred to and my colleague Helen Jones asked about? Is there not a danger that the coasting schools will just either say, "Oh well, we are a Catholic school and this is not viewed in our ethos. We will either not do it at all specifically or possibly it will get shoehorned into the tail ends of PSHE lessons"?

Ms Stannard: I think one might describe our education system as a bit of a stick and carrot system at the moment with the inspection and monitoring and so on. My experience has been that our schools operate within a mixed economy, and there is evidence of some ring-fencing, particularly years where time is devoted throughout the curriculum on a weekly basis to citizenship and other examples of discrete packages alongside what is also being provided for cross-curricula. I would also say it is going to be very important for any type of school that we have Ofsted monitoring what is happening in citizenship and its provision so that the very thing you fear does not happen and we know what the state of the nation is in terms of the provision and quality. Maybe I have not interpreted your question correctly?

Q300 Mr Marsden: I think that is absolutely fine. I would like to move on to Simon and Mohammed and, by all means, through you, Chairman, touch briefly on this point, if you would like to. In a way I would like to take them a little bit further and, again, perhaps in the context of having specific time in the school day to discuss or to look at these difficult issues. I think both of you mentioned ethics, values and morals on a couple of occasions but the issue is, is it not, that in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Britain today there are a very striking variety of views on some key issues which inevitably come up. Let me take two or three very specific examples: attitudes towards the position of women in society varying enormously, not just between faith groups but within faith groups; attitudes perhaps towards the centrality of marriage and attitudes towards homosexuality. To what extent are you confident, again to reflect something my colleague David Chaytor said, that within your treatment of citizenship in your schools those sorts of complex issues, on which people inevitably will have very different views, can be taken forward?

Dr Mukadam: Can I look at it in a slightly different way. If you separate the notion about a good citizen and an active citizen, perhaps we can see. In that sense I think it is important to ring-fence some of those things to create what I believe is an active citizen because you can have a good citizen who can be a very passive citizen. In terms of the debates which you mentioned, specifically about the attitude to women, homosexuality, et cetera, these pose no problems at all for faith schools where they are well-run and have a broader understanding of Islam. Of course Islam has its clear views about homosexuality and those are discussed in schools, but it would be wrong to translate that as homophobic, or whatever you want to call it. Although the Koran is very clear that homosexuality as an act is sinful and so forth, I do not think the Koran teaches that they should go around beating up any homosexuals, so there is a difference. There is room for holding one's own views and to discuss this, and to uphold them. It is equally important to make sure that they respect their fellow human beings and do not go around doing things which are illegal.

Q301 Mr Marsden: With respect, if I may pick you up on that, it comes back to a word I think you used, Simon Goulden, because you talked about the difference between toleration and respect. Whether it is a debate about women or it is a debate about attitudes towards homosexuality, what many people would argue is what is important in those schools, or in an educational system, is there should be the capability of having a debate, not just about - if I can put it this way - gritted teeth toleration but about respect for other members of society who have a lifestyle or can take an attitude or have a perception of themselves which is different perhaps from a traditional Islamic or indeed any other faith-based view.

Mr Goulden: I do not think there would be an issue in a Jewish school. As Mohammed just said, and I have no doubt my colleagues would agree, there are very clear faith guidelines on a whole range of morality topics, and he dealt with a couple just now. There is no question that there is an enormous body of literature, certainly in Judaism, on the subject, but there is also no question in Judaism, and I would imagine in other Abrahamic religions that are with me on the table today, we all believe that we are all made in the image of the Almighty. That would mean that everybody is made in the image of the Almighty and also mean that we have to respect their particular viewpoints and we must, of course, whilst holding on to our own particular faith views, understand that other people have different views. That is not to say that we necessarily agree with them but we understand and respect the fact that they have these views. I do not know where this fits into the citizenship debate.

Q302 Mr Marsden: I think it fits in very centrally because one of the reasons, it seems to me, others may dispute it, the Government has been so keen to promote the Citizenship Agenda is that there is a very real debate about how we get a consensus if we can or at least a consensus about the sort of values that we should discuss in a society, whether we like it or not, where there is a more pluralistic view on some of these various issues, whether they are moral issues or some of the other issues we have touched on, than there would have been 50 or 100 years ago and where the sources of external authority, again whether we are happy about it or not, families, et cetera, are more attenuated certainly outside faith communities than they would have been 50 to 100 years ago. Maybe the question I should be asking on that is if multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Britain continues to become more pluralistic in its views and its attitudes in these areas, do you think that is going to make life more difficult for faith schools in trying to come in alongside what the Government is doing on citizenship or not?

Dr Mukadam: This might sound a bit simplistic, but let me put it from a faith perspective. We talk about respect and so forth, but we really do not have any problems with that and this is what we are trying to devolve to our youngsters. A far more important thing for us in terms of respect is to respect the fellow human being and respect his or her right to hold different views. That is what we need to clearly understand. That does not necessarily mean I will respect what your views are because if I did then there is nothing stopping me swapping values, but if I can respect your right to hold a different value then I think it allows us to co-exist in a very peaceful and harmonious way, contributing positively to our society. That is exactly what we are trying to do. I am not saying that we are there but this is certainly the way we are developing. I hope that gives you a better answer to the question about the debate about respect and the differences. In a diverse society there must be room for having diverse views and people to be able to hold those views, express them, discuss them and debate them. That is not an issue at all from an Islamic point of view. There is an issue when people try to force you to say, "No, you have got to respect values", when they are completely different from their own. That is going to be a problem, and it will be a problem in a pluralistic society and a diverse society but as long as we can educate our youngsters to respect the right of fellow human beings to think differently and hold different views, then I think it does provide the ingredients for a more harmonious and peaceful co-existence.

Q303 Mr Marsden: Can I ask a brief question to you all. It is about training and the capacity to cope with some of these difficult issues, not just the moral issues we have touched on but some of the more political issues which David Chaytor raised earlier. Do you think the climate of opinion in this country, and the debates that have taken place since the bombings of 7 July last year, have made it more difficult for teachers in your schools to set up situations where they can address those issues? If they have, what are you doing to improve their ability and their training in those sensitive areas?

Ms Stannard: Naturally all teachers and all leaders in schools have been greatly exercised by the horrors of those events and are very anxious to make sure that what they provide in their schools helps in however small a way to combat the difficulties and problems that may have indicated as present in society. I could not give you chapter and verse on training and so on now, but I could obtain that for you if you wish. I am confident that through our diocesan officers and the support services they run, and through our national board of advisers, there are forums and so on for that. I know we share anxieties about the lack of opportunity to prepare to be a teacher of citizenship within the higher education courses being pursued by teachers on their way to qualification. We would like to see more attention being paid to that. I would also like to say, if you do not mind, as you were talking previously, I kept hearing in my mind - and I cannot remember who said it - about the fact that when thinking about sin - and you seem very keen to get right down into the faith issues - the saying, "Dislike the sin but love the sinner" and the most important value of all is the sanctity of human life. I have no doubt that in dealing with the horrendous issues that have occurred, and which you alluded to, it is that sanctity of life and respect and appreciation of one another which is underpinning the work that is going on in the schools.

Mr McKemey: The broad answer to the question is yes, these events have created challenges. As you probably know, there are a number of Church of England schools which have over 90 per cent Muslim populations and so on, and I have been in some of those schools. What I would say, and I have to admit it is anecdotal, is the values of those particular schools have been very resilient. There have been far more issues on the street than in the schools. The schools are, certainly the ones I have been in, by and large islands of tranquillity and harmony which have not been affected and, in some cases, they have helped the community to gel better.

Q304 Chairman: You talked about attitudes towards homosexuality in faith schools, but one thing you did not answer was the question on the role of women in society.

Mr Goulden: I have to be very careful. I am sure my wife, the head teacher of the school, and many of my women friends and colleagues who are head teachers, would appreciate perhaps what I am going to say. I do not see, and I do not believe, that there is an issue about the role of women in Jewish society. For hundreds of years women have been not just homemakers but also taking an enormous part in the life of the community. You can go back to biblical times and see that the woman of worth was one not just who looked after her family but also seemed to run a business at the same time. The role of women in Jewish society has perforce over the centuries changed as the role of society has changed and things are different now. Professions and jobs are open to everybody which perhaps were not open to women 100 years ago. I have a daughter-in-law who is a doctor; 100 years ago, 150 years ago there were no women doctors. It is not a matter of the faith community changing its attitudes indeed but the whole society changing its attitudes. Certainly in Judaism's view of women's role in society I do not see that there is an issue. Certainly none of the schools that we deal with would regard this as a discussion point.

Q305 Chairman: Mohammed, in the Muslim religion, are there any conflicts between the beliefs of your religion and equal status of women and equal education for women?

Dr Mukadam: Chairman, sometimes it is difficult to separate beliefs and culture. Given the diversity of the Muslim community, there are Muslim communities which have a very particular view about women being educated and developing some professionalism, and there are others with a more moderate approach. If I can give an example. I come from Leicester and we have one of the most orthodox, conservative communities in the UK. When I took over the running of the Islamic school there were hardly half a dozen or so young girls going on to further and higher education. Quite clearly that was a challenge to find out why is this the case because I know Islam does not prohibit that. It was then a task to go around and speak to parents and the Imams to say, "Why are we holding our young women back?" and giving them the figures about high levels of divorce and young women who would be unable to do things that they would like to do. It is trying to understand their concerns and then meeting those concerns within a faith school. From half a dozen or so young girls just about making it to further education we have come to a point, Chairman, where over 95 per cent of our young girls are going on to further and higher education. Indeed, some of your colleagues, like David Miliband, Tim Collins, Dr Reid and many journalists, have come to the school and have seen young girls with hijab coming from a very orthodox family but, having a very well-educated background, they are willing to challenge and so forth. These young women are going into universities. In a way, we have liberated those young women. It is about understanding their concerns and approaching it from a grassroots level rather than a top-down approach on issues of values. It will depend on the approaches we employ that will help young girls realise their aspirations. Talking about resources, those schools will need to be resourced properly so that young girls coming from particularly orthodox or conservative families will be given the opportunities to progress into further and higher education, that is by understanding the concerns. The principal concern is that our young girls will be lost to western society, that is the thing I am talking about. Once we address those and develop that confidence between young girls and their parents we will find those parents are very supportive. Indeed, I would love to invite all of you to the Leicester Islamic Academy to meet some of the young women who your colleagues have met. It would be a wonderful opportunity for us to have you there as well.

Q306 Stephen Williams: Chairman, quite a lot of the questions I would have asked have been cherry-picked already, so I will probably be brief. Can I go back to a point which you made, Chairman, about what the British Humanist Society has said about faith schools. They have alleged they discriminate against everyone who is not of their faith on grounds of admissions of pupils, employment policies for teachers and in their curriculum and their ethos. I would expect witnesses to refute this but do you concede that there are grounds for suspicion from people who do not have a religion or do not have particularly strong religious views?

Ms Stannard: Chairman, with respect, I thought we were here to talk about citizenship education not to have to give a defence of faith schools per se.

Q307 Chairman: I do not think you are.

Ms Stannard: Maybe I have not listened to your question.

Q308 Stephen Williams: I was coming up with an easy way into this. Let me draw down right into the detail there about how sin might be counted in a citizenship class. Gordon Marsden mentioned homosexuality in schools. Could you foresee a situation in your schools - clearly each of the religions represented here would say that homosexuality is a sin and that might be said more in an assembly - at ten o clock that morning in a citizenship class a counter-view would be put to that, that homosexuality is found throughout society and throughout the world, and is certainly not only tolerated but is legally protected in this country?

Mr Goulden: One of my teachers once said to me that homosexuality is a sin but not a crime. I think it is important to decouple those two. The morality and the legality is something that we should be aware of and clearly he was teaching it. I think you would find that would be the view in the schools certainly that I have connections with. You would also find, I have little doubt, that if there was a discussion there would be a number of students who would say, either because of a family connection or friends, they knew people who were not heterosexual, and there would clearly be a discussion on that basis. I do not think people would duck the issue, and I have got no difficulty in believing that the schools in which we work would have that as their viewpoint. I am a little concerned that I am getting a little bit out of my depth as I assumed we would be talking about citizenship.

Chairman: We will get back to the mainstream citizenship questions at this time because we have explored that already.

Q309 Stephen Williams: Would a citizenship class in a faith school give a counter-view to a morning assembly which said that something was sinful, that is directly about citizenship?

Mr Goulden: In a Jewish school that is not the way an assembly would be run. At least I hope I have answered the question appropriately, Chairman.

Ms Stannard: May I add, Chairman, that I would not expect it to be handled in a way like that at an assembly.

Mr McKemey: I think you can differentiate there between an act of worship and a school assembly, they are not tantamount to the same thing. Whilst they may vary in character, they have different objectives by and large. What we have established is we would certainly expect our schools to be able to conduct vigorous debate, an examination of any social issue, within the context of a Christian caring community. That is perfectly possible. That is what we expect to happen and is what we know happens. It would be impossible for most of our schools to exclude all these issues. It does not mean that the school will necessarily endorse whatever the current public mood might be on an issue. One of the points about a faith school is that it will challenge values as they arrive. In other words, they do not accept everything which the public decides. To put it in context, there was an article over the weekend about Edward de Bono and the notion of founding a new religion. One of the points he is making is we live in this consumerist instant gratification culture. We think the faith schools have something very serious to bring to that agenda in terms of developing and educating, in our case, the entire human being.

Q310 Stephen Williams: Can I change to a completely different subject. Last week the Minister of State for Higher Education, Bill Rammell, made some speech and a radio interview about British values and how they should be taught in schools. Can each of you offer an opinion briefly of what you think British values are? Do you see any scope for a conflict with your faith which might be resolved in a citizenship class?

Mr Goulden: Chairman, I struggled with the discussion that you allude to. I have read the speech, and I have struggled and teased it out with friends, family and colleagues about what Britishness is. I think I know inside myself but I find it difficult to put it into words. I read what the Daily Telegraph a few years ago had as the ten commandments of Britishness. I do not necessarily think it is warm beer and cricket on the green because that is Englishness. I think with the current debate about whether British is English and what about the Scottish, Welsh and Irish and the West Lothian question, there is a difficulty in many people's minds, not just the faith communities, I hesitate there, about exactly what is meant by Britishness. I would appreciate from you some steer on what exactly is meant by Britishness.

Q311 Chairman: Simon, when we write up our report we are going to have a good evaluation because that is one of the things we will be tackling. Does anyone else want to come in on Britishness, Oona?

Ms Stannard: I got some fairly strong responses from the schools I wrote to and raised this after Mr Rammell's speech, although I have to admit I have not read his speech in its entirety. The response is divided into three different camps. There were some who immediately started giving me ideas for what they thought would be meant by British values, which ranged from things like being able to laugh at ourselves to being characterised by democracy, the BBC and the NHS and so on, and the list went on and on, a real ragbag of things. There was a second group who said, "British values are what we are teaching and experiencing in our schools anyway, is it not, that is what citizenship is delivering based on our Christian values and our human values anyway". Finally, there was a third group who really strongly opposed this notion of British values and started saying how patronising it was, "Who is going to define what is British?", it sounded racist, makes such values sound superior, the notion of nationalism being brought in, and really feeling very concerned that we might have this cadre of things which they thought would be open to propaganda and a superior view of things. In fact, one person wrote quite strongly saying, "Are British values our imperial past, the aristocracy, the success of the wealthy over and above the poorer? Are we going to be at risk of going back to some historical model which is hardly what any of us would want to see?" I share all that, simply to make a plea, let us not go racing down that road without very, very careful consideration, and to say I am sure any of us would be more than willing to help in more detailed discussions on that.

Dr Mukadam: We welcome the debate, shall I say, but we have taken a slightly different approach here, Chairman. In a world of globalisation we are in a global village. We felt it was important to teach universal values which hold human beings together and allow youngsters who have been born in this country - because it is a state of flux at the moment, and it is a completely different country now with people coming in from different backgrounds - time and space to debate and see what they come up with as British values. It is very much a grass-root approach rather than a top-down approach, but providing those universal values.

Q312 Stephen Williams: You admit that you have not read Bill Rammell's speech, but has the DfES consulted with any of you, or your organisations, on this debate about Britishness?

Mr McKemey: Not specifically, no.

Mr Goulden: Since he only gave his speech last week, it is a little early.

Chairman: A lot of Britishness is disappearing. It used to be renowned for bad food, that is no longer the case, I hope.

Q313 Dr Blackman-Woods: I want to pick up two issues specifically relating directly to citizenship education. I grew up in a country defined by faith schools. I think they added enormously to the problems of Northern Ireland, although, unlike some people, I do not think they were the cause. What that education did not do was supply the two communities with the tools to be able to understand the other community. When push came to shove all that happened was the primary identity factor, which was religion, came to the fore in a most unhelpful way contributing to further segregation. My question to you about citizenship education is how are you doing the job differently than it was done when I grew up in a very segregated system? How are you doing it in an active way because as the second point I want to take dispute with what some of you were saying earlier. My experience was that understanding another community theoretically did not help in terms of understanding where they were coming from. What was needed was a degree of interaction, and that would have been needed from an early stage to fully understand the other perspective. In Britain we have got a much more diversified population, but I think those tools are needed across all of the sectors. You have been saying you want a question specifically about citizenship, this is my question. How are you giving your young people those tools?

Mr McKemey: It goes back to Archbishop Rowan's speech in which he opened this out, and following that there have been some quite fruitful initiatives now about youngsters from different faiths experiencing periods of time in other faith schools. There are the beginnings and this has been picked up and welcomed by representatives of other faiths. One diocese, Manchester, is just putting in a programme that will do just that. Having said that, the population in many of our schools is very diverse, even within the Christian dimension. I do not honestly think the parallels with Northern Ireland really hold in that sense. Having taken that, there is considerable comment that we are in danger of creating faith ghettos, and I think all of us would feel that really is not the case because apart from anything else these are publicly-funded schools, they teach the national curriculum, they are inspected by Ofsted and are accountable across the piece for those sorts of things. Can I read you a tiny bit from Church Schools: A National Vision. This was the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech. It says: "Translate this to a less intensive and dramatic level and you have one of the most compelling arguments for religious schools being part of the public system. For those who want their children to undertake the experiment of living in a climate of commitment, such a school offers, not a programme of indoctrination but the possibility of a new level of emotional and imaginative literacy through the understanding of how faith shapes common life. And this matters for the lives of individuals, agnostic or even atheist as much as believing; as it matters in a world where not to understand how faith operates leaves you at sea in engaging with the other, the stranger, at home and abroad". I think what he is talking about is faith schools can provide a much richer currency for the understanding of the belief and faith.

Ms Stannard: I would agree with what Nick has said. I would also point out that I gave many examples earlier of how our pupils are sharing activities with pupils from other schools. They are not being educated, in my case fortress Catholic. Typically there would be 30 per cent of pupils other than Catholic in our schools. They are racially diverse communities and they are outwardly engaging communities. I do think it is very significantly a different context from that of Northern Ireland.

Q314 Chairman: You still think there are problems in the way in which faith groups organise themselves in Northern Ireland?

Ms Stannard: I am not qualified to comment on Northern Ireland, I can only talk from my own experience.

Q315 Chairman: Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and Roberta has personal experience of the difficulties that have emerged. Surely there are some lessons we can learn from that?

Ms Stannard: I am inept at the history of Northern Ireland.

Q316 Chairman: I have to say those of us who are English and went to Northern Ireland on a visit were shocked to still see on one campus schools that do not talk to each other and have no communication with each other. We were astonished that in the 21^st century that was the situation. It is not a situation we can applaud, surely?

Ms Stannard: I would never applaud being fortress-like in our approach to education and the experiences that we give to our young people. I revel in the fact that we are an ethnically diverse community.

Q317 Dr Blackman-Woods: I do not want to distract us from the essential question, which was what are the tools you are giving? I think you are going some way to answer that question. But I would not like you to be suggesting, or I hope you are not, that there are not Catholic and Anglican schools in this country that are not predominantly Catholic and Anglican. I have a Catholic school in my constituency which must be 98 per cent Catholic. There are schools here that are very highly segregated. You may represent schools where they do have a more diversified population within the school, but I think you have to recognise there are some schools that are defined by faith and they are very predominately of that faith.

Ms Stannard: I think that is a particular demographic problem where there is a shortage of schools and so on. Would I not also be right in saying that here in this country we tend to live in areas where the housing, and so on, is not defined by one faith group, and perhaps is that different in Northern Ireland? When our children go out to play, will they not be playing with other children from all sorts of groups, the youth clubs they go to for socialising and so on, but on top of that, in their work with schools, their various sporting fixtures, the joint activities, the charitable works and various events and so on which they are engaging, they will be different I hope.

Q318 Dr Blackman-Woods: My question was not tell me why the situation in Northern Ireland continues, my question to you was what specific tools and how do you shape citizenship education to ensure that your young people will grow up with a sense of validity for other points of view which are very different from theirs and the respect for those individuals who hold very different views?

Ms Stannard: We spoke much earlier on about the fact that in all our faiths we are called to see God in the other person. In the curriculum and the learning we provide that must be carried through and must be a lived experience.

Dr Mukadam: In terms of what tools we provide, we have discussed those in terms of values, skills, communicating with fellow human beings and some of the cultures in which communications should take place, whether it is through literature or history, et cetera. If you look at it in terms of experience, many well-run faith schools funded indeed by the Government do have what is known as the Building Bridges Programmes. Indeed, we had Stephen Twigg come to see us. We have opportunities for young people from a faith school to go to another school and vice versa, and they share this in drama, et cetera. Let us open it up. There is life beyond school. We live in a world where there is text, SMS, chat rooms, internet, et cetera, and young people do communicate across cultures and faiths in different parts of the world and so forth. There are ample opportunities for young people in terms of communicating ideas, discussing, debating and talking, but also communities are changing in that there are many facilities - sports facilities, recreational facilities - where young people from different faiths, of no faith and cultures, do get together in the evenings and at weekends to enjoy some sport or recreation. Tools are provided in terms of values, skills and opportunities within schools and outside schools. I believe all those put together are ensuring that young people who are being educated in faith schools do in the fullness of time integrate sufficiently and contribute in a very positive manner to society.

Q319 Dr Blackman-Woods: I think I would have a series of questions, maybe not for today, about whether you evaluate if those schemes are important in shifting ideas and engendering some respect. I have another question which is following on from what Stephen said earlier. It is where your faith and your teaching comes in through citizenship into the construction of identity. Are you starting from a concept of citizenship that sees people as world human beings and then somewhere you slot your faith identity into that, or are you shaping their concept of identity and therefore citizenship, to some degree, through your faith?

Dr Mukadam: I believe that choice is really up to the parents to make. There are faith schools and there are schools that do not have any faith, it is secular and comprehensive. It is the parents who are making those choices for the children. I believe it is only right that those choices are available. Parents make the choices, they want a particular choice for the child so they send them to a faith school.

Q320 Dr Blackman-Woods: Is this how you teach citizenship?

Dr Mukadam: In terms of citizenship, we have discussed that, and we made it clear that in terms of citizenship we welcome that. I have got evidence here which goes back to 2003, how in faith schools we teach citizenship as it is from the national curriculum. We have absolutely no problem teaching it in the way it is because it goes hand in hand. Of course we reinforce some of those values through religious and faith identities because that is what makes it so effective. We have no problems at all. To answer your question directly, it is the parents who make the choice and they say, "I want my child to be a Muslim first" and they send him to an Islamic school, or "I want my child to be Christian first" and they send him to a Christian school. In no way does that mean they do not become a good citizen or they do not have a very good knowledge, understanding and appreciation of being a good citizen.

Q321 Dr Blackman-Woods: You think sending them to a faith school then makes the faith the defining identity and characteristic, is that what you depicting? That is what you are saying parents think they are doing in sending children to those schools?

Dr Mukadam: My understanding is parents do have the right to have their children educated in accordance with their own faith or religious or philosophical predictions.

Mr McKemey: The issue is actually whether you can provide a totally neutral curriculum that is not affected by any values whatsoever and you can teach citizenship. There are certain things you can teach like legal responsibilities, rights and so on. The issues about how you engage with the world are more complex. I think the point we are probably all making is that faith gives you a platform to do that, you are still a free agent and you can make your decisions about how you follow that. I think we are at pains to emphasise that we are looking to provide the conditions for the development of citizenship as opposed to simply teaching something which probably would not work anyway. Whilst we take a totally supportive view towards the non-faith schools, at the same time, I think, they have the challenge of deciding where the grit is in their oyster in terms of developing a notion of what it means to be a human being. What I am saying is the concept that you can be in a totally sanitised neutral environment which does not have any values and you can then develop citizenship, I do not think stands up.

Q322 Chairman: It seems to me that where you were the least comfortable was when we probed on specifics. I do not think you liked the questions on how you treated homosexuality, particularly, and I do not think you liked the questions on Northern Ireland. Surely what happened, the bad experience of Northern Ireland, must be something where any one who is involved in faith education must say, "Surely there are lessons we should learn from this?" We live in a society where there is an emergent ghastly party of the extreme right that has certain views in some of our cities in the North, the South and in London. Surely faith education should not edge away from these difficult questions, they should be confronting them. It seemed you were uncomfortable at the sharp end of this debate. Is that me being unfair, Nick?

Mr McKemey: I think you are a little bit. The notion is that faith schools will simply teach a faith as an indoctrination process. What we are saying is in fact they create an environment for these issues to be discussed. It is perfectly possible for teachers within the schools to have a particular view of their own, however to create conditions for those things to be discussed, that is what we are saying. You would expect that at any school. Equally, I have plenty of evidence of very secular teachers in other schools making the lives of children who have faith a misery. It cuts both ways. My father came from Ulster, so I do have a little understanding of the context. I do not think the two situations are that closely analogous because they have other social contexts as well as what is, in fact, two branches of the same. Also, the difference is it is not two systems of faith schools that conflict, their underlying social issues are very significant. I am not sure about that. Having said that, of course we take cognisance of issues where versions of faith schools, clearly perhaps in the broader sense, do not work to the public good.

Dr Blackman-Woods: I want to come back briefly. I was not suggesting for a moment that the two situations were identical. What I was asking you to think about was the role of education in supporting the vision, and how you address that directly through your citizenship education to ensure that your education would not support division and segregation. I think that is how I phrased the question, and I think it is important to have that on record because I know the complexities of Northern Ireland. I would not suggest for a minute that the two situations are identical, but I think there is something to be learned from the Northern Ireland situation.

Q323 Chairman: Are we wrong in thinking you are a little bit complacent on this?

Ms Stannard: I am not willing to accept that, Chairman.

Q324 Chairman: It might prompt you to come back on that.

Ms Stannard: I am concerned not to engage in comparing and contrasting where I do not have the knowledge or the skills. I believe we have spoken about the range of what we are undertaking in citizenship education, where it is objective information and where it is to do with sharing values and upholding respect for the individual. I do not quite understand what else it is you are implying we are uneasy about, but I will have a go if you are more specific.

Q325 Chairman: Some of the answers you have given to the questions, everything was for the best and the best of all possible worlds. There were no problems that you saw. We live in a society with some very serious challenges in terms of communities living together, and there are some signs that there is a separation and a segregation of some of our communities. We were looking to you to use your expertise to say, "How do we meet these challenges?" I got the feeling you were saying, "What we are doing is all right, so the problem is with the non-faith sector". Is that what you are saying?

Ms Stannard: No, definitely not.

Q326 Chairman: What are you saying then?

Ms Stannard: I think we have all been saying that we believe enabling parents to choose and young people to be educated in a faith gives them a strong identity, but that identity and those beliefs have to be well used - and the school plays a critical role in this - to prepare such young people to be world citizens and to be preparing for their interactions and life alongside others who may share very different values. Being educated about those differences, and an appreciation of the different standpoints in society, is all part of citizenship education.

Mr Goulden: I share Oona's view and, I guess, my colleague's view as well. I think it is important to reflect that citizenship, as we have said before, can also be talked through the lens of history, and particularly the history of the 20^th century in Great Britain has not necessarily been a beacon of respect, tolerance and understanding. I know that when looking at the rise of fascism, for example, it is very easy, particularly in the community that I live in, to still find first-hand evidence of people, for example, who were present at the battle of Cable Street in 1936, 70 years ago. The fascists were fought by Jewish people together with trade unionists and a whole range of people who were up against the rise of fascism. That is taught and discussed in some detail in Jewish schools, and I have no doubt it is taught in other schools. It is taught very much through the viewpoint of would this, could this, happen today? How could one work to stop it happening? What is the faith underpinning? I am not sure that the British union of fascists had a particular faith education, Chairman. It would be interesting to do some research, perhaps another one of our three-year studies. Looking at faith schooling as a bad or negative point that we should be worried about, I would take issue with that. I genuinely believe that looking at citizenship education with a firm underpinning of a faith through faith schooling - of course all the other schools in the UK are faith schools too because there is an established church and a national faith but if we are talking about the particular faith schooling that we are dealing with and looking at the underpinning which allows us to discuss the diversity - the richness that is Britain today, that can only be to the good.

Q327 Chairman: It was refreshing to hear that, but at a session like this we are looking not to scrutinise you in terms of just what you do, of course we want to know that, but also we are and have been looking for best practice. We invited you here to see if you have got the tools, the skills and the experience to deliver citizenship education. This is why we have been probing, not to say that we thought there was anything wrong with faith schools, we do not start from that view at all. We are probing to find out what your views are on a range of subjects.

Dr Mukadam: That was a very important point you raised in terms of divisions. The fact that this Cantle Report says there are many cities in our country where there are pockets of communities who live parallel lives, that is reality and a fact of life. The question we need to ask is what are the processes that would help these young people growing up in these communities to be able to fully integrate in the process? We believe faith schools is one of those. I am not saying it is the answer for everything, but it is an answer for those people who, for perhaps very good reasons, maybe they have racism, Islamaphobia, choose to live parallel lives. Faith schools do provide a conduit for them to come into it, develop those skills, understanding and so forth, so they will be able to live a more integrated life in their future careers and so forth. Of course we are willing, as I am sure my colleagues are, to learn where we are going wrong. It is a process for all of us to understand what is it we can do more effectively because it is a diverse society and we have people who have different starting points. I believe a diverse education system will ensure that we help all these young people to eventually come together, to integrate and live in harmony. In that way, faith schools do provide a very important part. We only cater for some three per cent of our total population but we do make some contributions.

Q328 Chairman: I can assure you that we will be scrutinising the non-faith sector in much the same way as we have been scrutinising you today. We have really learned a lot from this session. Thank you, Nick, Oona, Simon and Mohammed, for a long session. We hope to remain in communication with you because if we have other thoughts, queries and questions we will be in touch with you. If you think there are large areas which we may have missed, please do come back and give us some more information.

Ms Stannard: You would like the names of any schools where there might be first-hand evidence for you?

Chairman: We would indeed. Thank you very much for your evidence.