'Promote British Values in Schools' says Gove and PM

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Typical reactionary plan from the Tories twats.

Reports of Muslim extremists infiltrating a few schools?...Quick, promote 'Britishness' in every school, that'll stop the Jihadists in their tracks! Smoke the buggers out with a few stansas of God Save the Queen each morning.

Never like this 'what it means to be British' shit, worse still when it's being promoted as something that needs to be promoted in schools. Will the Muslims be included in the 'British' values lessons? Will Communists? Will anyone whose ma and da happened to have been born abroad?
BF, BNP, UKIP etc will be salivating with delight at this.

(From BBC News -

Plans for schools to promote "British values" are likely to have the "overwhelming support" of people in the UK, the prime minister has said.
David Cameron said he hoped Education Secretary Michael Gove's proposals for England would be "inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain".
He was speaking amid concerns about an Islamist takeover in Birmingham schools - the so-called Trojan Horse claims.
Mr Gove said he wanted democracy, mutual respect and tolerance taught.
The government has asked Ofsted to introduce routine no-notice school inspections in England following the regulator's findings of an "organised campaign to target certain schools (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/news/advice-note-provided-academies-and-maintained-schools-birmingham-secretary-of-state-for-education-rt)" in Birmingham.
Speaking in Sweden after a mini-summit with other EU leaders, Mr Cameron said: "I would say freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions - those are the sorts of things that I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain whether it was a private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else."
He added: "I think what Michael Gove has said is important and I think it will have the overwhelming support... of everyone in Britain including people that have come to settle in Britain and make their home in Britain."
The Department for Education, which oversees education policy in England, says it wants to "create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values".
These sit alongside the requirements of the Equalities Act which also apply to all types of school. )

[GiantMonkeyMan]

As long as they're promoting 'British Values' such as militant trade unionism, never crossing a picket line, anti-war direct action, rent strikes and squatting them I'm all for it. :P

Nah, seriously. These current bunch of tories are an insidious lot playing on the populism that's become rife in society at the moment. They'll advocate 'british values' whilst tearing apart and selling off the very institutions that British workers rely on.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Pupils should be taught to respect British institutions, which of course have nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism. The unintentional irony is delicious.

[BigJohnTheRed]

These Tory ratbags are unbelievable. In times were the use of foodbanks has never been higher, inequality has never been more prominant, the gap between rich and poor has never been bigger and with riacism and the far right on the rise these clowns want to talk about "british values". Well I posted on my Facebook page asking anyone who thinks there British to explain to me what British values are. As of yet I haven't had one reply. The things I have listed above are what Britian stands for today. Thank god we'll be a free country after September, Heres hoping anyway

[Црвена]

Such a typical thing for those reactionary idiots to say. There is no such thing as an inherently British value.

[Invader Zim]

Part of the perennial problem with moves like this is that a narrow focus on 'Britishness' (whatever that is, naturally must mean a narrowing of an already sparse curriculum. It also means that young people leave school without contextual understanding of Britain's place in the world and how it has been forged in a global environment.

[Zoroaster]

Nationalism and patriotism for any country is evil. Screw Cameron, and screw Gove.

[victorcast]

All children should be able to mix freely with children no matter what their religion they is :- Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or Sikh
No religion I better than another.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Schools should be focusing on neither British nor Muslim "values." Both are incredibly harmful to teach to children. How about instead they focus on MATH, SCIENCE, HISTORY, LANGUAGE? I don't know, maybe my views are too crazy.

[MarxistPC]

Though most definitely reactionary in their character and practice their point should be listened to no matter who makes it. Though we may despise what Reactionaries and Pseudo-Fascists say about minorities that they have created an enemy out of, they are not too wrong, if that is right to say.

Though Christopher Hitchens was driven over the edge in his zeal for Islamic fundamentalism, with his endorsing of U.S. intervention in country and country in the Far East, his point should be analyzed. Though I don't see the need to implement British Values in schools, we should most definitely keep an eye on all those that are Fascists. Just because the west has created quite the history with them over the past few decades, of which I disdain and am appalled, does not mean that all those who wish to create a hegemonic, monolithic, mono-cultural, misogynistic, theocratic society in the name of their God are not threats. Whether they are the Dominionist Christians which I have written about or "Islamo-Fascists", they area a grave threat to humanities future as we move forward into the 21st Century.

[Loony Le Fist]

Mr Gove said he wanted democracy, mutual respect and tolerance taught.
The government has asked Ofsted to introduce routine no-notice school inspections in England following the regulator's findings of an "organised campaign to target certain schools" in Birmingham.
Speaking in Sweden after a mini-summit with other EU leaders, Mr Cameron said: "I would say freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions - those are the sorts of things that I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain whether it was a private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else."


Firstly how is "freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility" or "democracy, mutual respect and tolerance" in any way British? What does respect for British institutions mean? The monarchy? In that case I can point to plenty of people in the UK that have absolutely no respect for it.



He added: "I think what Michael Gove has said is important and I think it will have the overwhelming support... of everyone in Britain including people that have come to settle in Britain and make their home in Britain."
The Department for Education, which oversees education policy in England, says it wants to "create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values".
These sit alongside the requirements of the Equalities Act which also apply to all types of school. )[/B]

Again, no clear definitions of terms. To me the idea of state schools promoting and type of nationalistic values opens quite a can of worms. I don't like this one bit. Especially under the guise of this vague concept of British values. Consider the things that UKIP and the Tories can slip in using that as a cover.


Schools should be focusing on neither British nor Muslim "values." Both are incredibly harmful to teach to children. How about instead they focus on MATH, SCIENCE, HISTORY, LANGUAGE? I don't know, maybe my views are too crazy.

Precisely. School is there to educate, not to indoctrinate. Unfortunately, from it's inception, the institution of public education was designed as an indoctrination tool for the bushwa. That needs to change.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's already illegal for a teacher to:

a) break the law (obviously); BUT more importantly
b) promote the breaking of the law.

So really, this gesturing, I believe, is more part of the Tories reverting to type in anticipation of the next general election. They, and all of us in the teaching profession, know full well that it is a practical impossibility to legislate for the implementation of 'upholding British values'. It would be a mine-field (not to mention a potentially dangerous idea in the wrong, fascist hands) and would surely never make it past the supreme court.

Rather, this, along with Cameron's pointless and illogical opposition to the Juncker appointment, seems to me to be the (fairly well organised) move away from coalition and more towards 'traditional', conservative politics.