Orthodox school with good education threatened with deregistration over LGBT

Mar 21, 2020 by Jill

by Simon Rocker, Jewish Chronicle:

Mechinoh School says issues related to sexuality must be ‘the domain of the parents’.

A strictly Orthodox secondary school in Salford has been threatened with removal from the register by the Department for Education because it will not teach openly about LGBT people.

Mechinoh, a small independent boys school, was rated as good in three out of four areas by Ofsted a year ago but was told it was not complying with requirements on equality.

This week it was warned by the DfE it could be permanently shut unless it produced an action plan to address the issue.

The school insists it teaches respect and tolerance for all people “regardless of difference” but that its religious standards are “immutable”.

Mechinoh was first warned in January by the DfE to come up with a plan of action or face sanctions.

Last month the school’s headteacher Rabbi Eliyohu Rubinstein wrote back to the DfE to say that its educational progress had been “unjustly” undervalued and that the only reason it had been downgraded by Ofsted was over its stance on LGBT-related issues.

School was “not a place to discuss subjects relating to intimacy in relationships, sexual orientation and gender reassignment,” he wrote. “This must remain the domain of the parents.”

Mechinoh, he said, had received advice that Ofsted was acting “ultra vires” in expecting it to “actively promote” topics such as sexual orientation or gender reassignment.

Read here