Yet another Orthodox Jewish school has just been brutally criticised by Ofsted, bringing to a total of six the number of schools within the Jewish community that have been downgraded to inadequate in recent months under new British values inspection rules. Talmud Torah Tiferes Shlomo is one of the many independent schools that educate children in the Charedi/Hassidic Jewish communities of North London. Compared with the norm, fees are minimal: some schools rely entirely on voluntary donations.  Orthodox Jewish schools... Read more

An interesting week in the CIE blogosphere – a week full of people with opinions. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, except when people think that their opinion is the only acceptable truth and that what they believe, everyone else must also believe. Well, just because you have an opinion, it doesn’t make you right. On March 31, I posted a blog titled ‘Creation in the classroom – what are you afraid of?’ The footnote was quite clear –... Read more

I had the good fortune, as a student, to be taught by an outstanding historian. He taught me various skills that have proved useful, not least the ability to walk around an idea and consider it from every possible angle before forming an opinion. He also possessed a handy store of aphorisms, one of which was a warning never to embrace an ism. An ism, he argued, is nothing more than a dogma derived from an otherwise interesting idea; in... Read more

Kingdom United? asks the Social  Integration Commission report published recently, before further disuniting it by rapidly despatching faith schools to the naughty step (again, but we’re getting used to it). Without so much as a single shred of evidence, the blame for social segregation is laid at the door of free schools which are, apparently, dominated by single faith groups. According to a Telegraph review, faith schools are boosting extremism and stunting children’s life chances. Politically motivated from its first... Read more

From food banks to education, community enterprise and social welfare, faith-based organisations are playing an increasingly vital role in society. Politicians seem more than happy for this to happen, just as long as the faith which motivates the action remains a private affair. So just how should Christians respond to the secular society which they serve and on which they have such an impact? There is no doubt that religion is playing a significant role in the political debate running... Read more