Emmanuel Schools Foundation 2

Creationism in Vardy schools

It is difficult establishing the extent to which creationism is being pushed in the Emmanuel Schools Foundation academies.

However, one of the BCSE members, Stefan Walker, is a former student at the King's Academy and he paints a rather frightening picture. Our concerns are not just about teaching creationism in science lessons but the extent to which it is being pushed elsewhere to undermine science. It looks as if the Vardy schools have a policy of recruiting creationists to fill positions as science teachers. The most notable of these has been Stephen Layfield (see infiltration).

Here are some notes provided by Stefan:

"Creationism is mentioned in BOTH science and PTE lessons (something which I believe is illegal? [Ed, no, not quite right, it's a grey area] I remember in one of my science lessons ny teacher (who transferred over from my previous school and thus was not under the Vardy thumb) said that she had to mention creationism, but she brushed it off as crap. That won't happen in the future, as all these teachers are slowly going away (in fact they are offered two options 1. Take 3 months paid leave immediately and get a good reference or 2. they will have to fight to keep their jobs - I know this from an inside contact). PTE is taught from the moment the kids enter the school. But then what you must also take into consideration is the bible reading lessons and assemblies on top of that! As I was only there for one year (and in the highest year) not much was said in PTE at the time. But I fear this won't be the case now."

PTE (Philosophy, Theology and Ethics) is a compulsory course which is not examined and is therefore not subject to either the National Curriculum or the syllabus's of examination boards. In other words, the Vardy schools can teach what they like in it.

Moreover, PTE is not just taught in the sixth form (16-18) but from the age of 11, long before the theory of evolution is taught as part of Key Stage Four of the National Curriculum for biology.

Worse still, the teaching of biology is not obligatory in state funded schools. That leaves the door open for children leaving school with only creationism as an explanation for life on earth.

Stefan Walker was also quoted in a local newspaper in August 2006:

"With regards to the creationism being taught, I actually attempted to take the option not to attend the assemblies and bible reading sessions," he said.

"However, every time I made this request I was told to 'consider my actions'.

"It was delayed for so long that eventually it was the end of term so I naturally gave up."

(See http://www.blyth-wansbecktoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1115&ArticleID=1667944.)

Stefan's web site can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/cityacademies. The reader will find that Nigel McQuoid has commented in it.

The regional newspaper, the Sunday Sun, in reporting on the Rod Liddle programme, the New Fundamentalists (C4, March 2006) stated that "in the documentary, former Emmanuel College pupil Richard Almond says the Book of Genesis is taught as fact over Darwin's theory of evolution.

He said: "Most of the teachers, being Christian, believed in creationism and would say, `This is the curriculum, this is Darwin, but we believe God created the world in seven days.' When you are young, you take what you are told as truth. No one sat up and disagreed."

Another former pupil, Adam French, said: "You were told about the Big Bang and how dinosaurs evolved, then the teacher whipped out the Bible and said: `I believe the Bible version.' We were taught the earth was 6000 years old."

The details of these interviews with former pupils can be found at ESF Interviews.

One teacher, who was said to still work at King's Academy, was quoted anonymously as saying: "On a Monday morning, they bang away at them about Christianity being literally true."

The teacher was also quoted as saying: "It's the one-sidedness and absolutisms that I found so troubling." He also expresses concern about the school's alleged critical attitude towards feminism.

Cormac O'Duffy, who taught at Emmanuel College, tells Liddle the school ran a "totalitarian regime".

He said: "There was an authoritarian atmosphere. I've never experienced one like it anywhere in the world. It was totalitarian in that you did not speak - say what you think - and accept what you are told to do and teach. It did not tie in with how I see Christianity."

In 2001, in a lecture given at Emmanuel Collgee, to an adult audience, the vice-principal, Gary Wiecek, commented: "As Christian teachers it is essential that we are able to counter the anti-creationist position... It must be our duty as Christian teachers to counter these false doctrines with well-founded insights."

In another talk, Paul Yeulett, senior assessment co-ordinator and maths teacher, said that evolutionists have "a faith which is blind and vain by comparison with the faith of the Christian... A Christian teacher of biology will not (or should not) regard the theory of evolution as axiomatic, but will oppose it while teaching it alongside creation."

(See the Guardian, 9th March 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4371165,00.html.)

Connections to creationist organisations

The Vardy schools have used PR to distance themselves from creationist organisations.

However, in the Spring of 2002 Emmanuel College was host to a creationist conference in which the highest profile guest speaker was Ken Ham, head of Answers in Genesis who flew in from the USA. Other speakers included the high profile UK creationist activists Andy McIntosh and Stuart Burgess.

The then headteacher, Nigel McQuoid, appears to have tried to dismiss the event as irrelevent to the College and its students - "Mr McQuoid said the school had hired itself to Answers in Genesis as a venue; the conference was not a school event." (From the Guardian, 9th March 2002 - see above.)

The future of Vardy scools

Three developments are of major concern to us. The first is apparent plans by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation to form schools that combine all age groups from 4 to 18 years old. That means children will be exposed to creationist fundamentalism for up to 13 years.

The second is that they appear to be able to convert to a faith-based status which gives them much more freedom to select staff on the basis of their religious opinions and introduce selection of pupils based on religious criteria.

Unsaved, Unwelcome, in other words.

It is understood that local union activists amongst teachers are highly concerned that the schools may move to a faith status.

The Emmanuel Schools Foundation appears to be aiming to have a total of seven schools in the North East region. Such a high concentration is likely to result in the still economically deprived region gaining a reputation for religious and social backwardness that increasingly puts it on a par with Northern Ireland.

Governors of Vardy schools

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_academies), “in terms of their governance, Academies are established as charitable trusts with a Governing Body that also acts as the Trust's Board of Directors (they are legally accountable for the operation of the Academy, but not financially so). The Trust serves as the legal entity which the school element is part of and the Governing Body is the group that actually oversees the running of the school (although the day to day management of the school is, as in most schools, conducted by the principal and their senior management team).”

Our interpretation of this is that within the three Emmanuel Schools Foundation schools, trustee, governor and director all mean the same thing.

Our understanding is that the structure of the boards of each of the three schools is different but that requires further research to confirm. IIRC the agreement with the DFES and ESF to establish Trinity was significantly different from that of King’s which, in turn, was presumably different from that of Emmanuel College because the latter was established under different legislation.

However, in broad principle, the boards look to have the same responsibilities. They are ultimately the legal bodies responsible for running the three schools. The Emmanuel Schools Foundation is not.

One would therefore expect the names of the directors/governors of the three schools to be readily available in the public domain, not least because the three are wholly funded by public money except for the relatively small capital sums put up by the Vardy Foundation.

Not so! None of the prospectuses of the three schools names them. Nor are they named on the web sites of the three schools or on Emmanuel Schools Foundation's main web site. Nor does it appear that any of the three Local Education Authorities know who the governors are. You may well recommend asking Ofsted (the regulatory agency for education n England and Wales). Well they don't know either. The Department for Education and Skills? Forget it. They don't know either.

Let's have a look at this again. It's clear that parents must know who one of the Governors is for each school as they are allowed to elect a single governor. The Local Education Authority is allowed to have one governor on board.

We understand that each of the boards has at least five members.

That leaves at least three positions in the control of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation. Three positions out of five mean that the Foundation has absolute control of the boards of each of the schools.

Yet there appears to be no legal requirement for any independence amongst the trustees of Emmanuel schools Foundation. They are all appointed by the Vardy Foundation. Four of the five are members of the Vardy family (the other is John Burn of the Christian Institute who we regard as the real power behind the throne). There are no Local Education Authority representatives, no parent representatives, no governmental representatives.

The schools are thus controlled in their entirety by one family. The Boards of the three schools thus, ultimately, have legal responsibility but no power independent of the Vardy family. The Board members are either Vardy placemen or can safely be ignored by the family. The boards themselves are powerless.

Well, how does one find out who the directors/trustees of the three schools are? Prior to 04 October 2007 (detailed at the end of this page), all we have been able to put together is an outdated list of directors of Trinity College. This has been put together from Google searches of local newspapers. We found a single name from a Google search of King’s and no names at all of Emmanuel College apart from Peter Vardy as Chairman. The Gateshead Local Education Authority doesn’t even mention Emmanuel College on its web site of schools in its area! The 2001 Ofsted report mentions only Peter Vardy as Chairman of the Board.

The 2005 Ofsted report on King’s Academy in Middlesborough lists Nigel McQuoid as chairman of the trustees. King’s 2004/2005 Yearbook states that Peter Vardy was then Chairman of the Board of Directors. The Local Education Authority lists the school as in its district but does not say who its trustee is.

It’s web site also appears to be almost totally silent on who the school’s governors are.

This is what happened when we tried to find out from the Department for Education and Skills who were the governors of the three Emmanuel Schools Foundation schools. We assumed that we were entitled to the information under the Freedom of Information Act.

We also assumed that the department knows who the governors are as the governors are ultimately responsible for the appropriate spending of government money.

During September 2006 one of the BCSE members asked (by email) the Department for Education and Skills about the lack of any information on the names of governors Vardy schools:

This is the reply received on 27th September 2006:

There are no names of governors listed at the Charity Commission; nor are any listed in the Foundations latest accounts submitted to the Commission. What are listed are five trustees. They are David Vardy, Peter Vardy, John Burn, Margaret Vardy and Richard Vardy. Moreover, no trustees at all are listed for the three Vardy schools – Emmanuel, King’s and Trinity.

Our understanding is that the Foundation is managed by a governing body, the board of trustees, who are also directors of it under company law. The trustees are appointed by the board of the Vardy Foundation. This, it appears, there is no LEA or parent representation on the board of ESF and it is wholly controlled by Sir Peter Vardy and his family.

Each of the charity’s subsidiaries appoints a board of directors or trustees in accordance with its own governing document.

We have been able to find out something about the governors (called directors) of Trinity Academy. The information comes form the Yorkshire Post (a regional newspaper) and a Trinity newsletter to pupils. The names were announced in the Autumn of 2004.

This was the year or preparation before Trinity Academy was opened.

Chairman: Peter Vardy

Deputy: John Burn

Coopted Directors: John Hair - former deputy head of Bircotes/Harworth Community School. Listed as 'active member of The Salvation Army'.

Ernie Bridgewood - listed as 'a practising Christian' who spent 33 years teaching in Doncaster, 12 years as Head of ICT at Hall Cross School. Has been a volunteer helper for the Christian Institute.

LEA nominated: Tony Sockett, former teacher and youth worker, Labour councillor on Doncaster Council for Bentley. Was member for education on elected mayor Martin Winter's cabinet when it approved the Trinity plan. We are not aware of any religious connections

Nigel Robson, a partner in Eversheds law firm in Leeds.

Sponsor Director: Pastor Graham Johnson of The Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) church in Thorne (known locally as the happy clappy church - used to operate in a wooden hut but is now in a redundant primary school).

Elected Parent Director: Martin Oldknow - was chair of governors at Thorne Grammar when it closed. In management in local fire service. He was secreted onto the board of Trinity when it opened. Trinity was forced to have an election in Jan. 2006 and he was elected. He is a Labour Councillor on Thorne/Moorends Town Council. Attended a public meeting on harsh discipline at Trinity in Jan 2006 but did not speak or identify himself to the 200 parents present. No known religious links.

The parent director position is through a secret ballot of parents of children at the school.

Press reports also suggests a local business representative has been or may be chosen but further details are not known to us.

At King’s Academy, the only name of a trustee/director that we have found (by Google search), apart from Nigel McQuoid was Dr Alan GC Leighton. He is a retired Anglican ordained minister and Dean of Academic Studies, St Augustine Theological Seminary. He is a member of the General Council of the Evangelical Alliance and Chairman of Gilbrook College of Technology.

As of 04th October 2007: The 3 Vardy schools now have 05/06 yearbooks on their websites. This gives the board of directors at that time as:

Emmanuel: Sir Peter Vardy (Chair), John Burn (Vice Chair), Lady Caroline Cox, Derek Esp, John Farrow, Paul Merton, Cllr Peter Mole, Brian Norton, Richard Vardy.

Kings: Sir Peter Vardy (Chair), Dr David Broughton, John Burn (Vice Chair), Rev Dr Alan Leighton, Nigel Robson, Mrs Margaret Ruddick (Parent dir), Malcolm Saysell (LEA Rep), Paul Scott, Mrs Elizabeth Whiteway.

Malcolm Saysell has completed his 3 years as LEA Rep & will be replaced.

Trinity: as above with the addition of David Vardy.

Miss Mai Mak as Colleges auditor.

Mrs Patricia Rowland as Company Sec.

Mr David Vardy as the Sponsors officer responsible for legal, financial and constitutional matters. Mr D Vardy will be replaced from Sep 06 by Paul Edwards.