Islamic school rated failure by Ofsted after ‘failing to promote British values’

A primary school run by a charity once described by David Cameron as a “front” for a radical Islamist group has been rated inadequate by the Ofsted watchdog after failing to promote “British values”, the Standard has learnt.

The Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation is facing action from the Department for Education over its Tottenham school.

During a three-day Ofsted visit to the St Anne’s Road site, inspectors found classes are “too heavily based around Islam” and that “fundamental British values and citizenship are not sufficiently well promoted”.

Teaching at the £3,000-a-year school is often too “narrow” and classes do not “deliver balanced viewpoints”, “focusing too much on the Islamic perspective”.

Although three to 11-year-olds at the independent school “learn about life in Britain” and had been on trips to Parliament and Legoland, the report states:

“There are too few opportunities for pupils to learn about the differences between other cultures, religions and communities, and their own.”

The report, published last month, adds: “The school’s work to protect pupils’ safety is inadequate.

“School leaders and trustees have not ensured that the independent school standards for safeguarding, welfare and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development are met.”

The primary was rated inadequate  in all five categories: Leadership  and Management, Behaviour and Safety of Pupils, Quality of Teaching, Achievement of Pupils and Early  Years Provision.

But inspectors did note that pupils were “polite and courteous” and the teaching of Arabic was “good”.

A spokeswoman for the school, which has 127 pupils, today said it did “not wish to comment”.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions while in opposition in 2009, Mr Cameron described the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation as a “front organisation” for Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In the same year, then shadow schools secretary Michael Gove claimed two of the Foundation’s four trustees were activists for Hizb ut-Tahrir — an extreme group formed in Jerusalem in the Fifties with the aim of creating a single Islamic state ruled by sharia law.

In 2012 the Foundation said it had been reassured by the DfE that there were “no concerns about extremism in our schools” and that there was “no involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir activists on the board of the foundation”.

This was after a Charity Commission investigation in 2010 had already found it no longer had links with Hizb ut-Tahrir.

There is no suggestion of extremism or links to Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Ofsted report, published last month.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We have received Ofsted’s inspection report of the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation’s Haringey school.

We are considering next steps to ensure it is meeting the independent school standards.”

A different inspection framework applies to independent schools, meaning Ofsted cannot put it into a “special measures” category.

Inspections of non-association independent schools are commissioned by the DfE, which can ask school leaders to produce an action plan, ask Ofsted to carry out an interim progress monitoring inspection or close a school down if improvements are not made.