The Free Speech Union (FSU) has come to the defence of a Christian primary school teacher who was sacked and banned from working with children after telling a Muslim student that “Britain is still a Christian state”.
According to The Telegraph, trouble began when the unnamed teacher told off students using the sinks in the boys’ toilets to wash their feet.
The school in question is religiously unaffiliated and has an informal ban on praying in the playground. Feet washing in sinks is similarly prohibited, however there is a special prayer room where such observances can continue.
The teacher, who does not wish to be named, allegedly reminded a student he was breaching the ban and that if anyone was unhappy with the rules, there was an Islamic school a mile away that might be more suitable.
He also pointed out that as a country with a state church headed by the King, Britain is at least technically a Christian country.
After the incident, the teacher attempted to teach the year six class about the British value of tolerance. He is alleged to have pointed out that Islam is a minority religion in Britain.
The teacher was suspended in March last year prior to being sacked and was told the following April that he was being referred to the safeguarding board and the Metropolitan police.
While the police investigation into an alleged hate crime went nowhere, the teacher was initially banned from working with children due to the alleged emotional harm caused by his comments about Islam. The ban was successfully overturned at appeal. The teacher is now suing his local authority.
Lord Young, Director of the FSU, which is supporting the teacher, said, “This teacher lost his job and almost ended up being barred from the profession for life just because he pointed out to a class of Muslim schoolchildren that the national religion of England is Anglicanism.
“Things have reached a pretty pass in this country if a teacher can be branded a safeguarding risk because he says something that’s incontestably true. If he’d claimed that Islam is the official religion of England, even though that’s not true, I doubt he would have got into any trouble.”
