Site hosted by Build your free website today!

Creationism in Voluntary Aided schools

Creationism is taught at a state maintained [voluntary aided] Seventh Day Adventist school in Tottenham, north London.

John Loughborough [secondary mixed school] began as an independent school but in 1998 became the first school run by a minor Christian denomination to receive state funding.

"Science teachers will teach what the curriculum asks them to, but the school has a particular religious supposition that man was created by God. We don't apologise for that," said Keith Davidson, director of education at the British Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, which runs the school.

"Just like other schools we also explain the concept of evolution. Everyone is free to have their view. What I find amazing is the intolerance and arrogance of people who say you can only believe in evolution and that's all you can teach."

Mr Davidson, a registered Ofsted inspector, added: "The way science works is that you set up a hypothesis and test it and see if it is validated...There's absolutely no concrete evidence to prove evolution." He said he was in informal discussions with local education authorities about moving other Adventist schools into the state maintained sector.

State funded Muslim schools are also believed to teach creationism alongside evolution.

[The Guardian, 19/3/02]

Ibrahim Hewitt, of the Association of Muslim Schools, said that his members' schools, including six state-funded ones, taught children about Darwin, because they had to, but they also taught a different, Koranic view.

The state-funded Seventh Day Adventist school, John Loughborough in north London, takes a similar, biblical, line, in apparent conflict with the National Curriculum.

And so do the high-performing Hasmonean High Schools for girls and boys, which educate more than 1000 strict Orthodox jews in north London. Last week, Rabbi Mordechai Fachler, director of Jewish Studies at the boys' school, made it clear that he would prefer Darwin to be dropped from the national curriculum.

[The Independent on Sunday, 17/3/02]

Dr A. Majid Katme, a spokesman on ethical issues for Islamic Concern, a group which aims to inform the media on Muslim questions, said on Tuesday: "There are clearly huge holes in the fossil records, and missing links in the theory. Only true sciences do fit with the divine teachings, not false ones or theories like Darwin theory."

[Church Times, 22/3/02]

Return to top