Pupils should not be fasting for Gaza

Why do so many schools have links to NGOs?

Just a fortnight ago, we were told that schools must provide breakfasts for children whose parents are too poor or too incapable to ensure there is food available at home. ‘No one learns on an empty stomach!’ was the mantra of the day.

Unless, that is, you are a pupil at George Green’s School in Tower Hamlets. Here, children are being asked to ‘come together in a collective fast’ in support of the people of Palestine. Learning can, it seems, take place on an empty stomach when it is willfully confused with political campaigning.

According to The Telegraph, a post on the school’s website states: ‘As a Rights Respecting School, we stand united in supporting the children of Gaza, firmly advocating for their right to safety, health, and education. On 13th December, both staff and students will come together in a collective fast, demonstrating our solidarity and raising awareness.’

No school should be encouraging children to fast. While not dangerous, fasting is unlikely to have health benefits for adolescents. Far more troubling is the motivation: the fast brings politics into the classroom. Expecting pupils to join in demonstrating ‘solidarity and raising awareness’ about the situation in Gaza is to insist they take one side in a global conflict.

This sends a particular message to the school’s Jewish pupils. Bluntly, it tells them the school’s sympathies lie with Gaza and not with Israel. It presents Gazans as victims in need of solidarity and Israel as the aggressor. The ‘awareness’ that’s being raised is that the world’s only Jewish state is wrong to defend its own citizens.

The head teacher of George Green’s School claims participation in events in support of Gaza is ‘entirely voluntary’ but, as a Jewish parent has made clear, this need to opt out of what is presumed to be a shared stance ‘puts the onus on the young person at the age where they least want to stand out’.

How has this situation come about?

The school’s head teacher justifies the fast by pointing out that George Green’s is a ‘UNICEF Gold Award Rights Respecting School’. According to its website, UNICEF, ‘works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive.’ Its Rights Respecting Schools Award ‘embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.’

But shouldn’t schools be ‘safe and inspiring places’ for children to learn without the need for UNICEF accreditation? Why would a school pay money to a powerful international non-governmental organisation in order to ‘win’ a made-up award? Despite the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ language of the schools’ award programme, UNICEF stands accused of ‘promoting vicious anti-Israel propaganda and erasing the brutality of Hamas terror’. Glossy pictures of diverse school children white wash such accusations.

But UNICEF is not the only charity in the school awards market. Britain has over 1,000 ‘Fairtrade schools’, where pupils learn that ‘whatever their age, they have the power to make a difference in the world.’ In order to display the charity’s logo, ‘Fairtrade learning’ is embedded in lesson plans and pupils’ work. I am yet to come across any ‘free trade schools’.

Then there are Zero Carbon Schools which put ‘climate education and action at the heart of school life.’ This ‘cross-curricular programme for Years 4 – 8 with links to science, geography, maths, English, PSHE and art’ involves children in activities like calculating ‘an estimate of their school’s carbon emissions’ and leading ‘meaningful projects to reduce the school’s carbon footprint’. Again, despite much searching, I have yet to come across a pro-nuclear power school.

To be clear, these organisations are not providing extra-curricular activities children can choose to engage with outside of timetabled lessons. Instead, they dictate lesson content, focused on one particular view of the world, to a captive audience of children. This is indoctrination not education.

Yet rather than teachers reacting in alarm as they are asked to hand over the curriculum to highly-motivated political actors, schools are paying money for instruction in how to comply.

The goal of converting children into young activists is made explicit. Almost 4,500 British schools have signed up to ‘Let’s Go Zero’ (not to be confused with Zero Carbon Schools) with pupils conscripted into a campaign urging the government to support the ‘vital mission’ of reaching Net Zero by 2030. The organisation aims to ‘show the overwhelming support for zero carbon classrooms up and down the UK’.

When schools sign up to these organisations, children are turned into a stage army for adults who, in the past, would have joined protest marches and picket lines to make their views known. Instead, today’s militants create little Gretas through classroom instruction in political strategy. Ironically, Let’s Go Zero worked with the Department for Education on its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, meaning that one branch of government was backing an initiative designed to challenge another branch of government.

This is not just happening in the UK. Amnesty International has certified ‘Human Rights Friendly Schools’ in 22 countries. Each must show that human rights are ‘placed at the heart of the learning experience’ and made ‘an integral part of everyday school life’. In other words, a wealthy, western non-governmental organisation has influence over the education of children across the globe. This should shock anyone who cares about education.

Whether we agree or disagree with Amnesty International’s definition of human rights or the goal of cutting carbon emissions is irrelevant: schools and politics should be kept apart. The race for ‘awards’ and ‘badges’ shows us that too many schools now confuse education with indoctrination. Too few teachers have a clear sense of what their role should actually involve. We cannot let this continue.

This will be my last post this year. I would like to thank everyone who has read, shared or subscribed to my Substack this year. If you have enjoyed my work, do please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

Merry Christmas and see you in 2025!