| SPOTLIGHT |
Attempts to ban teachers enmeshed in Birmingham’s Trojan Horse affair from the profession have ended.
Fifteen were accused of seeking to use undue religious influence at the Park View academy group of schools after an anonymous letter surfaced that alleged a conspiracy was in progress to secure Islamist control of them.
The National Council of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) has now ended proceedings against the remaining teachers involved, the Department for Education has confirmed.
A panel in May dismissed proceedings against five teachers, declaring them an abuse of process.
It said the NCTL had committed “an extraordinarily serious error of judgement” in its conduct of the disciplinary case, which had other serious defects.
The panel had been due to announce decisions on the five last December but it became apparent that the NCTL had failed to disclose essential documents.
The Trojan Horse affair began in 2014 and ministers intervened at Birmingham City Council following a critical report on the allegations made in the anonymous letter about alleged Islamic extremist attempts to take over school governing bodies.
Then Education Secretary Nicky Morgan told Parliament there had been “compelling evidence of a determined effort by people with a shared ideology to gain control of the governing bodies of a small number of schools in Birmingham”.
Mark Smulian
