He had to develop something that suited a high turnover of students who, under the national curriculum, were missing out on swathes of work if they moved from one school to the next.Soon all Shell schools were working under a topic based system called Shell Primary Curriculum. Martin Skelton, a former headmaster, was commissioned by the company to create a curriculum for Shell International schools. Praise and criticism has been tossed at the approach in equal measure, but Ofsted has commended the school. Yet is it just a case of throwing out the science books and ripping up the history lessons, or is it a radical methodology? The origins of the IPC lie in the Shell petrol company. Called International Primary Curriculum (IPC), it is a common way of teaching in international schools, but one that is increasingly being piloted around this country.Now the first primary school in London, the Sir William Burrough school in Tower Hamlets, has introduced it. Be it chocolate, treasure, or fashion, their landscape of learning is looking different from what might traditionally be called "school".
But not quite a dream: this is the way that topic-based learning is being reborn after falling into disuse. Subject divisions are nowhere to be seen; instead of sitting down to a geography or history lesson, primary children find their subjects integrated under one broad heading. Today, children, and every day over the next six weeks, we'll be learning about chocolate." A dream sentence to a schoolchild's ears, if ever there was one. Was it precisely their ignorance of Islam which made them easy prey, an ignorance which would have been dispelled had they gone to a Muslim school?The writer is Professor of Islamic Studies at the department of theology and religion, University of Birminghameducation independent.co.uk. In fact, it could be argued that if they had been pupils in a Muslim school they would not so easily have been led astray by the manipulative minders who would appear to have sent them to their deaths. And, somehow, they seem to escape the inspectors' attention or are given the kid glove treatment.But let us be clear, the bombers of 7/7 did not come from either of these types of school. Certain parts of the curriculum are avoided or given a particular ideological slant, wider society is seen as a threat.
There are not many of this kind, but they exist in both the private and the public sectors. It is ethos, approaches to teaching and the curriculum, and attitudes to the wider society which are key. Some of these schools have an open and flexible atmosphere, an ethos which acknowledges wider society and in which children are given the space to have different ways of being Muslim.Others take a more inward and strict approach, one which their detractors occasionally label "wahhabi" or even "fundamentalist". Ban Muslim schools, and all faith schools should be banned.No, the argument has rather to focus on what kind of Muslim schools. Existing ones are mostly small, in the private sector, and under-funded.
