User:Flange/Sandbox

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Illegal schools are British full-time education institutions which are not registered with the Department for EducationWikipedia. UK regulation states schools must be registered if five or more children attend for all or substantially all of their education, but there limited regulatory oversight of homeschooling. It is thought that there are hundreds of such schools operating illegally, the majority of which are religious schools run by ultra-orthodox Jewish and Muslim leaders, but there are also a growing number of non-religious schools run by conspiracy theorists and sovereign citizens.

Task farce[edit]

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted)Wikipedia set up a task force to investigate illegal schools in 2016. Inspectors, however, have neither authority to enter premises nor seize incriminating materials of suspected illegal schools. There is also no official register of home schooled children.

Pandemic[edit]

During the COVID-19 pandemic the antivax movement, under the leadership of a self-described peace constable named Olli Riddett, who operates a registered preschool in a village in Cornwall, started pulling their kids out of mainstream education and setting-up illegal schools, under the mistaken belief they were exempted them from British law under sovereign citizen ideology.[1]

An unofficial register[edit]

Advanced Education Centre[edit]

Advanced Education Centre is an "inadequate"[2] private charitable primary school run by Suleyman Folami and Mujanet Daniah in Unimix House on Abbey Road, London, which was found to have a secret Muslim faith secondary school with 66 students making £347,000 a year in fees on the floor above.[3] Ofsted conducted inspections in 2018 and 2019, during which Folami hurriedly sent the pupils away,[4] and concluded:

This was an illegal school. The people in charge of running it successfully registered their legal school and were fully aware of the correct procedure, but despite repeated inspections chose to flout the law. — Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman[5]

Folami and Daniah were found guilty of running an illegal school in March 2020, the couple were given a four-week custodial sentence, suspended for a year, which was upheld following appeal in January, 2022.[6] A professional conduct panel convened by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) in February 2024 ruled that both would be indefinitely banned from teaching.[7]

HOPE Sussex[edit]

HOPE Sussex is a suspected illegal school founded by expelled British National Party (BNP) activists Matthew and Sadie Single and former theatrical nepo babyWikipedia Katy-Jo Murfin (daughter of Karl HowmanWikipedia) on an 80-acre site near Netherfield in East Sussex in 2022 as a "community centre" for antivax parents who have pulled their children out of mainstream education.[8] An inverstigation by The Times revealed they taught a full curriculum "through the prism of conspiracy with history lessons involving teaching that the US government knew in advance about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and discussed the possibility that stars were not real and were in fact lights." The (definitely not a) school has also published photos of its (definitely not) pupils engaged in (definitely not) combat training using crossbows and slingshots, led by (definitely not) teacher William Coleshill, an expelled former Tory councillor and founder of the antivax group Resistance GB who has regularly harassed members of Parliament.[8] Ofsted initiated an inspection based on doubtlessly unfounded concerns, but were prevented from entering by two “obstructive and uncooperative” members of staff.[9]

Universall Kidz[edit]

Universall Kidz is a suspected illegal school founded by Ladan Ratcliffe. Ofsted initiated an urgent investigation following the report.[10]

References[edit]