Stationers' Crown Woods school calls Met Police over LGBTQ+ web row

The incident led to staff at Stationers’ Crown Woods academy, in Bexley Road, facing “threats and harassment”, its leaders said.

The audio captured a male teacher telling off students who had objected to LGBTQ+ relationships being mentioned in a lesson.

The recording was handed to “conservative activist movement” Turning Point UK, which shared it online and claimed the teacher was promoting a “radical LGBTQ+ agenda”.

The group told the News Shopper that the audio had been recorded after a Muslim student “raised concerns about a video the class was shown about children coming out as LGBT, which the student claimed was inappropriate.”

The clip on Turning Point’s Instagram page has been watched more than half a million times.

Multiple commenters branded the teacher “a nonce” while others said he was “not safe” to be around children.

“The matter has been reported to the police following harassment and threats that were received,” said the Leigh Academies Trust, which runs the school.

“Additional security measures have been put in place to safeguard the welfare and safety of students and staff.”

What did the teacher say?

The clip features only the teacher’s voice, meaning it is not known what the students said before he responded to them.

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In it, he says: “You don’t have a choice whether or not you learn about LGBTQ+ in this school.

“It’s one of our values. They’re British values, and if you refuse to do it, that will be dealt with severely.

“Why would I care if anyone in this room wants to love somebody, whether it be a man or a woman?

“Why would I care if someone wants to say, ‘Do you know what, I don’t know if I’m more male or female, I’m exploring’? Why does that matter to me?

“And if there are people sat here who don’t agree with what I’m saying, you need to go home and have a conversation with your parents and say, Why are my values so different to what Britain is? Why have I got this view? Where has it come from?

“The only thing that you can be taken out of is sex education and that is if your parents speak to me and get permission and nobody in this room has done that. LGBTQ is not sex education. That is relationships. You do not have the authority or the ability to refuse to do it.”

What now?

A source at the Department for Education told the News Shopper that the teacher was correct.

“It is true that health and relationship education is statutory and it’s not as easy to remove a child from those lessons,” they said.

Schools are also required to promote British values, including opposing discrimination.

The school said it had launched its own investigation and found no breaches of statutory guidance (Image: Google Streetview)

Leigh Academies Trust said it had launched an investigation, which had found the teacher had been called into the class “to address a number of students who were not engaging appropriately with that lesson.”

“Having analysed the full transcript of the recording, we are satisfied at this stage that the teacher’s conduct during the lesson did not breach any statutory guidance,” it said.

The trust said it would “continue with its investigation and report the findings to parents in due course.”

But Turning Point UK stuck to its guns, saying: “We stand by our publication of the audio recording that was leaked to us as we believe the public has a right to know what happens in our schools.”

The group, which made headlines last month when Laurence Fox joined its supporters to protest a drag queen story time event in East Dulwich, said it was “disappointing” that the school had not taken disciplinary action against the teacher.

“We are not responsible for what people online say or do, but Stationers’ Crown Woods is directly responsible for their teachers and should be held to account by Ofsted, parents and their governors.”