Adonai Gevalt

Another state-funded faith school has been caught displaying excessive religious tolerance: despite being more than a little Jewish by persuasion, the Yesodey Hatorah senior girls' school appears to have been preparing its merchandise for life in Saudi Arabia rather than in Britain. Abetted by parents whose concerns are no doubt genuine and legitimate, the governors have imposed restrictions on careers advice and on the teaching of sex and relationships, human and animal biology, and global warming; and sad little people on the staff have gone through every book in the library blacking out mentions of bare skin on ankles, wrists and necks. Even helpline numbers have been redacted, in order to protect the young innocents from the blasphemous perils of secular telephony. Thanks partly to a New Labour/Michael Gove policy of employing unqualified teachers, Ofsted inspectors have rated the school as inadequate, prompting the usual screech of indignation from the chair of governors about having to fall in with a secularist agenda while taking money from multicultural taxpayers. In all fairness, the school's tolerant approach to the beliefs of others extends to the most unlikely beneficiaries: a reference to homosexuality was censored from a history textbook to prevent pupils getting the wrong idea about the Nazis.