The gay rights group Stonewall, which campaigns for the legalisation of same-sex marriage, says it has been invited into several Catholic schools in England to give staff lessons on preventing “homophobic bullying”.
After St Mary’s Primary Catholic School in Wimbledon, south London, confirmed inviting Stonewall to help staff address issues concerning homophobia and discrimination, the group said it had gone into “half a dozen” Catholic schools.
Stonewall, a registered charity, is highly critical of the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality.
The school inspectorate Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) requires all schools to show evidence that staff are trained in how to tackle homophobic bullying.
The head teacher at St Mary’s, Sarah Crouch, said she called the campaign group into the school to train staff “on how to tackle homophobic language and bullying”.
She said: “As a school, and as Catholics, we are opposed to prejudice of any kind and felt it was important to tackle the issue of homophobic language and bullying.
“The training was very successful and we feel confident that if any incidents of this kind of language occurs our staff have the means to address it appropriately.”
The decision to allow Stonewall into Catholic schools shocked some family campaigners.
Antonia Tully, national co-ordinator of the Safe at School campaign, said the presence of gay activists in primary schools would alarm parents.
She said: “Many parents will be very concerned that a gay rights organisation is considered to be an appropriate source of advice on how to deal with children using inappropriate language in the playground.
“If a primary school takes on Stonewall’s agenda, young children will be exposed to issues which they are too young to understand properly.”
Stonewall’s head of education, Wes Streeting, said about half a dozen Catholic schools including St Mary’s had been given the accolade of “Stonewall School Champion” and others had received Stonewall’s resources through local authorities.
The resources included a “best practice” guide, with case studies describing how some schools put up Stonewall posters carrying the slogan “Different Families, Same Love”, with cartoons of same-sex parents.
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