LGBTQ school plans

There have been very mixed experiences to date, with some not opening because parents (after all the proposers' huffing and puffing about “parental demand”) simply did not send their children to the school, and others being forcibly closed following negative inspections. Others seem to have very odd curricula, and it is just not clear to the outside observer that the lack of checks and balances, other than Ofsted, lead to any sort of stable institution.

Then, the notion of a free school serving mostly LGBTQ young people and also straight young people begs several questions:

First, to what extent do we want to have schools providing for minority populations of any sort? We have many well-established faith schools, and these generally seem to serve their communities well, though CE and, to a lesser extent, RC schools don't usually make a huge thing of their faith – I've not heard of children having been brainwashed into belief. The curriculum of maintained schools is pretty standard, while the ethos and some of the extra-curricular engagement can be more distinctive. But the freedom of “free schools” and academies can lead down some very dark alleys, as we have seen in some of the so-called Trojan Horse investigations. This has led to the “freedoms” being constrained post facto, with “British values” being superimposed on local needs and expectations.

Second, do we want, as is it right, that groups with different sexual orientations should be segregated for educational purposes? We don't segregate for work or leisure, so why should education be different? Society as a whole includes people of all sexual orientations, and it would seem counter-productive both for the segregated young people and the rest of the population – the LGBTQ young people would experience a very unusual and unrepresentative social grouping in school, and the rest of the young people would not experience being alongside LGBTQ young people, and that would hardly be likely to build understanding in later life. Surely it is better for young people to experience the rich variety of society at school, rather than seeing just a thin slice of people like themselves – and of course this is an argument against faith schools, single-sex schools, and Eton as well. (As an aside, our son, Peter attended a primary school, Holway Park in Taunton, that was fully inclusive with children with severe physical and mental disabilities - and as a consequence, I believe that he is much more tolerant of 'otherness' than I was at his age.)

Third, will parents really wish to send their children – LGBTQ or straight – to such a school? Wouldn't this lead to potential social isolation outside school?

Fourth, will young people – again, LGBTQ or straight – really want to attend such as school? Won't that be used as a reason to stigmatise them outside school?

Fifth, is it right and proper to categorise – to label – young people as LGBTQ at age 11 or indeed any age? Most young people do have a clear self-identification of their sexuality at this age, but many don't.

Why, then, is LGBT Youth North West proposing such a school, and why is it being supported by Manchester City Council? It seems that the school is being proposed as part of alternative provisions for young people who are struggling in mainstream. That seems an admirable intention, and could make a difference, perhaps as short-term and part-time support. A school with a planned roll of 40 could not provide the breadth of curriculum of a normal-size secondary school, though, and a return to the mainstream would need to be built in.

But ... but ... the difficulties that LGBTQ young people face, and those given in the examples are not going to be solved just by educational provision – they have to live in their wider community and with their parents or carers.

Amelia Lee, strategic director for LGBT Youth North West, said "Lots of pupils have a really tough time and we want to do what we can to help those pupils and to give them additional support. We can either hope every school is going to be inclusive or we can recognise we are not there yet and we need more specialised schools. This is about saving lives.”

The problem is that two of the examples given relate to children committing suicide because they didn't want to tell their parents. That is absolutely tragic, but it is the parents who decide where their children go to school. If a child does not want to come out to their parents, for whatever reason, they are hardly likely to ask those same parents to attend an LGBTQ school.

Lee's central point – and here I fully agree – is that every school should be an inclusive school, well set up with pastoral and personal support for young people who are struggling, with good anti-bullying and anti-homophobic policies and practices, and with good support for mental health. The danger, of course, is that we let mainstream schools off the inclusivity hook if we set up separate provision.

I'm sorry, and I recognise and celebrate the attempt to help LGBTQ young people who need it, I just can't support segregated provision. We all need to work together, including with charities such as LGBT Youth North West, to ensure that schools and colleges are genuinely inclusive and support all children as they grow up.

After all, we are, all of us, in a minority of one – everyone else is different in large or small ways.

John Freeman CBE is a former director of children's services and is now a freelance consultant

??www.johnfreemanconsulting.co.uk