A little story from my town

[DanaC]

I think what this school (and indeed its Pakistani headmaster) is doing is wonderful. Teaching these kids about their part in British history and offsetting a lot of negative messages about alienation and difference.

As it happens, the school is predominantly Asian as Sundae surmised. It's also in a very deprived and predominantly Asian part of the town. There has been at least one man arrested and held on terrorist charges from that area. It's a lovely school. I visited it once. Kids from the settled Asian communities mainly, along with some white British children and some of the transient immigrant population. The staff have to cope with some real challenges, not least of which is the number of children in each class who either speak no English when they start at the school or for whom English is a second or third language. They do well though. They get good, value added results for their kids and are involved in the community locally (their Children's centre runs language classes for local mums, for example) as well as various cross-borough school co-operation schemes.

From an early age these kids are being shown that they and their communities are an integral part of Britain. They might get to grow up with both a positive view of themselves as Muslims, and a positive view of themselves as British without those two things conflicting.