Teaching evolution key to free school funding deal

By Judith Burns

30 November 2012 Last updated at 16:35

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20547195

Scientists have raised concerns that rules on teaching evolution “are not tight enough”

Failing to teach evolution by natural selection in science lessons could lead to new free schools losing their funding under government changes.

The new rules state that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as a “comprehensive and coherent scientific theory”.

The move follows scientists’ concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution.

Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said he was “delighted”.

Sir Paul told BBC News the previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been “not tight enough”.

‘Creationist myth’

He said that although the previous rules had confined creationism to religious education lessons, “the Royal Society identified a potential issue that schools could have avoided teaching evolution by natural selection in science lessons or dealt with it in a such a perfunctory way, that the main experience for students was the creationist myth”.

So far 79 free schools have opened in England with 118 more due to open in 2013 and beyond. They are funded directly by central government but unlike other state-funded schools are run by groups of parents, teachers, charities and religious groups and do not have to abide by the national curriculum.

The new rules mean if a free school is found to be acting in breach of its funding agreement – for example, teaching creationism as a scientific fact or not teaching evolution – the Department for Education will take “swift action which could result in the termination of that funding agreement”.

In a letter to the Royal Society, the Schools Minister, Lord Hill, said: “While we have always been clear that we expect to see evolution included in schools’ science curricula, this new clause will provide more explicit reassurance that free schools will have to meet that expectation.”

Sir Paul Nurse said: “The new clause in the funding agreement should ensure that all pupils at free schools have the opportunity to learn about evolution as an extensively evidenced theory and one of the most fundamentally important tenets of modern biology.

“The development of the theory of evolution is an excellent example of how science works and there is a clear consensus within the scientific community regarding both its validity and importance.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said that the new clause would apply to the Grindon Hall Christian school in Sunderland and two others that this year became the focus of concerns about the teaching of creationism in free schools.

Grindon Hall, which was independent, reopened as a free school in September. The two others approved by ministers are not due to open until 2013.

In July the principal of Grindon Hall said that creationism would never be taught in science lessons.

‘Additional safeguards’

Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network, which provides advice and support for groups who want to set up free schools, welcomed the funding agreement changes but said that the existing rules meant free schools already had to teach evolution in science lessons.

“To my knowledge free schools have always had to teach evolution in science, but it is great that the government has reaffirmed its commitment to this,” she said.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, organisers of a Teach Evolution not Creationism campaign, said: “A requirement to teach evolution in free schools is an excellent additional safeguard against state-funded creationist schools and must be welcomed.

“However, we continue to be concerned about the three free schools recently approved which are supportive of teaching creationism as science and which we must worry will continue to find ways to circumvent a ban in practice.”

Dr Berry Billingsley who leads a Reading University project on how secondary schools handle questions that bridge science and religion cautioned against an oversimplified debate.

“Evolution is a fantastic theory and explains so much about how humans come to be here. It is backed up by evidence and supported by the vast majority of scientists in the biological sciences. Many of those scientists also believe that the Universe is here because of God.

“The importance of studying evolution is indeed the first thing to be said but children also need opportunities somewhere in the timetable to explore the ‘Big Questions’, which our research shows they want to consider and it is often the science lesson that stirs up those questions.”

Paul Bate, of the European Educators Christian Association, agreed schools should teach a broad and balanced curriculum: “Science and religion need each other in this debate. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time said, ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’”

http://theunhivedmind.com/wordpress2/?p=11853

TheUnhivedMind on December 3, 2012 at 5:33 pm said:

The Jesuits and their counter-Reformation have used the deception of Evolution via Erasmus Darwin and fronted by Charles Darwin. The idea to promote a false-science in order to attempt to attack the Geneva and King James Bible. This also aids the coming U.N Agenda 21 as the people are deceived they have no more rights than animals and insects. If one is turned against the Bible then one does not know they have dominion over the animals and that they were created in God’s own image as highlighted in Genesis.

The system today wants rid of the Bible because the Bible gave us far more freedoms than anything else. Today fools via deception believe they are more free than ever and that the Bible is a prison. Sit back and study the World you now live in and it is nothing more than a mercantile, tyrannical and technological prison like never before. They cannot have you knowing and using your inalienable rights given by God! They cannot have you expressing you are a being of the Divine who’s blood flows and flesh lives. You are to be a dead soul lost beyond the sea trapped by the Cestui Que Vie Act 1666 which ties right back to Papal Bull Unam Sanctam of 1302.

Your ancestors were not monkeys it is a complete false lie which you should see through and quickly just like this heliocentric scam which was designed to hide secret technologies and mathematics as exposed by Bruce Cathy who wrote Harmonic 33. Who created the Royal Society and all its lies? I suggest you start studying Gresham College and then notice their shields logo. In one shield you have the City of London Corporation, the next is the Knights Templar upward arrow and in the last shield you have The Worshipful Company of Mercers. These and The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers control the education system. In Britain they have dumbed down the education drastically via the National Curriculum scuppering education on the British Constitution and freedom.

The Livery pirates are Masonic Brethren and Lodges which worship Lucifer as exposed in Morals & Dogma by Albert Pike who was controlled by Jesuit soldier Pierre-Jean de Smet SJ. Is it any wonder they deceive the once-Christian lands? They desire a new one-World religion known as the Luciferian Doctrine which is nothing more than a pagan based scientific dictatorship. You are seeing the beginning of this new religion with the Gaia worship based on pseudo-science called global warming/climate change. Bare in mind that the Earth has been cooling down since 1997 not warming. Just another method of creating false statements to aid the ushering in of World Government for the so-called sake of mankind.

-= The Unhived Mind