A grammar school at the centre of a row over plans to create an “unsafe space” for unfettered debate among sixth-formers has denied any rightwing agenda, after criticism from pupils and parents.



The Simon Langton grammar school for boys in Canterbury, which caused controversy last year when it invited its former pupil Milo Yiannopoulos, the rightwing controversialist, to speak, sparked fresh concerns this week with a new debating forum that it said was designed to be “an antidote to the poison of political correctness”.

Some parents and pupils backed the school. But now it has distanced itself from the term “unsafe space” after other pupils and parents voiced their alarm on social media. The local Labour MP whose sons attended the school but have now left also voiced her reservations.

The scheme’s name is a reference to the phrase “safe space” – a zone in which a person or category of people can feel confident they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment or any other emotional or physical harm. The head of school, Ken Moffat, said the phrase unsafe space was “a bit of a misnomer”.

“The name is the Tong Centre for Creative Research, it is not called ‘the unsafe space’ and that’s not a phrase I am wedded to and expect to see wither over time.”

In a letter to parents, Moffat dismissed concerns raised in media reports. “Our aim is quite simple: to continue with what we are already doing in allowing our young men and women to debate interesting ideas at the highest level possible with speakers from both within and without the school community,” he wrote.

“Just because we use the term ‘freedom of speech’ does not mean we will indulge homophobic, xenophobic, racist or sexist beliefs. Hate crime is illegal everywhere.”

Earlier in the week some pupils tweeted their alarm after learning that the proposed “unsafe space” would examine “the most beautifully disturbed and disturbing ideas, all of them presented without trigger warnings”, and that wide-ranging studies would incorporate a number of unexpected texts such as Mein Kampf.

Others spoke of the support for the idea. The school, which is mixed in the sixth form, has also scheduled lectures on the subjects “Women versus feminism” and “Not all cultures are created equal”.

Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury whose two sons attended Simon Langton, agreed students were capable of critical thinking on a variety of topics, including the political and occasionally the controversial.



“Where, however, a body of students and/or parents have taken offence on an issue, school leadership and governors need to address whether a line has been crossed and decide on whether further action is appropriate,” she said. “We must not fear debate, but the way in which ideas are presented and framed needs to be very carefully considered indeed.”

Duffield had been due to speak at the school on Friday but has postponed, citing diary pressures.

One parent with two sons at the school posted in a Facebook group: “I went to this school. I now have two boys in yr 10 and 11. Boys there share the most racist, sexist, fascist comments as if they are saying ‘hi’. Feminism is a complete joke to them.

“I think a lot of adults have forgotten just how immature 15- to 18-year-old boys are. They’re all nice lads and they’ll find their way to adult values in their own time. This will not help either way.”

Another parent whose sons have now left the school said: “I have faith in the young people at the school, but as a boys’ school it may already be an ‘unsafe’ space for young women. Giving a platform to hate speech is not the best way forward.”

Pupils claimed that the teacher in charge of the “unsafe space”, Prof James S, had joked about LGBT groups by presenting the term with a string of extraneous letters and numbers appended to it. A member of staff at the school said that the term “LGBTQQIP2SAA” had been adopted from an LGBT-friendly website.

James S, the director of humanities at the school, told pupils the first “unsafe space” session would be devoted to a memo circulated by a Google employee, James Damore, who was later sacked, that claimed women were innately less capable as engineers. James S defended it as a “much-needed forum for debate”.

There were suggestions after news of the “unsafe space” appeared in the media that there had been anger within the school at some descriptions of its intentions. A printout of a media report was anonymously pinned to a school noticeboard on Tuesday with the word “wrong” written next to each paragraph.

On Wednesday the school’s head teacher, Dr Matthew Baxter, forwarded a document to the Guardian in which James S accused a student of posting “a compromising lie” on Twitter about the intentions behind the project.

Moffat said the school had received a large number of letters of support from parents and only one expressing concern. “There is no rightwing agenda in the school, which seems to be what you are implying,” he said. “We are simply pushing a spirit of intellectual freedom and openness to ideas whilst maintaining the British value of tolerance and respect for each other.”

Joanne Bartley, of the Kent Education Network, a community group that campaigns against grammar schools, said: “We hear many reports that alt-right views are popular among boys in grammar school sixth-forms.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with young people having varied political views, but the recent Canterbury youth parliament had grammar school pupils speaking on issues such as benefit fraud and immigration, yet we know extremely limited numbers of children from families on benefits or asylum-seeking families are educated in selective schools.

“The social divide in grammar schools is a real problem. Grammar school pupils might be our future politicians, but how can they know about real life when they only mix with others of the same gender, class and aspirations?”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Schools should be places of debate where young people can learn to challenge the opinions of others and in particular build the resilience to tackle extreme views. Of course this should be done in an age-appropriate manner and in a way that does not undermine fundamental British values.”

• This article was amended on 14 February 2019 to remove some personal information.