More than 550,000 students took GCSE history this summer, says Michael Davies, a history teacher at Lancaster Royal Grammar, a selective state boys’ school in Lancashire. “Of those, only 2,200 had studied Israel and Palestine. In comparison, 70,000 had studied the history of the American West.”

At Abrar Academy, a private Muslim boys’ school based in a former Methodist church in Preston, this year’s GCSE cohort did not take the Israel/Palestine option. Like so many schools of all dominations, they studied the first world war instead.

It’s not that the boys aren’t interested, says Suhayl Hafiz, curriculum manager, during the eerily quiet lunch break: “Palestine is the third holiest site in Islam, and the conflict is something all the boys have heard about, whether at the mosque or at home or in school.”

It was their history teacher’s decision, he says, as a group of boys in long white tunics play barefoot football downstairs where the pews used to be. “They weren’t really confident at that time.” It’s something Davies has often heard: “Teachers are scared of it. It’s a hot potato. They are worried about upsetting parents or the kids saying something which will be reported to the authorities, and so they teach the Tudors instead.”

Yet towards the end of Abrar’s summer term, Hafiz accepted an offer from Davies to teach a class on one of the most divisive conflicts in the modern world. It was a big moment for Davies, who has set up a project called Parallel Histories, which teaches Israel/Palestine from both sides rather than “twisting competing perspectives into a single, compromised narrative”.

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In June he organised an event at the House of Lords to discuss why so few schools dare to teach this difficult and often very emotional topic. None of the 20 or so Muslim schools he invited came. A few Jewish institutions did, encouraged by Samantha Benson, director of education at the Partnership for Jewish Schools.

It was disappointing but not a surprise. “Muslim schools are acutely aware of the potential for bad publicity after the Trojan Horse affair,” says Davies, referring to a scandal in some Birmingham schools in 2013 and 2014 when hardline Muslims were accused of conspiring to take over local schools and running them according to strict Islamic principles.

“The downside of tackling Israel and Palestine in front of outsiders is obvious – Muslim students care passionately about it and the story of Palestinian oppression feeds into a broader narrative of Muslims as victims of western aggression, and that’s not an area where most teachers want to go with observers in the classroom,” says Davies.

At the Abrar academy, a warning bell sounds out across the school. It is still the middle of a lesson but the bell tells the boys that they have 15 minutes before their afternoon prayer. At the anointed time, they will kneel down in neat rows and press their skullcap-clad heads to the ground in worship before it is time for the last secular class of the day. Afternoons are devoted to secular studies; the morning is set aside for Islamic study: Qur’anic recitation and translation, Arabic lessons and Islamic theology. In 2016, Ofsted found the school “requires improvement”, saying teaching in secular subjects did not help pupils to learn as well as in Islamic lessons.

Around 120 boys aged 11 to 21 study at Abrar, which was set up in 2009 by Hadhrat Shaikh Maulana Fazlehaq Wadee, a scholar of the Deobandi strand of Sunni Islam. Day pupils pay £1,300 a year – boarders £2,500 (Lancaster Royal Grammar charges £11,181 per year for boarders, considered to be at the bargain basement end of the market).

Although the Deobandis have a reputation for hardline puritanism (the Taliban are its most notorious proponents), the teaching at Abrar is quite liberal, insists Hafiz, an alumnus of a Preston state school. “We think of ourselves as British so we are quite liberal in that sense.” He points to link projects with nearby Lowton high school, including a visit by their pupils who tried on Islamic dress and experienced Muslim education for a day.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Parallel Histories founder Michael Davies encouraged Abrar students to study and then debate the issues. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

People make the wrong assumptions about us, says a 15-year-old boarder from Newcastle. “My parents wanted me to go to a secular school but it was me that pushed to come here.” Some of the boys change into jeans and T-shirts as soon as school is out: others prefer Islamic dress seven days a week. A good proportion of the boys aspire to be an imam or a Muslim scholar, perhaps after pursing a secular degree.

All of Abrar’s teachers are male and when female students visit the school and take extracurricular lessons on the balcony, they are shielded by fabric and room dividers. Nonetheless the boys do not seem fazed by the arrival of a blond female reporter with bare arms and uncovered hair, and are curious about the Guardian’s interest in their school.

Davies is excited about the lesson he has planned on the Balfour declaration. Approved by the British cabinet in 1917, the declaration said the government viewed with favour “the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people” and would use the government’s best endeavours to facilitate it.

The boys, aged 14 to 19, have already been split into two groups to prepare for a debate. Half were disappointed to be told they must argue that the British should be praised for the declaration – an opinion held by very few Muslims.

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Two boys are appointed judges and mark their classmates on content and presentation, totting up the scores to declare the Palestinian side winners, though only by a whisker.

Abdul, 15, on the Israel team, says his side had to work harder: “I told the team, swallow your pride, just do it. Even after hours and hours of research we thought Palestine had a stronger argument, so to find an argument for Israel and the Jews to have this thing was really difficult.

“But we did find it, we found small things to pick out and expand on, and we were very close to actually winning. I was more on the other side but now I’ve got a bit more understanding and think Israel does have a point. In this school especially we are trying to become Muslim scholars but we have to go out there and we need to be aware of what’s going on – this is Britain, we need to understand British values. All of this will help us understand tolerance, etc. If we are biased to one opinion by ignorance then it’s not fair. No matter if they are Jews or whatever, they are still human. We have to respect them.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest History teacher Michael Davies with one of the pupils. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Earlier this year, Davies split his Lancaster Grammar students into two groups. One was taught the Israeli view, the other the Palestinian. Afterwards, they were surveyed on the Balfour declaration and if the British should have signed it. Their answers were influenced by what they had been taught. Almost 60% of those taught the Jewish side said the British should be praised, while almost 50% of those taught the Palestinian narrative said the British should be criticised.

After the Abrar lesson, just two boys say that they still believe Israel does not have a right to exist.

“Obviously you have to look at it with a sympathetic view when you are dealing with the Jewish part of things because they came out of the holocaust and needed a land of their own and Palestine did have a bit of space,” says Mohammed, 19.

“But what makes me say that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist is the fundamentals of what it was built on and how they deal with Palestine right now.”

Davies asks if he would distinguish between “right to exist” and “be heavily criticised”. “I wouldn’t say it should be eliminated right now but the basis on which Israel was built was wrong,” says the boy. “I don’t think it should be removed now that it exists.”

• This article was amended on 8 August 2018 to clarify a reference to the Balfour declaration.

