Legislation is needed to stop one ethnicity taking over a school, says Bradford superhead

Sir Nick Weller, the executive principal at Dixons Academies which runs a chain of schools in the west Yorkshire city, said that introducing a new law is the “only answer” to prevent children being segregated along ethnic lines. He said that it is “unhealthy” for a city like Bradford to have two communities living “separate lives” and for the children to be educated at different schools.

“I think it’s unhealthy in a city like Bradford for two communities to live separate lives, which by and large they do,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“You could say Bradford is almost two communities: the Muslim community and the white community.”

Mr Weller said that rather than sending children to the closest school, parents prefer to send them further away to a school where the majority of children are from the same ethnic background.

“Families will ignore the school that is nearest them because it is predominantly of one – the wrong ethnic group – and they will send them a little bit further down the road to a school where they feel more comfortable,” said Mr Weller, who was knighted in 2015 for his services to education.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/07/18/legislation-needed-stop-one-ethnicity-taking-school-says-bradford/

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