THERE is something shifting in Britain’s schools, and parents can sense it even if it is rarely admitted. It’s not written into policy documents or announced at parents’ evenings. It’s quieter than that. It’s the growing reality that a lot of teachers no longer feel free to teach openly or fairly on issues which schools, government and left-wing social media describe as ‘sensitive’.
A Policy Exchange report, ‘Blasphemy’ in Schools, highlights the issues parents and teachers are gas-lit into avoiding. Based on polling of more than 1,000 teachers, it found that 16 per cent openly admit to self-censorship, while a further 24 per cent preferred not to say. In other words, at least two in five teachers may be holding back in the classroom. About 60 per cent said they had not self-censored at all but, knowing the punishment for honesty, we can assume those teachers valued their finances and social standing more than the need to put themselves under an interrogation lamp. That alone should give pause to any parent who assumes lessons are being delivered with neutrality.
The reasons aren’t difficult to understand. The same report found that half of teachers believe there is a real risk to their physical safety if protests arise, and three-quarters say such protests would be damaging to them professionally. One in five even believe the risk to their safety isn’t worth it. This is not a normal working environment. It is one shaped by caution, calculation and increasingly by fear.
Under those conditions, how can we assume teachers always act as neutral arbiters of complex and controversial topics? It doesn’t appear to be because they’re unwilling but because the system in which they operate punishes it. When a poorly phrased lesson or a misjudged example can lead to complaints, reputational damage, or worse, the safest option is obvious. Avoid the difficult ground altogether or stick rigidly to approved narratives that frame atheist boys as bad and expendable and everyone else as potential victims.
This is not limited to one issue. The report makes clear that self-censorship extends across religion, race and gender topics, with roughly one in five teachers admitting they hold back on issues of sexuality or race. That matters because these are precisely the areas now being expanded in modern curricula where governments and schools misuse words like ‘misogyny’ and ‘racism’ to describe typical developmental behaviours and cultural norms incompatible with Western values. How will teachers find a way around that minefield?
Parents are increasingly being told that these topics are handled carefully and impartially in the classroom yet the evidence suggests something more complicated. Four in ten teachers say their schools have no clear guidance at all on how to handle potentially offensive material. Common sense would usually be implemented here but the punishments for challenging protected groups overrides most teachers’ ability to critically think or challenge the ‘acceptable message’.
Where guidance does exist, it is often shaped by institutional priorities, inspection frameworks, safeguarding expectations and reputational risk rather than the specific concerns of individual families.
Concerns around Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education have only deepened that unease. In Scotland, aspects of RSHP guidance drew widespread parental criticism, particularly lessons that discussed gender identity in ways many felt were ambiguous or age-inappropriate. In April 2023, head teachers were urged by educational groups to drop material describing gender identity in young pupils, which sparked intense debate across the country.
It was through my own engagement with parents’ campaigns and dialogue with organisations such as the Free Speech Union that these issues gained greater public scrutiny. Together with many other concerned parents and free speech advocates, we highlighted how RSHP content could place children and schools at conflict with parental expectations and biological understandings of sex. The instructions were confusing for good teachers who saw the obvious conflict of fact vs identity politics and who knew they were going into class every day, letting their pupils down with forced narratives which, if not followed correctly, could lead to uncertain punishments.
While RSHP remains part of the curriculum, the backlash and subsequent revisions have demonstrated that poorly framed guidance can be challenged and altered when parents refuse to be sidelined
Cases beyond Britain reinforce the same point. In Ireland, well-loved Christian teacher Enoch Burke became a high profile example of how disputes over sensitive issues can escalate. He was suspended for refusing to use preferred pronouns for a transgender pupil. He felt that this would compromise his beliefs and was later dismissed.
He has since spent extended periods in prison for repeatedly breaching a court order to stay away from the school where he stated that he has a ‘duty’ and obligation to give his students a valuable education. This message to teachers is unmistakable. When disagreements can lead to suspension, dismissal, and prolonged legal consequences, many will conclude that it’s just much safer not to challenge the accepted narrative.
There’s also a wider international context. In France, the murder of teacher Samuel Paty sent a chilling message across Europe. As President Emmanuel Macron put it: ‘Samuel Paty was killed . . . because extremists want our future.’ British teachers watched that unfold. They didn’t need to be told what it meant.
None of this is to suggest that teachers are the problem. Far from it. Many are doing their best in an increasingly difficult environment but it does raise a serious question about the system they’re working within. When fear, whether of complaints, career damage or personal safety, enters the equation, neutrality is no longer guaranteed. It becomes conditional.
Teachers do not want to rock the boat. Performance reviews are tied to school reputation and funding. Make no mistake, your child is just a number to most teachers and school heads. For parents who have no real interest in their child’s attendance, school performance or education, the answer is easy: leave it up to the head teachers to decide for them as long as the kid isn’t under my feet for six hours a day.
For the rest of us parents who value our children’s time, education and wellbeing, submit Freedom of Information requests to your schools. Ask what is being taught, how it is being delivered, and what guidance teachers are following. Because when teachers feel pressured to self-censor and head teachers prioritise targets over transparency, it is parents who are left in the dark.
