Dear Editor,
I wish to clarify a very misleading article in your November issue entitled ‘Kingham head search’, in which you make reference to the flying of rainbow flags in the school’s library and chapel.
As the former head of Kingham Hill School I was horrified when I learned that this had happened, yet your article appears to suggest it happened on my watch. Nothing could be further from the truth. The school, whose ethos is to educate children in accordance with evangelical and Protestant teaching, was inspected by the ISI in 2021. It was rated excellent in every educational aspect, but failed the inspection overall, principally because I had upheld Biblical teaching on marriage and would not endorse Pride in the school.
Pride flags were not ‘discovered’ at KHS. The board has changed direction, and now marks events like Pride Month and Transgender Awareness Day. This is their right, but it is not one I could personally reconcile with the objects of the Trust.
Yours sincerely,
Nick Seward By email
en approached Kingham Hill’s governors for more information and was given these statements by a spokesperson for the school: ‘It is not true that the Board has “changed direction” in relation to these matters, and we are bewildered at the suggestion to the contrary’. ‘Kingham Hill School remains fully committed to its evangelical ethos, and we do not accept that this is in any way undermined by our efforts to ensure we provide a genuinely inclusive, tolerant, friendly and welcoming environment for all of our pupils. Indeed, we have simply strived to offer precisely the sort of welcome to non-evangelicals in our school community that we would hope to receive as evangelicals from wider society.’
