Education was once considered the great leveller in society—a force that transcended background, race, class, and creed. It was where children learnt to reason, debate, and build the skills needed to succeed in life. Schools were not battlegrounds of ideology but sanctuaries of learning, merit, and discipline. They taught children how to think, not whatto think.
Not anymore.
Across the United Kingdom, schools have been quietly transformed into arenas of ideological struggle. Identity politics, critical race theory, gender ideology, and anti-Western narratives are no longer fringe issues—they are core tenets of the modern curriculum in many state schools. Instead of fostering unity and intellectual growth, the education system is increasingly sowing division, confusion, and resentment.
Children are not being educated.
They’re being reprogrammed.
The Rise of Ideological Education
Over the past decade, a seismic shift has occurred in British classrooms. Driven by a combination of political activism, unregulated external lobby groups, and a failure of government oversight, ideology has taken precedence over intellect.
Much of this stems from ideas imported from radical corners of American academia. Critical Race Theory (CRT)—a framework that views all social interactions through the prism of race and power—has crept into teacher training and lesson planning. Rather than promoting universal values, CRT encourages children to view themselves and others primarily through skin colour.
Similarly, gender ideology, once a fringe academic theory, has found its way into primary schools through third-party organisations. Children as young as five are told they might have been “born in the wrong body,” with schools encouraged to explore gender fluidity before most children have even learned long division.
Traditional historical narratives—once designed to instil pride in Britain’s contributions to global development—are rewritten through a lens of guilt and shame. The abolition of slavery, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution: all are now recontextualised as byproducts of oppression, rather than pillars of progress.
Who asked for this?
Where was the national debate?
Certainly not in Parliament—and certainly not among the parents.
Children Confused, Parents Muzzled
Stories of schools acting without parental knowledge or consent have become disturbingly common.
In multiple instances, children have been socially transitioned—given new names and pronouns—without their parents being informed. Teachers are instructed to affirm new gender identities based on a child’s self-declaration, sometimes within a single school day. Biological reality is dismissed, while questioning these policies risks being labelled “transphobic” or “unsafe.”
Elsewhere, white pupils are being told they carry inherited racial guilt. Boys are reprimanded or re-educated for exhibiting so-called “toxic masculinity.” Girls are expected to share changing rooms or toilets with boys who identify as female, with no right to opt out, and often no warning to parents.
The effect on children has been devastating. Confusion, anxiety, and a fractured sense of identity are now common themes among school-age children. Rather than encouraging resilience and critical thinking, schools are teaching them fragility and ideological conformity.
And as for parents? If they raise concerns, they’re told they don’t understand “modern values.” Some are even reported to social services or banned from school premises.
We’ve gone from parental rights to parental silencing.
From Reading and Writing to Reprogramming
The correlation between ideological obsession and academic decline is hard to ignore.
While schools devote increasing time to “diversity weeks,” unconscious bias training, and rainbow flags in corridors, core academic standards are in freefall. According to recent studies, one in four children leaves primary school unable to read properly. The UK continues to slip in international league tables for maths, science, and literacy.
Many schools no longer enforce basic behavioural expectations. In some, teachers are banned from using red ink to mark incorrect work—because it might “traumatise” pupils. Gold stars and merit certificates have been replaced with therapy dogs and “safe spaces.”
This infantilisation of children—treating them as fragile victims in constant need of affirmation—has destroyed rigour and discipline. The result? A generation of young people less equipped for adulthood than any in living memory.
Meanwhile, the political indoctrination continues unabated.
The Decline of Authority and Discipline
One of the clearest casualties of the culture war in education has been authority itself.
Where once teachers commanded respect and upheld strict standards of behaviour, they are now undermined by a system that views discipline as oppressive. Punitive measures are discouraged, uniforms are optional, and traditional hierarchies are questioned or abolished altogether.
Violence and disruption are on the rise. In 2023, Ofsted reported a sharp increase in classroom assaults against staff. Teachers have become babysitters in classrooms full of distracted, disengaged, and disillusioned pupils—many glued to mobile phones or caught in the spiral of online identity crises.
Mental health concerns are rising, yet schools often confuse psychological support with ideological affirmation. Instead of creating order and stability, they fuel identity anxiety and reward emotional outbursts.
What was once a system that forged citizens is now one that fosters victims.
Private Schools Hold the Line—for Now
Some semblance of sanity still exists in Britain’s private schools. Many have resisted the ideological tide, maintaining a focus on academic excellence, discipline, and cultural heritage. They teach British history without apology, uphold traditional values, and enforce standards that produce well-rounded, capable individuals.
But this lifeline is under threat.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees would force countless families out of the independent sector and into an overstretched, ideologically compromised state system. This is not a tax on the rich—it is a tax on aspiration. A tax on working- and middle-class families who sacrifice holidays and luxuries to invest in their children’s future.
If enacted, this policy would dismantle choice, punish ambition, and dilute the last bastion of educational excellence in Britain.
Undermining National Identity
Perhaps the most chilling effect of this ideological colonisation is the erosion of national identity.
Generations of British children were raised to understand and appreciate their country—its history, heroes, and hard-won freedoms. Not through propaganda, but through knowledge and pride in shared cultural inheritance.
Today, this is vanishing.
Union Jacks are removed from classrooms for being “problematic.” St George’s Day is ignored, while other cultural festivals are celebrated in full. Singing the national anthem is considered passé or even offensive. Children are taught more about microaggressions than Magna Carta.
If a nation ceases to love itself, how can it defend itself? If its youngest citizens are taught only its sins and never its virtues, what future does that nation have?
Reclaim the Classroom
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The Free Press UK believes that education must be rescued from the clutches of ideology and returned to its original mission: to inform, inspire, and elevate. Children deserve truth—not theory. Discipline—not disruption. Knowledge—not dogma.
We must demand transparency in what is taught. Restore parental rights. Scrap ideological teaching materials. Withdraw taxpayer funding from activist groups in schools. And re-establish education as a national, not political, endeavour.
Because if we lose the classroom, we lose the culture.
And if we lose the culture – We lose the country.