{"id":377915,"date":"2026-01-19T03:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T03:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/377915\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T03:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T03:49:16","slug":"four-year-olds-taught-to-shoot-at-illegal-school-run-by-conspiracists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/377915\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-year-olds taught to shoot at \u2018illegal school\u2019 run by conspiracists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children as young as four are being given weapons training at a suspected illegal school run by conspiracy theorists who believe they are \u201cat war\u201d with the state.<\/p>\n

Hope Sussex offers lessons in shooting and martial arts alongside English, maths and science. <\/p>\n

Photographs published by Matthew Single, who founded Hope with his wife Sadie, show children of primary school age holding air rifles and firing at targets on the grounds near the village of Netherfield in East Sussex. The children have also made necklaces from bullet casings as well as their own nunchucks. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

During a recent trip to Budapest pupils were taken to a shooting range and posed holding submachine guns. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Hope Sussex was founded in 2021 by a group of anti-vaccine activists and former members of the far right. <\/p>\n

It describes itself as an \u201cautonomous community\u201d that supports home-educating parents and denies that it is a school. Ofsted believes it is operating as one illegally, but closed its criminal investigation into Hope due to the limitations of current legislation.<\/p>\n

At present, Ofsted does not have the power to force its way onto the premises of suspected illegal schools. When it visited Hope Sussex<\/a> in 2022, inspectors were prevented from entering by Mr Single and another member of staff. The Children\u2019s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is making its way through parliament, proposes to provide the inspectorate with much stronger powers. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Children are also trained in archery<\/p>\n

The Singles, who are former members of the British National Party, encourage parents to remove pupils from mainstream state education and send them to their site for lessons while telling councils that the children are being home-educated.<\/p>\n

According to the latest company filings, more than 40 families attend Hope<\/a> each week. <\/p>\n

A full range of subjects is taught, albeit often through the prism of conspiracy. Mrs Single, 47, a former state primary teacher, once said that her history lessons include \u201csome of the fallacies and lies that have taken place\u201d, such as the claim that Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 with the prior knowledge of President Roosevelt \u2014 a conspiracy theory that has been widely debunked by historians. She also told children that 9\/11 was the modern-day Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n

Mr Single, 54, an avowed admirer of President Putin and Kim Jong-un, has said he believes the \u201cawake community\u201d is \u201cat war\u201d with the state and urged people to \u201ctake the fight to them\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

In a post entitled \u201cThey are coming for our children\u201d, he wrote: \u201cWe must be prepared to step outside of the comfort zone of simply protesting and demonstrating with placards and megaphones \u2014 we have our army in the field, now we must press forward with greater, more specific action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to questions from The Times, he said the comments were made in the context of \u201capplying political pressure on the government\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said that he gave lessons in \u201carchery and air-weapon shooting, all run to a high level with a maximum emphasis on safety at all times\u201d, and had taught people from the age of four to 82. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not my intention to build an \u2018army\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is however our intention to help build a generation of confident, adaptable \u2026 young adults that are able to stand up for themselves and their communities against a government seemingly intent on destroying everything beautiful and cherished in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ofsted declined to comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Children as young as four are being given weapons training at a suspected illegal school run by conspiracy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-377915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}