Education: Making Homophobia History?

There's a really interesting story in The Guardian today; ''Lessons on gay history cut homophobic bullying in north London school.'
"A north London school which has developed lessons on gay historical figures who suffered persecution claims to have succeeded in "more or less eliminating homophobic bullying" in its classrooms and playgrounds over the last five years.
"The life story of the wartime code-breaker Alan Turing is among those being used to tackle homophobia. Authors Oscar Wilde and James Baldwin and artist Andy Warhol also feature.
"Now Stoke Newington secondary plans to share the lessons with hundreds of primary and secondary school teachers. By the summer, it will have trained more than a hundred teachers in how to "educate and celebrate" being gay."
The Guardian reports; "Elly Barnes, a music teacher, devised the lesson plans and training course with the help of colleagues. Her concern began when she heard a pupil say their "pen was so gay" when it snapped in two. Barnes's aim is to "eradicate homophobia from all schools" by giving staff the confidence and resources required to tackle the prejudice..."
"By looking at famous LGBT people in history, we've changed opinions and we have had a number of pupils come out," Barnes said. "We have also changed the language used in the school. I used to hear the word gay used all the time as a derogatory term. Now we hardly hear it."
This all sounds like good news - homophobia in schools is a crisis that desperately needs to be tackled, and classes like these can make pupils challenge and question homophobia.
So Fagburn gives much kudos to Elly Barnes (that's her in the photo).
There is a longer piece in the Education supplement which also contains four - very brief - quotes from pupils.
The Guardian journalists - Jessica Shepherd and Sue Learner - make the classes sound like a bit of a magic wand ("Abuse and harassment 'more or less eliminated'").
Surely a few lessons about "Famous Gays" can't have been that effective?
We're told nothing about the general culture/ethos of the school. What else do they do?
And I'd like to have heard more from more pupils. They say that some have come out since the lessons were introduced - again, great stuff.
Could we hear from them?
And the parents? It sounds like some of them are being educated as well.
But if the Daily Mail was running a story on this, they'd work damned hard to find some parents who are livid - 20something years after Section 28, the very idea of "teaching children about homosexuality" is still a politically explosive issue.
I also imagine - perhaps in other schools with a less liberal culture generally - that a gay kid could find the introduction of "gay history lessons" agonising...