To think that the mother/daughter duo who took Michaela to court should face some natural consequences?

That's her look out. She is also sending her other child to the school. She doesn't sound particularly interested in her child's education if she is happy to let her be rude in class, bullly other pupils, harrass and make racist remarks to teachers and couldn't even be bothered to read the school rules. To be honest, I'm surprised that intimidating children and teachers hasn't led to immediate expulsion for these children. If I had sent my child to a school like that, I would have at the very least expected a zero tolerance attitude to this sort of behaviour. I wouldn't want my child around that kid or her nasty racist little friends.If you look at situations like this and the Batley Grammar School situation where staff and pupils were intimidated by religious zealots, who suffers in the end? Muslim children in deprived areas who just want to get on with learning. Both these schools are majority Muslim schools. Other Muslim parents sent their children to the school, presumably happily. Their children were intimidated and their children's classes were disrupted. I'm not sure what happened to the teacher who was racially abused, or the one who had a brick thrown through their window, but if I was them, Id have left rather than teach a class with her in it. So other children have had their education disrupted. The Batley Grammar school is now having huge issues with teacher recruitment. No one wants to work there. A majority Muslim school which has one teacher in hiding and an entire school chronically short staffed because the actions of religious zealots, ruining the prospects of other children. Its all very well hand wringing about religious freedom but childrens school lives have been made a misery and their prospects damaged by this, for the sake of ideological intimidation by groups often with sinister agenda's.

Well worth a read

The only people who have access to justice now are the very rich (who can fund it themselves) and those with no savings/low/no income who get access to legal aid. Everyone in the middle (most of the country) doesn't have any access to justice because they are not entitled to legal aid but don't have enough money to fund it themselves, so most people can't make these kind of claims.

I don't think anyone being on the receiving end of litigation like this would be proud of the claimant.

I really like the headteacher, she runs a tight ship.

That is not the fault of the school.

If the mother cares so little about what sort of education her daughter is going to receive, or how it is achieved, then the school can't make her take an interest.

She knows now what the school's policy is, and not only wants to keep her older daughter there, but send another there, too.

All taxpayer funded organisations should be secular, whatever sky daddy people want to believe in is up to them but when unreasonable adjustments are being demanded it's just a recipe for disaster. Should I be able to take Friday afternoon and Monday morning off every week to worship The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Of course not as it would impact my job and my colleagues workloads. It's a good judgement and hopefully will allow more schools and workplaces to limit the toxic ramifications of religion.

I think you are missing the point that this particular school' whole ethos, it's main philosophy is that it is a place where there is no religious or ideological practices because they believe them to be divisive. They have found that when there are no religious clubs, individual assemblies, LGBTQ+ groups etc that the school community works more cohesively and the pupils are more individually successful. They allowed some boundaries to be bent (allowing children to pray in the playground) and almost immediately there was conflict amongst pupils and racist incidents. Proving that identity politics has no place in schools.

Totally agree.

There is no room for compromise in this situation.

Well there wasn't by the end point.

But at the start of the praying, of course there could have been. But the school isn't prepared to ever hear the student voice or preference.

It is shocking to me that parents would agree to a particular school philosophy to get their child admitted, and then rescind that acceptance and try to bully the school into changing the policy

See the post at 20:00 @Emotionalsupportviper ... it's not entirely clear how much of the school philosophy the mum understood before sending her daughter there

Mummy also couldnt care less about the rights of other children who were at the school to not be bullied and intimidated by her daughter, or for their lessons not to be disrupted, the rights of the teachers to a safe working environment. She wanted to send her children to a strict school, well the strictness applies to her too.

You're missing my point.

A successful school considers respect & tolerance, and looks for ways to accommodate preferences where possible.

That's not to the exclusion of practical considerations. It's not to accommodate every variation of religious observance. But some can be considered.

Religion is not being brought in as part of the actual education, curriculum or school-based events.

That is your choice.

Other parents have chosen to send their children there precisely because of the discipline and work ethic that the school promotes.

Aspirational ideas are not law. Law is about drawing a line about what is permitted to happen and what does not.

I think it’s overall worse for society if religious people feel they need to be educated separately from the rest of the population.

You are going to get far more ‘extremism’ of any religion in those schools, and less exposure of, and tolerance to, the ways others live their lives.

I might not quite use the same language but I'd tend to broadly agree, including the reference to despotism

It's only one school. It can't have to be the perfect school for everyone in the world.

What does this mean?

Every school should aspire to work on the basis of compromise and mutual respect, notwithstanding the need for some non-negotiable rules.

It's not about being 'perfect'.

It wouldn't always be a physical space. We can refer to space meaning capacity to understand or compromise.

The non-physical space is within the heart and mind of the faithful.

There is no room for compromise in this situation. Children were being bullied. Staff were being threatened. Property was being damaged. This is verging on terrorist* behaviour. It doesn't pay to "compromise" with bullying tactics.

*unlawfully using violence and intimidation to pursue one's aims

They may have to. Muslim faiths pray 5 timed a day, and some of those times are during the work / school day.

That's not to say that it should interfere with other activities like a work meeting or a class, but of course it should be possible to accommodate.

The utter lack of tolerance here is actually upsetting.

As I said upthread I’m Orthodox Jewish. My parents were brought up where there were no Jewish schools. My DGF had my DF attending religious instruction every night after school , Synagogue on Fri night/Sat and Cheder (Jewish Sunday school equivalent). He then said more prayers at home and before school. My DGPs were hardcore. You can only imagine the amount of prayers and rituals religious Jews are expected to adhere to. I absolutely do not want any of this in state schools. It has no place there imo. As it happens my parents rejected all religious belief and we were brought up with no religious instruction. Education is education. Religious education is religious education and shouldn’t be part of the state system. Ideally there’d be no religious schools private or otherwise. But if someone feels that strongly, they should send their children to a school that is set up to accommodate the prayers, practices, rituals etc.

It is shocking to me that parents would agree to a particular school philosophy to get their child admitted, and then rescind that acceptance and try to bully the school into changing the policy

I don't think this is 'shocking'. It's ok to challenge what you believe to be discriminatory at any point, regardless of prior decisions.

This particular case had a number of elements, including threatening and harassing behaviour to students and staff. That's not acceptable.

As a wider point, it's dismaying that some schools don't want to embrace, in a reasonable way, religious differences.

I wouldn’t send my dog to Michaela. It’s a dictatorship run by a bonkers despot.

The head has been given her discretion in law. Honestly she made it clear enough in her intentions; this foolish mother can appeal it and either it will be kicked out again or become a serious precedent. Either way it's a perverse result as the school is no more inclusive, it has legal backing not to be, and the children who are "bringing" this action will be further marginalised, not by the school but the adults who are so anxious to change the school.

I don't share the head's politics but you cannot fault her for clarity, and her justification is equally so. It is her school. Good. Other schools are available if you do not like her ethos.

The school is very clear about their secular policy. They asked all parents to sign up to the ethos before starting at the school

Interestingly, it mentions in the judgment that the claimant's mum never attended the school's open days or even the "welcome event" for new parents, and while she'd doubtless got other things to do it does make me wonder just how closely she read the policies before signing

They should be footing the bill instead of wasting tax payers money.