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

They don’t need to pray in school to fulfill religious requirements! They can catch up perfectly well either side of the school day as thousands of children have done for years.

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.

I thought it was a good, just result. There are a lot of choices for schooling in the U.K.

Why would the school tolerate racist attacks on black people? And bullying and intimidation of young children.

The Playground Prayer group didn’t play nice. Bricks through teacher’s home windows, etc..

Not the smart way to try and prove your point.

What 'truth'? 🤔

As a pp eloquently described there are no practising Muslims in this country alongside a lot of non practising Christians.

Historically religions have thrived through authoritarianism (plenty of historical examples in fact history is littered with them....blasphemy anyone?). If we remove authority and social coercion through pressured religious ritual the religions become weaker

I think there are many Muslims afraid that their religion and culture will fade and be encompassed by our general liberal views because there are too many opportunities for their children to become westernised and ultimately become non believers.

Ritual Islamic prayer in schools quicky shows which Muslims are veering from faith and this lack of observance may have ramifications in the community. I suppose a similar example is the hijab.. . what are the family and extended community reactions if it is noted a girl simply removes it on school premises.

This is key. The playground prayers weren’t about a devout bunch of students innocently getting their prayers done the best way they could. It sounds more like a power play.

I thought it was that they started harassing Muslim children who weren't joining in with the prayers?

No I don't. I know lots of children who are more or less religious than the rest of their family, and going to secondary school is the perfect time to start thinking about your own beliefs and not just following your parents.

By punishing the other child I mean restricting their school choices which is what the thread is about.

Possibly a change of skin colour. You know, so everyone can ‘fit in’.

I think you are all lying. You expect other religions to follow what is happening to Christians becoming secular. That, to you is evolution. You can’t handle anyone not agreeing with that so you want to squash them in some colonial show of best of British.

This attitude is really offensive. Minority religious groups are taxpayers too and the justice system is there to protect all citizens.

It was made clear. I understand that there had been difficulties with this particular pupil and the girl had boasted that she'd "bring her (Mrs Birbalsingh) down" when she had been disciplined because of rudeness.

Teachers and pupils had been physically threatened regarding the praying ban.

Apparently applicants to the school are told about the very strict discipline enforced, that there is no overt prayer of any faith in the school (though if a pupil chooses to pray silently then they can do so), and that all meals are vegetarian so that there is no argument about meat being Halal, Kosher etc.

The whole ethos of the school is to bring all children together in an atmosphere of tolerance and friendship.

A Muslim community leader explains here that the Koran requires prayer, but does not insist on particular themes - these are culturally imposed.

I get fed up of people who want their children in particular schools because they get good educational results, and then make demands to change to discipline/ teaching methods etc - the very things that are producing those results.

We have it with our local church schools - the applications list is huge - but then half of those parents object to X.Y and Z and don't want their children to be disciplined when they misbehave etc. If you don't like the school, don't send your child.

I am not shocked at the comments on this thread. MN is always full of racism on threads like this.

I think we need a consensus to banish all religions from education settings

I think we need a consensus to banish all religions from STATE education settings. An independent school can be faith based, but this should be funded by that institution/individual parents. As it is in France.

Also, I think this legal case should have been funded by Muslim leaders, not the tax payer.

I wasn’t sure whether it was the right decision at first, but I then read more about the wider situation. To me it seems the right decision for the Michaela school and can see why the head made it.

I don’t think anyone else has mentioned that the court felt the student had not written the statements entirely herself!

It would be interesting to know whether posters would be as supportive if a large group of Pentecostalist children commandeered part of a small school playground to hold a session of testimony and speaking in tongues while other students were just trying to eat lunch!

I don’t think that would be reasonable either, and the school would be right not to allow that too.

Mummy wants the best education for her children and the best school is Michaela. Mummy thinks the school would be perfect if only it would drop its secular stance.
She could,of course, attend one of the several schools in the area which accommodates Muslim prayers.
But their results are not stellar like Michaela's.
So, Mummy can have an academically successful school but no religion or a school which prays but little chance of a superior education.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to her that it is her responsibility to ensure that her girl received proper religious training by attending the mosque regularly and sending her to the equivalent of our Sunday School.
She should also teach her daughter.by example, by being the perfect model of a Muslim woman.

If they’re doing that to deliberately annoy people of religious faith they’re pathetic.

If it’s entirely atheist, not pushing Christmas and Easter etc they’re fine. But mum also had the right to challenge it. Which she did.

Of course it’s ok. She is challenging a policy, it doesn’t mean she thinks the quality of teaching is poor or that her children should be forced out of the school.

She won’t be able to do the same thing again, the judgement has been made. She would have to appeal the judgment to the high court.

We have never had unlimited access, for obvious reasons. And no one is suggesting we should have unlimited access.

But access to justice has been vastly cut back by the present government, and that is not a good thing.

This!

All the people on the thread going on about the ‘right to pray’ are missing the point. It was allowed until the group doing it starred bullying and intimidating other children of the same faith for not upholding the same views. It was then banned to protect these children against this bunch of intolerant students (and their mothers).

Well said.

Thank you for your measured and thoughtful post. I think we need a consensus to banish all religions from education settings.

I would encourage everyone to read the judgement PP posted. It’s very enlightening about the context and why Michaela school banned prayer.

The crux of the judgement seems to be if you don’t like it you can find another school. I’m glad this was brought to court and clarified. The abuse one of the teachers received was extreme, racist and disgusting (I assume from the language that she is black).

Honestly past being able to wear articles of faith (crosses, Kippans, turbans, hijab) people shouldn’t be asking schools to organise themselves around individuals faith. It may be the most important thing to an individual but it doesn’t mean society or institutions have to organise themselves around your personal beliefs.

If you wouldn’t want your own child intimidated into a prayer group you shouldn’t want it for other peoples children either regardless of their background. The judgement explains why the actions of the claimant undermined school cohesiveness and is worth a read.

But there has been access to fair justice and this is available to everyone.

We can’t possibly offer free justice to everyone and anyone for anything - there has to be a limit because we would be bankrupt very quickly, the court system would collapse.

There are public interest criteria stipulations for good reason.