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

I the (seemingly unlikely) event that anyone would like to read the judgment rather than just make assertions about it, here is the judgement

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Judgement-R-v-Michaela-Community-Schools-Trust.pdf

If the case is eligible for state funding, then the state should pay. I do not actually know if this case was state-funded.

The state should pay for wider access to justice than it currently does, it was a disgrace it was cut back by the Tories. Access to justice is vital.

I think it is fine the parent/child took the school to court, courts are there to ensure the law is upheld. It is only by cases being taken to court that we can identify where the boundary of the law lies.

Not everyone is a doormat, and I support the use of the courts to test cases out.

It's their school, their rules.

They are entitled to do exactly as they pleased. A school is above all place for learning, not for religious praying.

She should have sent her dd to a Muslim school then. Simple, would have avoided this.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain why are you repeating yourself? Obviously I disagree with you.

My point which I thought was quite clear is that I’m very surprised the school’s right to set its own rules overrides the human right to expression of religion (during non teaching periods).
This appears a very slippery slope and I hope it is challenged so that there can be full clarity.

imagine living in Albania and sending your C of E children to a school and then demanding they be allowed to pray to Jesus during school hours and expecting the tax paying citizens of Albania to fund a law suit for you? No. Neither can I. Imagine how they would go down. Entitled.

I think an employer could object to prayer breaks if they interfered with the employee's work and if they were proved to be excessive. But hopefully both parties would and do come to an agreement about this.

There are rules though about religion/faith, if I were bullied at work if I were a moderate Muslim, for not following the faith correctly or being haram if I chose to join a work choir, I'd go straight to HR and complain about this. This mother and her daughter had no right to intimidate and attack pupils and teachers nor to engage in inflammatory behaviour of this kind to incite racial hatred, and I hope the teacher who had a brick put through their window pressed criminal charges against the people who did this to them.

The veiled racism and Islamaphobia in this thread is pretty disgusting. Praying takes maximum five minutes and it’s actually pretty shocking to not provide a facility for that in this day and age in a school or workplace should someone request it. It is entirely unreasonable to ban so simple
a request and is really out of touch and tone deaf in an area that has such a large Muslim population. The backlash against and
scandal about schools such as this will soon come out with their zero tolerance policies on discipline and behaviour. The exclusion rate and isolation figures and everyone will be shocked at how it was allowed to happen.

I am very pleased that the school won - the ethos of the school is to create a cohesive community with everyone eating and working together; religion is excluded from the school, and there are rules and high expectations around behaviour, study, discipline - which obviously works because the school gets outstanding results and is oversubscribed.

The family who sued, could have chosen another school in the area which allows religion to be practised, but decided not to - and indeed are sending a sibling - so a case of trying to have their cake and eat it too? Why should the whole ethos of the school have been changed, when there are alternatives available to this family? The rules are the same for every child in the school - all of whom agree to the rules before they enrol.

In a world which is increasingly polarised and divided, what the Michaela is trying to do, is really important IMO.

(I was a free school founder - it's a HUGE task and took YEARS to get our little school off the ground and so I have huge respect for Barbalsingh and her vision/drive - I personally think there should be more discipline/consequences for poor behaviour/respect for teachers by the pupils - and less/no religion in state schools, unless they are being exclusively funded and run by the religious communities they serve.)

It's judgment not judgement...

The school has the right to set it's own rules. It also has the right not to allow prayers or if so only at certain times which must be adhered to.

As I've previously said, if the parents of such religions who require prayers a certain times of day wish for their children to do this, if the school they send their children to does not allow this, then they should send their children to the appropriate faith school.

I was sent to a Catholic convent (mostly because it was strict, nothing to do with religion!) but the other Christian pupils including me, knew that when we attended this school that prayers in assembly, attending Mass once a week and other religious customs and celebrations were mandatory for all the Christian pupils. The same went for my brother who attended the local Catholic boys school (college). Pupils of other faiths were supposed to attend assemblies but not the other religious services or celebrations, unless they wanted to do so.

And I would be astonished if all employers allow prayer breaks.

You wouldn't would you OP?

Of course employers allow prayer breaks. There may be guidance around timing & location but an employer cannot prevent expression of religion

On this particular case, I've become increasingly less a fan of this ultra-rigorous overly disciplined approach in general, and this school in particular. It in no way prepares students for the world.

Praying should have been allowed; the bullying & intimidation if occurring should have been dealt with separately.

This happened to a school friend of mine years ago. Was a normal moderate Muslim girl at school and got married to who seemed a moderate Muslim man and had children and moved to Dubai. At school, she didn't wear any head coverings (wasn't allowed back then anyway) and at home her home life was fairly strict but she listened to Western music, wore Western clothes and occasionally sneaked out with us for fun to clubs/discos always saying she was staying with another moderate Muslim friend. There's photos of her after she got married on holiday with her first DC in a swimming pool with her hair loose and in a normal black one piece swimming costume and wearing Western clothes!

When she moved to Dubai all our friends noticed she'd started wearing the hijab and on visits home this carried on. Her DH eventually left his job (early retirement?) and they moved back home to London. I believe she still wears the hijab which is her choice, but I did hear from a mutual friend living in Dubai that she'd heard that my friend had been shamed by her colleagues, neighbours, friends even there for not wearing the hijab or another covering and for not following her religion correctly and as you said, the women were the worst for shaming her. That is an appalling thing to do. This woman did say some quite cryptic things about her time living in Dubai and I think lots of things were unsaid about her life there. I've lost touch with her now.

No, this is incorrect. The school has a clear non-religion policy, with no prayer rooms, no concessions to any religious or faith demand (they do Macbeth in spite of Jehovah’s witnesses; no separate crockery for Hindu pupils etc). The only concession is ALL meals are vegetarian so children can eat in mixed groups instead of segregated to promote unity and cohesion. This is made very, very clear pre enrollment. Some pupils started spontaneously praying in the playground at breaks for a brief period. This was ignored by school management for a time until it began causing problems. When some of the praying students started hassling non participant muslim children the school banned the playground prayer to nip the bullying in the bud. This worked and returned things to normal. The court case was raised afterwards but it is not clear if it was a direct result of the ban on the playground praying. The school has outstanding results, behaviour and cohesion among it’s pupils - gets over 800 Visit requests a year from other educators looking to replicate their success.

Very well put, Noicant

As a PP put it the HT has been very discreet about the attacks, which was probably the right thing to do; trouble is it's enabled some to brush these aside as if they somehow don't matter

It is of course true that as with any religion only a minority behave like this, but unfortunately that minority make a lot of noise and I expect the school would rather prevent this spreading

Thing is even if you forget about the praying as such. This girl and her mum and her friends went around bullying people and abusing them if they didn’t want to pray or again if we skip the word pray… because they didn’t do what bully girl and her friends wanted. So they took it to court when the school put in place things to stop bully group being able to bully more.

Do we give in to bullies…

am very surprised indeed that the schools right to set its own rules overrode the individuals right to practice religion. For this reason I hope there is an appeal so the judgement can be analysed more closely.

If you'd like to analyse the judgment more closely, here is a link to the 84 pages

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Judgement-R-v-Michaela-Community-Schools-Trust.pdf

But they weren't asking for a prayer room, just to be allowed to pray in the playground during their lunch break.

The problem is that the playground is in full view of public passing by on the street. The result was that the school began to receive lots of threats and abuse. "The callers accused the school of disrespecting Islam by requiring the children to pray outside in wet and dirty conditions." (quote from the published legal judgment) The school also received a bomb threat.

I’m from an ethnic and minority group. I don’t think some posters understand how much pressure to conform can be brought to bear on people who step outside expected cultural and religious norms. It can be pretty awful. In a school with such a large muslim population ensuring religion stays at home also gives freedom to those kids who don’t want to conform or come from families with less orthodox interpretations of religion. It provides a safe, secular environment for those kids.

A Muslim girl in france was beaten into a coma by some other muslim girls for dressing in a western style. That is how awful it can get. The girl who brought the case had been previously suspended for threatening to stab someone. She and her family seemed to have created a really toxic environment for other students and teachers.

I wouldn’t want that woman or her children anywhere near a school my Dd was in. One can’t help but to think the girl being allowed to continue at that school will make many feel frankly unsafe if kids were being coerced into religious expressions or quitting choir because of her.

The head was extremely discreet about the ‘pressure’ the pro-prayer lobby applied to pupils and staff.

She barely mentioned the attack on a black teacher. Or the brick through the window of another’s home.

Least said, soonest mended. I hope those poor teachers have recovered though.

You only have to look at the treatment of women in Iran by the women whose job it is to ensure compliance with religious dress and activities. I can't remember what they are called.

There's no need to become a racist just because of one Muslim you disagree with. I'm sure there are white people doing equally unreasonable things in the courts.

I am very surprised indeed that the schools right to set its own rules overrode the individuals right to practice religion. For this reason I hope there is an appeal so the judgement can be analysed more closely.

If that's the worst that went on in the playground the pupils must be saints.

The student was awarded legal aid to bring the case to court.