UK's strictest Headmistress taken to school over banning prayers in the playground

[cakeorwine]

Top London school taken to high court over prayer ban | London | The Guardian

I don't believe that schools should have a compulsory act of worship.
However - it seems that there has been a ban on prayer rituals on the premises.

"The prayer policy was introduced in March last year by the school’s founder, Katharine Birbalsingh – frequently described as Britain’s strictest headteacher – when the school found itself the target of abuse and harassment after pupils were seen praying in the school playground by passersby. About 30 students took part, some kneeling on their blazers as they were not permitted to bring in prayer mats, the court heard.
Before these events, the court heard that prayers were not expressly banned at Michaela, though it had no dedicated prayer room. The new policy had the “practical effect of only preventing Muslims from praying because their prayer by nature has a ritualised nature rather than being internal”, the court heard.
The pupil’s lawyer said it was in effect “a ban uniquely on Muslim prayer”, stopping pupils praying “at a time as required by Islam”. In contrast, it would not, she said, prevent a Christian child sitting quietly in the corner of the playground from praying"

I think it seems that prayer mats were banned - and I think it seems they were banned from kneeling on blazers.

If someone wants to pray in the playground voluntarily, then they should be able to. It's not an act of compulsory worship.

I can see why they wanted this kept quiet.

I think it’s extremely brave of them to stand up for what they know is right.

No, she is denying them the right to go to that school because of their religious practices, which is why it’s in court.

Is praying in a prayer room public worship?
Or private worship?
Should they be facilitating pupils ability to worship?
Or should they be preventing pupils ability to worship?

When does not facilitating become preventing?

If I provide a prayer room, I am facilitating their ability to worship.
If I say you can't pray in the playground and I don't provide a prayer room, then I am taking steps to prevent their ability to worship.

I do think that if it was Christians being prevented from saying Grace, then there would be a different reaction from some people who think it's ok to stop Muslims praying in a special room.

@cakeorwine
I don't believe a school has to facilitate religious worship in the school during school hours by default. If the Head wants to, that's their decision. They should not be obliged to.

Collective worship which is a law is entirely separate.

Can a school prevent pupils from undertaking aspects of their worship such as prayer?

I disagree to some extent. You can get very good GCSE results in most subjects through rote learning, memorisation and exam practice. At A-level, it depends on the subject more, but in many subjects if you know the content very well you can get away with less application skills. Often, if you practice enough evaluation questions, they are quite formulaic.

Michaela's sixth form say they ask for 7s at GCSE, plus Grade 8 in the subjects they want to study- it's a highly selective sixth form. If they weren't getting a lot of As and A*s, there would be serious questions there!

I'd also add that their sixth form hasn't been open long, and so there's only one year of A-level data where students didn't have teacher assessed grades or advanced information (which made a huge difference at A-level). Interestingly, they don't seem to have updated their website to reflect their 2023 results yet...

@cakeorwine
I think I have been very clear in my opinion. I appreciate you don't agree with me. And the courts will decide.

But to answer your question, No, they shouldn't. I can only go on what I've read in the newspaper and my understanding of what transpired is that the Head is not denying them any aspect of their religion. She had not banned students praying. She is not allowing ritualistic group prayer in the playground which all other students are using.

It's a big difference.

so Muslim women are simultaneously oppressed by their hijabs/Muslim men and yet when they speak up for their rights, they are arrogant?

we can't win!

She is not allowing group prayer in the playground and is not allowing a prayer room to be offered.

It would be interesting to see if their pupils were allowed to use their debating skills and critical thinking skills to discuss if this is preventing their ability to practice religion or just not facilitating it.

Maybe it could be a discussion over the communal lunch they have where they discuss things?

I don't think it's their right to demand a prayer room when the head has explained there is no space and other groups have to abide by her rules and compromise.
She has explained how bullying and staff intimidation have been occurring.It all sounds very reasonable and they can pray in their own time without disrupting the school.

there is no space? when the pupils are all outside at lunch, you are telling us that there is not ONE single class room where students can pray?😂
the disruption and protest only happened because she refused to make very simple minimal provisions. make the provisions and problem solved. she created division and polarisation.

@Joonio also you, and others with islamophobic views keep referring to this group of kids as they. typical them and us thinking. they are kids. they are British. thankfully all of us have our rights enshrined in law which includes the right to practice our religion in any part of the country. including you

the only way to protect our own rights is to protect the rights of others.

@therealcookiemonster
I was very clear in my original post that my view would stand if it was Christians (specifically catholics) wanting to organise a group rosary in the school canteen. This is not about Islam and if posters here want to use this as an excuse to discriminate against Muslims than they will get no support from me.

It's up to the school Head to best decide how the facilities of the school are best utilised for the benefits of all students. It's not up to the students and it's not up to their parents.

I don't particularly like this school Head from what I've read about her, but generally Heads and also teachers need to be supported and their judgement should be trusted (and challenged when necessary).
We don't know why she didn't provide a prayer room but I suspect she had her good reasons and I don't believe it's because she is anti religion or anti Muslim.

The idea there is no space is strange- it doesn't need to be a dedicated room all day, just a classroom that students can use at lunchtime and someone to supervise the students. The supervision of students could be the issue- it could be hard to staff a room like this every day, but other schools do manage it. Given their staff seem to have directed lunchtimes anyway, it ought to be easier than other schools!

If the students were really that well behaved, the school would be able to trust them in the classroom without supervision, too!

I know the school claims to be oversubscribed, but it's actually under capacity as well. I'm not sure parents are queuing up to send their children there, despite the excellent GCSEs.

I've never cared for them much, I must admit, but I suspect they would be difficult to get rid of.
There was a woman in Iran recently who was publicly flogged as punishment for not wearing the hijab. She tore it off as soon as they let her go. Brave woman. I'm sure you can see why I find it suspect.

It's amazing how militant most of the Atheists (with some honorable exceptions) on this thread are. They are the only group that want to impose their belief system on the rest of society, despite the laws to the contrary.

no I don't. People should wear what they want. it's awful that women in Iran are forced to wear it. it's also awful women in certain countries are not allowed to wear it.

I find sandals with socks, men letting beer bellies hang out, bums hanging out of shorts, anything animal print, pants that are practically around ankles with undies hiked up certain clothes utterly ridiculous but I will fight for everyone's right to wear what they want. why can't you extend the same courtesy to me wearing a hijab?

@Bartoz unless you are Katherine... unlikely you know her motivations or inner thoughts re Muslims? or whether she is being reasonable to deny them a room to pray in?
and like you said if a head is being unreasonable, she should be challenged. right?

I mean let's see what the judge says in the end...

Clearly there is space within the school grounds since the kids were able to pray in the playground. If she doesn’t have a fundamental issue with religion and prayer, she could have just let them get on with it.

You can’t have it both ways- either the religion and prayer is made up meaningless nonsense, in which case why does it matter if they do it?
‘Child kneels on floor and talks to imaginary friends’ is not a big deal.

Or religion and prayer is a Big Important Thing with Big Meaning for people, in which case how do you justify stopping them from engaging with it?

Accounts of their teaching are that they have to provide set answers. GCSEs and A level questions are predictable enough that their teachers can ensure that they have these to hand. Obviously they are not expected to regurgitate them word for word, but they are not allowed to depart from set parameters. Since those marking public exams are given guidelines as to what is required in order to achieve the relevant grades, and have very limited time for each individual paper, they basically note that Michaela pupils have obediently ticked all the relevant boxes and award the marks accordingly.

It works up to A level standard, but if pupils are never taught to think for themselves they have problems at university and in any sort of employment where problems are not presented in nice neat, predictable packages.

Certainly the praying problem would be easily solved, which gives rise to the question why Birbalsingh would rather break the law.

The rosary example is not a good comparison- it’s extremely unusual for people outside the ordained life to pray according to the liturgy of the hours- the expectation is nothing like the expectation for prayer in Islam (although if there are pupils that need to pray at those times they should be able to also)- so this ban would affect an unequal number of Muslim students.

If, as recounted by the school's barrister, they only banned prayers after a problem last year, then the vast majority of pupils were sent there before the ban was in force and this argument simply doesn't work. Most schools provide some sort of quiet prayer room and don't seem to have a problem. You have to wonder about Michaela's much-vaunted discipline when you have an issue like this which other schools manage without problems, whereas Michaela's barrister presented it as some sort of insuperable major issue for which the only answer was to ban prayer completely.

How is asking for occasional use of one room for prayer "erasing a country's culture"? Rather the reverse, given that our culture has always welcomed diversity.

Is it?

Was it "extremely arrogant" for the boy in this case to take his school to court, even though he was found to be right? Or should he have just accepted racial discrimination?

There have been numerous claims against schools by pupils who were horrendously sexually abused whilst attending. Are those pupils "extremely arrogant"?

We don't know why she didn't provide a prayer room but I suspect she had her good reasons and I don't believe it's because she is anti religion or anti Muslim.

Yet she's issued a long statement about it in which the only reason given for not allowing a prayer room is "because of our restrictive building combined with our strict ethos that does not allow children to wander around the school unsupervised". The restrictive building argument doesn't work when she's talking about break times when most rooms are empty. It's puzzling that the head of a school with, allegedly, such superb pupil behaviour can't trust them to be in the building unsupervised, but providing supervision for a prayer room would hardly be onerous given that staff seem to be expected to interact with pupils during breaks for much of the time anyway.