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.

Thanks, I didn’t realise it was a new ban.

All depends on what they wanted to do and how it impacted on the learning and the school.

I would certainly like the requirement for collective acts of worship in schools to be abolished. However, it would be impossible to ban pupils from praying, as indeed the US and France recognise.

The more interesting question is: would KB be receiving so much support if it was an evangelical Christian pupil complaining about not being allowed to pray? The elephant in the room is that this story does bring out the Islamophobes and racists.

It's apparently because you can't have groups of kids in random rooms unsupervised, but if that's the case then surely you would ask a Muslim member of staff to supervise.

Secondly they were apparently bullying Muslim kids who didn't want to join in the prayers and telling them they were "bad Muslims" and reporting them in their communities, so Muslim children were being pressured to join in the prayer

Please listen to KB’s interview on Times Radio this morning; it’s available on catch up. She makes a a truly cogent and considered argument for inclusivity for all her pupils and staff. The anonymity given to the school was to protect all the individuals concerned, including the pupil pursuing the judicial review. It wasn’t done to ‘hide’ anything as has been suggested upthread. The judge decided that continued anonymity wasn’t in the public interest so decided to make the case public. KB is clearly trying to do the best by all members of her school’s community. There’s a difference between condemning a religion and taking issue with aspects of a religion when its adherents are proselytising and intimidating others, including less observant/hard line members of that same religion. Having listened to her today and from my conversations with many friends in the profession I truly believe it’s time to completely secularise education in this country.

If there's bullying you deal with the bullying. No other school has had to ban prayer and she's always saying how well behaved her students are. Either they are and so they can pray inside for the brief time required OR they're not that well behaved and she has much bigger problems than prayer. For example, years ago we had an issue with a member of Christian Union tearing down the Pride flag displayed in the canteen during LGBT history month. This was dealt with as a disciplinary issue involving the student. We didn't ban CU from meeting every week for Bible study. It really shouldn't be as difficult as she's making out.

Was she challenged at all?
Or was it a chat?

KB is everywhere in friendly media discussing an ongoing trial! This is beyond inappropriate. Normal school practice is to refuse to discuss individual cases and certainly to no comment a case that is actually in court right now!

As long as she's in the public eye and people are talking about her, it's all good. Check out the videos on the school websites: it's all about KB. I just compared with the videos on our school website - the head doesn't feature in any of them.

I think she’s fantastic. I’ve seen clips of the students and they all appear happy and motivated.

She was challenged.

She was challenged

I would like to see religion and schools kelt separate. I support KB. The parents could always choose a religious school if they preferred, although I would like to see those abolished too. School takes about 7 hours of the day. The children are free to pray at home before and after school, but religious rituals should be kept away from schools.

Who's they?

@cakeorwine Who else but those who want to pray?

So why not say that instead of "they"?

From what I've read of this it seems to be the threats (to staff and other pupils) and the social contagion aspects which caused the ban in the first place. I haven't read the whole thread but I have read all of OP's posts and none mention why the governors banned prayer in the first place.

I am keeping an open mind. I am no fan of KB and take much of what she says with a pinch of salt. However I also think that religion has no place in schools and do believe it can be divisive when trying to create a multi-racial and multi-faith environment. It's an interesting case.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/michaela-schoolgirl-in-prayer-row-was-suspended-for-stab-threat-n2kwjvvww

it doesn't cost anything for pupils to use an empty room at lunch break to pray. but even if it did, I am sure the taxes paid by Muslim citizens would more than pay for it. so don't worry about.
FYI I am very happy for my taxes to be spent on the houses of Lords which includes Christian clergy as well as any thing needed that supports children and adults of all faiths.

The reality is that when you have things like prayer groups it can end up being coercive to children who don’t want to take part. The pressure to conform can be immense, I don’t think people not from that background can grasp that very well. The school has said they had kids dropping out of music after being accused of being bad muslims etc It can be extremely divisive

Very well put, Noicant. As said it's the coercion/threats which worry me, and as we've seen elsewhere - and certainly not just with muslims - once this kind of thing takes hold it can be very difficult to stop

Especially when (as upthread) some are keen to deny it's happening at all ...

Then deal with the bullying. Don't punish all Muslims!

kids who want to bully will find a pretext sooner or later. bullying is a real issue in schools. if you want to ban anything to reduce bullying among children, the first thing should be social media!

@NotGoingToLie Have you only seen PR clips or went to the school to see for yourself?

That's irrelevant though as bullying will still happen, the girl dropping out of choir has nothing to do with people praying or not, some will use peer pressure regardless. Shame a few incidents of bullying are being used to punish all students who want to pray, abd really it's just an excuse.

I am confused as to why KB is going on a media tour? Sometimes I actually think she gets a kick out of things like this... Surely you wait for the judge to rule first before giving your opinion...i thought thats how it normally works with court cases?