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.

Of course, if such an argument is mentioned to her - surely your discipline is so effective that pupils can be trusted to behave without having to have a teacher there - then she will not engage with it.

I've worked with a lot of Muslims and I have taught a lot too. The most devout are usually the quietest about their faith.

Then you get the some competitive teenagers, one once told me off for drinking during ramadan (I'm not Muslim and if I was I would be exempt on medical grounds) and then wanted to make a bet with me (good muslims don't bet) and couldn't understand why I laughed.

The head has a duty of care to her students but also to her staff and if you read more then it seems the praying was leading to violence and intimidation. She is quoted as saying: “We have always been clear to parents and pupils when they apply to Michaela that, because of our restrictive building combined with our strict ethos that does not allow children to wander around the school unsupervised, we cannot have a prayer room.”

Some more information here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68013174

I'm also wondering about washing, can you really perform Wudu in a school toilet?

"The head has a duty of care to her students but also to her staff and if you read more then it seems the praying was leading to violence and intimidation. She is quoted as saying: “We have always been clear to parents and pupils when they apply to Michaela that, because of our restrictive building combined with our strict ethos that does not allow children to wander around the school unsupervised, we cannot have a prayer room.”"

But the pupils are well disciplined and are a family with a family ethos - so surely they can be trusted to walk around the school to a room by themselves. They must have clubs they go to at lunch?

Lots on here saying how awful she and school are yet families, many Muslim I believe, are queuing up to get a place for their child. It would seem to be a case of, get a place knowing the rules but then complain and try and change them.

If a school has a space then it's up to the school if it can be used for prayer. If this is so important to people they should check this before they enrol their child at a school. Unfortunately for me there was no secular school near me, I had to enrol in a CofE school, like many other people in the UK. This is yet another thing that teachers have to manage. Perhaps pupils can adjust so they sit quietly, don't draw attention to themselves and pray if they want to. Why does this have to be blown up like this?

So she is admitting that although this school apparently has all singing all dancing amazing behaviour they can’t control bullying of staff and students, and infact the only way they can is to stop pupils being themselves. Sounds like she wants a school full of robots not individuals.

The head has a duty of care to her students but also to her staff and if you read more then it seems the praying was leading to violence and intimidation. She is quoted as saying: “We have always been clear to parents and pupils when they apply to Michaela that, because of our restrictive building combined with our strict ethos that does not allow children to wander around the school unsupervised, we cannot have a prayer room.”

The intimidation was coming from people outside the premises who reacted to seeing Muslims praying in the playground. That would be incredibly easy to deal with by allowing them to use a room within the school building during breaks.

I wonder if Barbalsingh is going to risk being cross-examined? She's well used to PR techniques for evading awkward questions put by journalists, but they just don't work in court.

I grew up in a country which operates Sharia in part of the country and half of the population is Muslim yet there's no praying for students in schools. They make up their prayers after school but attend Friday prayers at nearby mosques.
I'm yet to come a cross an Arab or other Muslim who's sent their child to school in the UK require that they be able to pray in school. Of course they make up their prayers when they get home and have other religious lessons.
The UK really is something else in trying to be more Muslim than most.

one of the most irritating and Islamophobic things about all this is people skipping over the bit that it was outsiders who saw the children praying doing the intimidating. If they'd handled this like every other school, there would be no problem

Most schools allow students to pray if they want to. It really is no big deal. Just as we allow Christian Union to meet. And all our other groups of students.

Also to the person upthread - no such thing as a secular state school. Either specifically religious or 'distinctly Christian ethos'. Some non-church associated schools can be more religious than church assisted ones!

Well that’s nonsense - as a Muslim who grew up in the Uk but has family in a Muslim country you’re wrong on both counts. We definitely had a prayer room at our school and lots of pupils utilised it without any issue. If you don’t know, then you shouldn’t make up things.

This is not clear. The Times has the following:

Jason Coppel KC, defending the school’s policy, said in March last year a year 9 pupil had used her blazer as a prayer mat in order to pray in the school yard during her lunch break.

He said: “The number of children praying grew very quickly from three children to 30 children within a few days.”

Throughout the month, Muslim children felt pressured into religious activity, Coppel said. On March 24, a Muslim child who had “never previously worn a headscarf” began to do so, which Coppel said was a result of peer pressure.

“Children were intimidated into greater observance during this period,” he said. “The school observed a child starting to wear a headscarf, who had not previously done so.”

He went on: “A little girl dropped out of the school choir as she was told by one of the other Muslim children that this was ‘haram’ during Ramadan.”

“Those were very difficult days for the school, with tensions running high, and it is hard to see how matters would have been improved by taking more and more disciplinary action, as opposed to removing the girl whom the school saw as the source of the problem.”

As a result, Birbalsingh banned prayer rituals from being conducted by pupils, and disciplined two pupils — including child known as TTT who brought the High Court case — for “exceptionally contemptuous behaviour”.

The case was not about bullying by one religious group against another, but “about the segregation between different religious groups and intimidation within the group of Muslim pupils”.

In the weeks after this decision, the school was subjected to bomb threats and a teacher had a stone thrown through her home window, Coppel said in written arguments.

The school closed early for the Easter Holidays. When it reopened in April, the situation had calmed, his argument said.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/head-sued-for-prayer-ban-says-all-religions-must-make-sacrifices-r772g0sl7

This suggests it was outsiders who were angry about the prayer ban who were doing the intimidating. I.e. that it was not Islamophobia but Islamic extremism.

But I have also read things elsewhere that suggest the opposite. The hearing has ended now, perhaps there will be more clarity in the judgment.

i was referring to statements from KB. As previously though there would be no issue if they did what other schools did and had a prayer room. The existence of choir shows that other lunch time activities are allowed and why not prayer.
To be honest in what you've posted I see a lot of over reaction in how they've handled this.

No proof the headscarf wearing was down to peer pressure. Girls can decide that themselves! And people seem to be missing that all of this was during Ramadan when observance is focused. Someone not attending choir during Ramadan shouldn't be a big deal if that's what they want. Peer pressure should be dealt with as the bullying it is. Banning prayer was a ridiculous unnecessary escalation!

I am making no comment on the rights and wrongs of this case. Just searching for accuracy.

But so bloody what, if a child decides to wear the headscarf. There are lots of children who when they get to a certain age, decide to start embracing it full-time as it's a must in the Quran. It does say in the Quran that when they reach the age of puberty they should start to wear it.

Maybe it wasn't down to peer pressure. You don't have to believe everything you read in the news and on the media.

A lot of people are Prejudice, ignorant towards Islam unfortunately. That's just the way it goes sadly. A dear friend of mine who is a white Muslim, wears the hijab full-time and gets nothing but stares and ridiculous comments.

She has told me she is now used to it but I can never get used to it. For example, we will be queuing up in Tesco and there will be people just staring at her. I understand as a white Muslim she stands out but the comments are ridiculous for example she will be asked if she had joined the Taliban or has her husband forced her to wear it or she's a fraud to her own kind and a traitor to Christianity.

The Talibab are a group of nut cases that don't even represent the religion and isis are evil themselves and even kill Muslims and non Muslims.

back to the thread though, Why should they want to stop a group of children who wanted to spend their lunchtime praying, to stop from what I know, it only takes about five to ten minutes to pray in the Islamic form, and it's not because of pressure, it's just what you do. No one is pressured into attending church on a Sunday, is just what they do! I think they should simply assign a Prayer room for the children at school and therefore they will have a safe space to pray in.
Ridiculous if you ask me, that they think that 3 to 30 is a bad thing. It just appears that a lot of children were seeing a child leading the prayer and joined in as they were too from the same faith. Its not the end of the world. The Headteacher of that school seems bloody useless.

I worked for a Muslim charity taking action against forced marriages. we did a big press conference around fifteen years ago for our launch. I called around all the big news papers/channels and many attended our launch... except when I called the mail and the sun, they did the equivalent of spitting on my face over the phone. there is tireless work being done by Muslims (and not only Muslims are victims of forced marriages, these marriages are not even valid under islamic law) against forced marriage.

Well said @GrammarTeacher well said!

It seems the only reason children felt the need to take part is because it became a public thing. If they had had a room where those who wanted to pray could quietly go and do so then it wouldn’t have needed to become an issue at all.

Forced marriages actually goes against Islam and actually only don't a small cultural minority, says.

Its actually not allowed to force anyone to marry anyone in islam at all. The woman has the right to marry who she wants. And its a sin to force people to marry, sadly its done in some ethnic groups but overall is actually Haram.

Indeed.

Some pupils need to pray at certain times, banning this effectively bans children from those religions, which is discriminatory. Religion is a protected characteristic. Seems simple to me.

this discussion is not about being religious... its about basic human rights and freedoms.

it's about respect between different cultures and its about celebrating diversity.

So you have personally visited every school in the UK and have family in every country with a large Muslim population?

@sashh i have never heard of another school refusing a space to pray. Just as other secondaries have Christian Unions and other groups. Why on earth aren't they allowed to use a room at lunch time to pray?