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

[KTheGrey]

Apparently the mother involved wants to send her younger child to the school she finds so unsatisfactory in September. I don't think this is reasonable. I understand the logic of leaving a child at a school where they are established, but she should be expected to find a school she likes better for a younger sibling, surely.

She also intends to bring another suit, presumably tax payer funded again. I think that she should be expected to pay in full for any further suit she brings against the school. She could apply for costs if she wins.

So the child can pray after lunch and move on with their day. No need for special arrangements. They can and should choose a faith based school if this isn’t good enough.

I dont pray, and I have no issue with anyone who does but it shouldn’t be impacting other people.

It was at lunchtime.

No more disruptive than playing football or table tennis.

Which they're also not able to do at this school.

So they don’t need special arrangements- you can literally pray anywhere!

They were bullying and mocking the children who weren't joining in!!!

So the HT came down like a ton of bricks and said (rightly) "this is not acceptable"

Hang on a sec - you want for this case to be challenged so ultimately the pupils can pray whenever and wherever they like and sod the consequences. Good luck with that when the pupils leave school and get jobs.

And as a pp said and others have said, this was mostly to do with bullying, which should be stamped out in all cases. How dare the mother bully other pupils and members of staff? Who the hell does she think she is?

They can ans should use the courts to determine whether the school is acting in accordance with the law. They system worked fine - a case was taken, a ruling was made.

Do you want to live in a dictatorship with no access to courts? Move out of Britain if so.

It is a secular school.

If are a devout Muslim or any other religious group then it’s the wrong school for you.

But they couldn't, that was the problem. They were praying in the playground in their lunch break. The school found it disruptive because students were putting pressure on others, and also because it was in public view and they were getting threats about not providing correct facilities. So they're not allowed to pray on school premises at all.

I think the pupils should be allowed to pray - most workplaces accommodate prayer.

To get legal aid the case has to be adjudged by the Legal Aid Board to have merit and have a reasonable chance of success so I guess that definition applies for this case. HTH

Ha! I work in the judiciary and I can assure I support cases that are in the public interest, but this is not!

Muslims have the opportunity to ‘catch up’ with their daily prayers - so the need for special arrangements is null and void. If a child wants to take itself quietly off for mid day prayer then there is literally nothing to stop them.

The school also found it disruptive because this pupil and her mother were bullying other pupils, members of staff and inciting racial hatred. That's not the only reason the headteacher chose to ban them praying.

https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-v-michaela-community-schools-trust/

It's all completely disingenuous, they just want to be victims of some imagined persecution. I'm sure they'll find something if they look hard enough, like all such grifters do.

I can silently pray anywhere - I don’t need to make a song and dance about it.

Actually they were going against everything the school stood for by way of inclusion. The students organising the playground prayer meetings were also threatening and intimidating other students, which is why the ban was imposed.

I support freedom of religious expression, but the claimants here don't sound like that. They sound like they were just being controversial. The girl can catch up with prayers at the end of the school day. I've never heard of duhr impacting on a whole work or school community before.

All schools should be secular. There is no room for ANY worship or religious observance in schools, religion should be studied in an academic sense only.

You want to go to church/mosque/temple/synagogue, you do that on your own time.

Except that bullying and intimidation of other students was involved.

They weren't asking for special arrangements, they were asking for it to be permitted.

I agree.

I have no time for that "strictest headteacher" woman but in this instance I think she is correct. Apparently the praying was causing disruption and was leading to bullying and harrassement. I think schools should be secular, I went to a C of E primary school and we had bible class every day, plus regular attendance at church and in my opinion this is not a necessary part of education. The school day ends before 4pm, this leaves time for prayers, I live in an area with a lot of Muslims and see the children going off to mosque in the early evening, seems a good compromise to me.

Seems like it is an attempt to start a slippery slope of making a secular school into a faith school and it is good to make this very clear this was not going to happen.

I think if there are calls for more Islamic schools because of this again we have to be cautious as there is a lot of entrenched misogyny in more extreme versions of this religion and I don't think we should have schools that use religion to impose values against what we would perceive as our norms.

I think you should be free to practise any religion but not in state institutions necessarily unless there are valid reasons e.g. church schools which have existed for very long periods of time and even then there absolutely should be options to opt out

All religions should be a private matter. No religion should be anywhere near a school.