by Katharine Birbalsingh has said she was forced to ban Muslim prayers after being racially harassed by teachers.
The head of the school, who is known as the strictest principal in Britain, is facing a High Court challenge from a Muslim student regarding the prayer policy at Popalscoil Michíl.
Speaking on the series for the first time, she warned that “multiculturalism will only succeed when each group makes sacrifices “for the good of the whole”.
In a statement shared on Wednesday morning, Mr Birbalsingh said the school’s governing body decided to end prayer rituals when some students started them “in the context of events including violence, intimidation and horrific racial harassment of our teachers”.
Michaela’s school is facing a legal challenge from a student, who cannot be named, over Ms Birbalsingh’s decision to introduce the ban in March last year.
The high-performing state school in Brent, north-west London, has around 700 pupils, around half of whom are Muslim. He is known for his strict approach to discipline, including silence in the corridors and a ban on smartphones.
‘Restored order’ prayer policies
Miss Birbalsingh said the decision to ban prayer rituals “has restored calm and order to the school”.
She said: “We have always been clear to parents and pupils when they apply to Michaela that we cannot have a prayer room because of our restrictive building and our strict ethos of not allowing children to go around the school without supervision.”
She added: “We believe it is wrong to separate children based on religion or race, and that we have a duty to protect all our children and provide them with an environment free from bullying, intimidation or harassment.
“Multiculturalism will only succeed when we understand that each group must make sacrifices for the good of the whole.”
Michaela’s school was ranked best in the country last year for “Progress 8”, a measure of how much a secondary school has helped improve pupils from primary school.
Ms Birbalsingh said that to achieve her results, the school “must be a place where children buy into something they all share and which is bigger than themselves: our country”.
The students used a playground to pray
Around 30 pupils began praying in the school’s “wet” and “dirty” courtyard in March last year, using blazers to kneel because they were not allowed to bring in prayer mats, the High Court hearing was told. Court.
The court heard that the school had been targeted on social media with “threats of violence”, abuse, “false” allegations of Islamophobia, and a “bomb hoax”, but that the matter had since been “debunked”.
The student said the school’s stance on prayer was “the kind of discrimination that makes religious minorities feel alienated from society”, a judge was told.
Its lawyers claim that the prayer ban has a “unique” impact on the Muslim faith over other religions because of its ritualistic nature and the rules surrounding prayer.
Katharine Birbalsingh’s statement in full:
We are in court to protect Michaela’s culture and ethos, and the decisions made by the governors to maintain a successful and stable learning environment where children of all races and religions can thrive. We want our multicultural and multi-faith community to thrive. Ours is a happy and respectful secular school where all races, religions and groups understand self-sacrifice for the good of the whole. We are one big Michaela family.
Michaela is rated Outstanding by Ofsted and has a unique culture of producing young people of exceptional character. Our pupils achieve outstanding exam grades – including the highest ever progress at GCSE level in a state-funded school – which help them win places at some of the world’s best universities. We are extremely proud of what we do to transform the lives of young people, many from disadvantaged backgrounds. To achieve all of this, our school must be a place where children of all races and religions buy into something they all share and that is bigger than themselves: our country.
We have a large number of Muslim students. Their positive experiences helped increase the number of Muslim students in the school by 50 percent. My own grandmother was a Muslim. But the Governing Body had to decide to end prayer rituals when some students started them, in the context of events including violence, intimidation and horrific racial harassment of our teachers.
Our decision restored calm and order to the school. We have always made it clear to parents and students when they apply to Michaela that we cannot have a prayer room due to our restrictive building and our strict ethos which does not allow children to go around the school unsupervised.
At Michaela, people of all religions make sacrifices so that we can maintain a safe living community. Some Jehovah’s Witness families have opposed Macbeth as a set GCSE text. Some Christian families have asked not to hold our GCSE revision sessions on Sundays. Some Hindu families objected to dinner plates touching eggs. And our Muslim families have registered with the school knowing that we do not have a prayer room. We all eat vegetarian food so we can break bread together at lunchtime when children are not divided by race or religion. We all make our sacrifices so that we can live together.
We believe that it is wrong to separate children based on religion or race, and that we have a duty to protect all our children and provide them with an environment free from bullying, intimidation and harassment.
Multiculturalism will only succeed when we understand that each group must make sacrifices for the good of the whole. We give our children freedoms of all kinds, as long as these freedoms do not endanger the happiness and success of the entire school community. Our children are British, whatever their background. As a school, we celebrate what we have in common so that the wonderful diversity of cultures we have under our roof thrives.
I will never separate children by race and religion.
