I'll carry on fighting to defend our way of life.
If parents don't like it, their children can go elsewhere, writes Britain's
strictest head KATHARINE BIRBALSINGH following landmark court ruling backing a
prayer ban at her school
By
KATHARINE BIRBALSINGH
PUBLISHED:
22:05 BST, 16 April 2024 | UPDATED: 22:05 BST, 16 April 2024
A school
should be free to do what is right for the pupils it serves. The court's
decision is therefore a victory for all schools.
At
Michaela, we embrace small-c conservative values. These enable us to make
extraordinary academic progress. But they also promote a way of living in which
gratitude, agency and personal responsibility, refusal of identity-politics
victimhood, love of country, hard work, kindness, a duty towards others and
self-sacrifice are fundamental to who we are.
Multiculturalism
works at Michaela because we have a clear identity, which anyone can sign up to
- if they are willing to compromise.
Michaela is
a school that works miracles in London's inner-city. But our families choose us
not just because of the extraordinary learning and access to social mobility
that we provide. They recognise that our traditional values create an
environment that is a joy to be in. Our children are friends with each other
across racial and religious divides.
At the two
'Welcome Events' that all parents must attend before sending their child to
Michaela, I run through everything that makes Michaela different from other
schools: constant supervision, silent corridors, no prayer room, easy ways to
get detention, strict uniform etc. If parents do not like it, they do not need
to send their children to us.
A school
should be free to do what is right for the pupils it serves. The court's
decision is therefore a victory for all schools, writes KATHARINE BIRBALSINGH
A school
should be free to do what is right for the pupils it serves. The court's
decision is therefore a victory for all schools, writes KATHARINE BIRBALSINGH
Multiculturalism
works at Michaela (pictured) because we have a clear identity, which anyone can
sign up to - if they are willing to compromise
Ever since
the idea of Michaela began in 2011, our detractors have railed against our
strict rules and traditional values. Their patronising thinking goes like this:
'Ethnic minority families cannot possibly know what they want for their
children. Those choices must be made for them.'
Last year,
we watched our Muslim pupils put under pressure by a tiny number of others to
fast, to pray, to drop out of the choir, to wear a hijab.
I watched
one of my black teachers be racially abused and intimidated, another teacher
had her home nearly broken into, and yet another had a brick thrown through her
window.
In 2014, 30
per cent of our intake was Muslim. It is now 50 per cent. We are
over-subscribed. If our families did not like the school, they would not
repeatedly choose to send their children to Michaela.
There is a
false narrative that some try to paint about Muslims being an oppressed
minority at our school. They are, in fact, the largest group. Those who are
most at risk are other minorities and Muslim children who are less observant.
What does
it mean to be the headmistress in a school which tries to uphold our shared
British values, when different constituencies within our diverse society want
sometimes opposing things in the name of their religious commitments?
It means
asking everyone to compromise.
I have
chosen to stay with the Michaela project and I continue to fight to defend our
way of life. Why? Because I believe in something bigger than myself
I have
chosen to stay with the Michaela project and I continue to fight to defend our
way of life. Why? Because I believe in something bigger than myself
We teach
Jehovah's Witnesses Macbeth as a GCSE test, even though it has witches in it.
We offer Christians revision classes on Sundays.
We tell
Hindus our plates will have been touched by eggs.
And we
don't have a prayer room for Muslims.
At
Michaela, we expect all religions and all races to make the necessary
sacrifices to enable our school to thrive. The vast majority do so without
complaint.
People of
all faiths tell me that Michaela is more Christian, more Catholic, more
Islamic, more Jewish or more Hindu than schools they have seen elsewhere. This
is because our robust yet respectful secularism is allied to those traditional
values that all religions share.
We eat
vegetarian food at lunch to enable us to break bread across racial and
religious divides.
It is more
of a challenge for a multicultural school to succeed. One need only look at the
schools that top the 'Progress 8' chart [which measures the progress pupils
make between the ages of 11 and 16]: the vast majority are faith schools of one
religion.
Secular
schools must be allowed the same right that religious schools have: the right
to unity, the right to reject division. Everyone is welcome in our community -
but it has its own identity which we invite everyone to belong to.
So we sing
'God Save The King' because our country and our flag unite us. If we are saying
that being an ethnic minority AND being British are incompatible, then as a
nation, we are in deep trouble.
For 25
years I have been in school at 6.45am, working 12 to 15-hour days, always with
mainly brown and black kids from the inner city. Our detractors' narrative:
that I hate children, that I hate Muslim children, despite more and more Muslim
families choosing our school over the years and my own grandmother being
Muslim, is clearly nonsensical.
I have
chosen to stay with the Michaela project and I continue to fight to defend our
way of life. Why? Because I believe in something bigger than myself.
This is an
edited version of a statement put out by Katharine Birbalsingh yesterday
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