'Children need help to cross religious divides'

Head nervous but hopeful’ about the outcome of prayer ban challenge

- Anna Davis

Katharine Birbalsingh, head of Michaela Community School in Wembley, north-west London, told the Evening Standard that she and her teachers were “nervous but hopeful” about the outcome of a legal challenge to the school’s ban on prayer rituals.

The ban was brought in against a backdrop of violence, intimidation and racial harassment of teachers in March last year, Ms Birbalsingh said, and it restored calm and order. But a pupil has launched a High Court challenge to the ban, which she claims is discriminatory.

Ms Birbalsingh said the school went to great lengths to ensure children from all backgrounds mix, but allowing children to separate at lunchtime to pray would impact the ethos of the school.

Speaking on Times Radio today she said: “When you have a multi-cultural community you need to actively encourage the children to cross those racial and religious divides… I do not want to divide children according to race and religion. And because of our building… because of our ethos, I would necessarily have to divide them. I would have to send all the Muslim kids upstairs and all the non-Muslim kids downstairs. I don’t want that.”