Supporting Michaela

The High Court action against Michaela Community School in north London for stopping Muslim pupils from engaging in prayer rituals is a travesty. The head teacher, Katharine Birbalsingh, is a hate figure on the Left. She co-founded and has led a school in a deprived area to the great advantage of children of all backgrounds lucky enough to attend.

She has been called Britain’s strictest head because she insists on enforcing rules of behaviour and upholding values that a generation or two ago would have been completely unremarkable.

It is hard, therefore, not to see the court action as another attempt to undermine this approach by those who want to turn our schools into battlegrounds for political ideology rather than places of learning.

It has been brought against the school’s governing trust on behalf of a Muslim student, who claimed the ban on prayer was a breach of her right to freedom of religion. It had “fundamentally changed” how she feels “about being a Muslim in this country”.

It is to be hoped that the court sees through this nonsense. Moreover, who is behind it? The student is represented by a KC, suggesting that funds are being provided by a so far unidentified pressure group.

The school is an outstanding, multicultural, multi-faith institution which has transformed the lives of young people, many of them Muslim. Yet teachers are facing intimidation and threats while order in the school is being disrupted. For Ms Birbalsingh and her colleagues to be hounded in this way is outrageous. It is time someone senior in the Government spoke up to support them.