Top School In Britain Tests A Historic Constitutional Principle

A daughter of the Caribbean – Katharine Birbalsingh, Oxon –  is about to test a theory and rule of democracy, that was first  promulgated in Britain as The Toleration Act 1688, which  granted freedom of worship to nonconformists who had  pledged allegiance to and inconsideration of the supremacy of the British crown.

That law left untested the full  question of religious freedom manifested as practise, which  remained so even after establishment of the modern  Parliament of Great Britain in 1707 following the ratification of  the Treaty of Union by Acts of Union.  

Whilst these rules in their generality prevent impositions on  religious beliefs, the lingering question is namely: whether “freedom of religion” includes the idea that a state can establish a religion, or impose religious practices.

Who is Before the Courts?

Katharine is Headmistress of the best performing school in  the United Kingdom by GCSE results; coming tops and  beating out every school in Britain by sheer achievement, to  the point that she and her school have become a global  phenomenon, copied from Florida to Australia to Africa as a  standard of and for educational excellence.

Why then is the best school led by the most visionary  educator in British history, with the best performance in the  United Kingdom before the courts?

Backstory 

First, Katharine is the daughter of Professor Frank Birbalsingh  of Guyana – a distinguished scholar who taught for many  years as York University in Canada – whilst her mother is a  Jamaican medical professional; both in the tradition of  excellence of the Caribbean diaspora.

Katharine completed a degree in Philosophy and French at  New College, Oxford and entered the teaching profession in  the UK. From her Oxford days, Katharine expressed a  thoughtful consistent concern for ‘inner city’ children and  their life prospects, which she argued could be assuaged  more readily through education than by any other means.  From her teaching experience, Katharine grew despondent,  as the education system seemed to place inner city children  on auto-pilot to failure. Her argument was not that this was  deliberate, but that a culture of failure had become  comfortable and routine.

Matters came to head, when Katharine was invited by the UK  Conservative Party (October 5th 2010 – see on YouTube) to  speak at their party conference on the future of education in  the UK; from which event, her speech catapulted her to the  front pages of every newspaper in the country. She told the  conference: “The [Education] system was broken because it keeps poor children poor…by a culture of excuses and low expectations…chaos in the classrooms and in a sea of bureaucracy”.

It was as if a bomb detonated through the U.K. educational  establishment, and though it is not to be believed in the 21st  century in a democracy, the school fired Katharine.

However, in 2014 – with typical Caribbean resilience –  Katharine established and opened a “free school” (something  like a charter school in America), using a government grant  programme. The now famous school is called “Micheala”,  named in honour of a former colleague, and now serves just  over 700 inner city children, mostly black and brown – in that  manner of speaking – about 50% of whom are Muslim.

All of Britain awaited Micheala’s first GCSE results – given  Katharine’s 2010 speech – not least of which, teacher’s  unions and political operatives literally campaigned for the  school to fail; as obviously, any success would give credence  to Katharine’s criticism of failure and sclerosis throughout the  UK education system. But not only did Micheala School,  Katharine, her staff and students succeed, they bested every  government school and were first in all the United Kingdom in  results (better than 6,959 other schools) and have been first  in results each year since and last year 2023, two thirds of all  Micheala students achieved ‘A’ grades. That’s better than any  school in the UK and better than every school in the  Commonwealth of Nations – where the GCSE or its  equivalent is sat, covering 2.6 billion people.

The school has become a worldwide sensation. And in 2016,  Katharine and her teaching staff produced a bestselling book:  “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers” (Penguin), which  explained the Micheala pedagogical model. One would  imagine that such a repeated and demonstrative success  would have quelled Katharine’s critics and brought them  round to the effectiveness of her approach. Instead, amidst  continued results demolishing records of success year-after year and more importantly, changing the lives of young

people who were once on a steady path to failure, critics  became louder, sniping at every aspect of Micheala school’s  approach, ignoring its success. Katharine launched a  programme inviting anyone who wanted to visit Micheala  school, with the opportunity of speaking to its students,  allowing any visitor to assess the school’s culture. Famous  philosophers, psychiatrists, lawyers, politicians from around  the world, even celebrities visited, all giving rave reviews,  marvelling at the culture of discipline and the infectious  intellectual development there to be witnessed, and still the  critics brayed.

In all the press, in news papers and on television, Katharine  had become known as ‘the strictest headmistress in Britain’,  and she is that exactly, with the aim of providing structure for  children with often unstructured lives. Typical of the  Caribbean – at least when I was young, with Jamaican,  Guyanese and Barbadian teachers – teachers where the  centres of authority. It is the same at Michaela. When  students change classrooms, there is silence in the corridors  and teachers and guests are greeted with a respect we  reserve for elders, parents and teachers in the Caribbean.

Additionally, Micheala rejects the new fashions in education,  where children learn fluff, and give their opinions on subjects,  events, personages and data. At Micheala, students must  learn through practice the periodic arithmetic tables, they  must learn world geography, and volumes of poetry and fine  literary and historical dates, events and passages by heart;  they must learn languages and music and be tested for  proficiency so that when the moment comes, they can  perform and perform they have. Katharine’s philosophy is  there are things children must know and must commit to memory and be able to recall. She demands – and rightly so –  that learning begins by rote and practice before that base of  knowledge marinates and begins to inform perspectives.

Beyond these contributing factors of educational success, in  perhaps the most infamous challenge to the status quo,  Micheala banned mobile phones at school. The newspapers  and television studios filled with pundits – ignoring Micheala’s  number one status in GCSE results – bellowing inconsolably  that this was tyranny to ban mobile phones, or to have  children walk in silence or – without a pause for irony – to  have them learn so many things by heart; even in the face of  the “results day” jubilation amongst Micheala’s families owing  to their children’s unprecedented successes.

The Issue:  

There is a saying: All greatness though assaulted from the  outside, collapses from within. The UK Education Act 1944,  calls for all schools to allow for the observation of some  religious practise. The assumption at the time was Britain  was primarily an Anglican (Church of England) society. But in  reality, Britain has become – particularly in the school system  – a multi-religious society, with some religious practises being  more fastidiously active than others.

Nearly all schools observe the 1944 rule in breach. In the  case of Micheala, two issues rise immediately:

1. Space and Resources: Micheala is an inner city school  with not merely limited space, but insufficient space for  its official educational activities
2. Michaela is an inner city school and so is at the forefront  of religious tensions in the community

Micheala’s administration responded to this by eschewing  any religious practises, but making some incisive  compromises to accommodate varieties of religious beliefs… but adopted with the overwhelming goal of maintaining  harmony amongst its students of varying ethnic, racial and  religious backgrounds.

Specifically, Micheala did not ignore the question of religious  belief, but created a culture of acceptance and compromise  as a generator of a harmony that is the acclaimed interest of  all religions.

For instance, using an ancient Japanese model of  community, at lunch, students sit in groups of six, with (as  reported also in the Telegraph 18th January 2024), one  student waiting the table for fellow students, another student  serving, and yet another student clearing the table, so that  rotationally, everyone serves and is served. Additional  complications were met with additional compromises: Hindu  students recoiled at serving beef. Whilst Muslims recoiled at  serving pork. Micheala resolved that everyone would eat  healthy vegetarian so that everyone could be  accommodated.

Under this same spirit of accommodation and compromise,  Micheala stuck to its principle that it was a secular school  that would not permit any religious practise within its  precincts; with the aim of cohesion and preserving the  school’s community spirit.

However, a student sought to separate from the community  lunchtime and pray during lunch. It was forbidden on the  principle that the lunch – which had come into being by such  delicate compromises – would disintegrate into different  religious practices, which would undermine cohesion, when  the students suffered so much of that outside the school  already.

The parents of the child who was forbidden sued and now  the school is threatened by having its harmony decided from  outside its culture. And of course, longtime Micheala critics  have lined up a social media attack campaign with glee –  ignoring how Micheala’s culture has produced national  success – with some critics – shockingly but unsurprisingly –  demanding the abolition of the school.

The Law and Religion:  

The Toleration Act permitted allowances of free religious  worships upon sworn allegiance to the British crown.  However, by intention, it did not apply to Roman Catholics,  Jews, nontrinitarians and atheists. That appears to have left a  lacunae in the law, yet, common law principles evolve in the  British constitutional context. Therefore, in sundry laws and  treaty undertakings since 1688, Britain has attested to and  confirmed its commitment to the freedom of religion; not  least of which is the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) (Section 1  ss. (1)(a)) and Article 18 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, which was adopted by the United  Nations General Assembly in resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16  December 1966.

The United Kingdom Parliament retained an authority to govern  the Church of England, delegated in 1919 to the Church’s  General Synod. Parliament retains a veto power – invoked rarely –  in respect of decisions taken by the General Synod; which was  exercised in 1927 and 1928 against adoption of a revised prayer  book. However, these are powers to manage the church as a  church and are distinct from the current case, and do not impose  religious practise or schedule their manifestations.

The distinction lies in the freedom to hold a religious belief –  which is absolute and cannot be limited for any reason – in  contrast to the freedom to manifest a religion in practise, which  may be subject to necessary legitimate limitations, as the  manifestation of religious practise – such as holding prayers – can  potentially conflict with other human rights in certain  circumstances.

Those ‘circumstances’ addressed in the European Convention on  Human Rights (ECHR) of which Britain has been a signatory  since 1951 states: “The freedom to manifest one’s religion or  beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed  by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests  of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals,  or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

These pithy considerations thus examined, the court must  find in favour of Micheala’s secular approach and must say  that the Education Act 1944 is unconstitutional insofar as it  establishes a state mandate for the practise of religion –  contravening the Toleration Act – and is inconsistent with the  freedom of religion, a fundamental principle of constitutional  democracy.

The court must conclude further that the forbidding of  religious practises on or within school precincts during  school time, or the observance of ‘secularism’ – is consistent  with the ECHR – whilst promoting a cohesion that is a higher  priority in pursuit of the purpose of the school, which is  education…rather than to impose or support religious  practises for which chapel, mosque, synagogue and home  are the appropriate venues.

The court must find that Micheala’s adoption of a series of  ‘delicate balances’ aimed at accommodating each belief  system evinces an intention toward fairness and respect for  each student’s beliefs, the disruption of which undermines  the active fine balance, imposing on Micheala, its community  and students a mode of community inconsistent with the  social harmony it achieved already, without a method to  manage the fallout of disharmony which is likely to result.

There are those who will say the prohibition on prayer is ‘anti Muslim’. But that is the cheapest sort of nonsense on its  face: in the instance, the matter concerns a Muslim, but the  balancing compromises made by Micheala addressed myriad  religious beliefs and practises. The objective is to have the  school prioritise that which is conducive to general education  rather than particulars of worship. Others will say their  schools support worship facilities. Michaela lacks the space  ‘on the one hand’ and frankly, it is not for underperforming  schools to tell the top school what it may do better. If Tiger  Woods says there is a regime for training in golf, 99.999% of  humans that have ever existed are not in position to say:  ‘that’s too much’, including 99.999% of the best golfers that  ever played.

As a further constitutional matter: some may argue that the  British state may establish religion since the Monarch, HRH  King Charles III is head of the Church of England. That’s  quaint. But His Majesty is merely a ceremonial head of  government, which is elected by his subjects of the United  Kingdom acting in their roles as citizens of Great Britain. By  authority of the common law of the British constitution – as  evolved – the monarch has no substantive political role in  establishing religion. Moreover, if he did, per chance, it would  be the Church of England, and upon that alone, the case  against Micheala must fail.

There are two further considerations the court and the  citizens of the United Kingdom could bear in mind:

1. Micheala’s ‘delicate balancing’ is consistent with classical  Enlightenment thought, which limits the rights of each person at the boundaries of the rights of every other person as the ECHR avers.
2. By these lights, no one can have all they want, whenever  they want without infringing upon the rights of others.  Moreover, before rights, each person in a constitutional democracy has a duty to uphold that which vouches safe the entire community…hence Micheala’s system of  compromises.

As such, the citizens and subjects of Britain must be aware,  that should the court rule against Micheala, it would lead to  the expansion of religious practise – manifesting  unforeseeably, with ever increasing demands for comparative  accommodations – with each group demanding the same  resources as they perceive being available to other groups

and soon, environments like Micheala cease to be cohesive  learning centres for children and will be reduced to  battlegrounds for unending demands, which, though they  cannot be satisfied, will undermine schools across the nation.

No vitriol must come to the child or its family for having  brought this case and certainly none towards Micheala for  fighting it. The catalyst for this was ignited in political hubris  long ago, when Britain held its empire and moved imperiously  across the world, yet assumed religious rules would apply in  a Anglo-Saxon singular religious society. This conceit must  be corrected and must exempt schools from religious  practice as a means of preserving learning environments  beyond the ‘din and fray’ of social convulsions whipped and  woven by self-insisting religious particularisms.

Finally, there is a dilemma from Game Theory – which informs comparative choices in constitutional democracies – which is  likely to emerge, unfold and metastasise, should the court  take to law in error in the Micheala case: If in a democracy any person or group receives all they want, when they want, wherever they want, then no one will end with anything they want as that democracy will have failed. 

About the author

H. E. Ambassador Gilbert Morris took his studies at The London School of Economics (LSE). He was Professor at George Mason University  – where he taught in four faculties – 1995-2001 and served two terms as Director of African Americans Studies. Morris was Visiting Clerk to Justice Michael Farrell in 1995 at the District of Colombia Court of Appeal. From 1999-2001, he served as Lecturer in History of Revolutions at  the Smithsonian Associates, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Morris was appointed Economist to the Bahamas $100 Million Dollar  Education Loan Committee in 2002. He served as Special Envoy from the Office of the Premier of Turks and Caicos to the House of Lords, UK  and is currently National Public Reader in Diplomacy and Ambassador-at-Large in the Bahamas. His recently published co-edited book is: “Al Centric Modelling and Analytics Concepts, Technologies, and Applications” (2024) Routledge Press; his forthcoming book is: “New World  Order” (2025).