TRIGGERnometry - World’s Strictest Teacher Sued for Banning Prayer at School - Katharine Birbalsingh

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Dubbed ‘The World’s Strictest Teacher’, Katharine Birbalsingh CBE is the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School, a free school established in 2014 in Wembley Park, London. She is an advocate for education reform and Chair of the Social Mobility Commission. The Michaela website: https://michaela.education/ We are proud partners with GiveSendGo - a world-leading crowdfunding platform that believes in free speech. Go to givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you. SPONSOR: Try Verso’s incredible longevity products and get 15% off by using code TRIGGER at VER.SO Verso Scientific References: 1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.868640/full 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35844164/ 3. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/10/6/456   Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here you are, your school is being sued all over the national newspapers. What's going on? We're being sued for a prayer room. I'm not saying that no school should have a prayer room. I'm saying it can't work for us. We would have to abandon everything that we are. Like, that is to divide according to race and religion, and I will never divide the children according to race and religion.

I don't believe in that. There were the death threats, there was the bomb threat, the police had to come and search the school for bombs one morning. I don't understand it. We've all lost our minds. I mean, we've lost our minds. Catherine Berbel Singh, welcome back to the show for the endth time. I don't know how many times you've been on here before.

I have to say you are literally the least troublemaker of all our guests, I think. That's not so much, man. That is not, well, I don't know about that. I think we have some pretty controversial people on regularly. But you are the person that I least expect to be causing trouble out there and whatever. And yet here you are. School is being sued all over the national newspapers. What's going on?

Well, we're being sued for a prayer room. One of the children would like one and we don't have one. Although we've never had one. We opened in 2014 and we've been going ever since. And of course, we're known for being very strict. Michaela is in Wembley in London, in the inner city and we have a typical inner city intake. And I'm considered to be Britain's strictest headmistress. Admitter, you like that label, don't you?

Well, you know, if you type into Google, who is the strictest teacher in the world, my name comes up. So we have very strict rules, and because of those rules and the building, it's just not really possible to have prayer rooms. I should say rooms, because we've got 350 Muslims. Obviously, one prayer room wouldn't be enough. So we'd have to have several rooms. And because of our logistics and so on, it's just not. possible. So we've always said from the beginning that we don't have prayer rooms because it isn't possible. And, you know, the families understand that and they sign up anyway and they send us their

children. And why is it, sorry, just to finish this, that seems like a fairly normal thing. Why has this become such a big deal in the public conversation now? Why are people talking about it? Because it seems like a fairly routine, standard thing, you sort out, you go to court, blah, blah, you know, whatever. But it's become a big talking point in the kind of broader culture. Why do you think that is? Well, because we're going to court. People feel that it's wrong for a child to take the school to court for this reason. I suppose people feel that schools ought to be allowed to be secular places. And we are very much a secular school. We are also a very multicultural school, multi-faith, multi-race, multi-everything.

And we are asking all the various different groups in the school to make sacrifices for the betterment of the whole. Isn't this what this is really about at? And this is kind of why I was asking you the question, because you're someone who, because of your own background and because of the background of the kids that you've got under your leadership, essentially, at your school, you understand that in order for different races

and different groups to work together, They all have to subscribe to a bigger thing that's above everybody and that's one. And you are against the idea of dividing people by skin color, religion, etc. And you know that the society we live in doesn't seem to want that to be the case. And isn't that really why we are sitting here talking about this? Well, possibly. I mean, there is the court case. So, you know, and that obviously people, you know, there's some people who would very much want us to win it

and some people who want us to lose it. And when I say the different groups, so yes, you're right that in many schools, you'll find that there's the LGBT group or there's the Black Caribbean group or there's the Hindu group and so on. And we don't do that. We consider all our children to be British.

And I think often ethnic minorities are denied the opportunity to call themselves British by both the right, and the left politically, the left because they insist that actually ethnic minorities are from somewhere else, you know, when actually we're all British and we should all be able to call ourselves British. So we think God save the king and I've out of the country and, you know, we stand for the headmistress and we're very traditional in our approach. And so it isn't just that we don't have prayer rooms because people then say to me, oh well, you don't like Islam. No, that's not the case.

We're trying to make everything work for everyone. So we have Macbeth as one of our GCSE texts. It has witches in it. The Jehovah Witnesses don't like that. It's against their religion. But they put up with it because, well, that's what we've got. Some of the Hindus have said, oh, you know, we don't like the fact that at lunch the eggs touch the plates. We'd like our own plates.

But that would mean separating the Hindus. So I'm not doing that. And they put up with it. all of the different groups have to make sacrifices in order for us all to get on. And one way in which this showed itself right at the beginning when we opened up in 2014, we opened as a normal school with meat in the canteen. And we do a family lunch where all the children, they sit in groups of six, they always have a set seat.

One serves the food, the other pours the water, one of them cleans up afterwards. It's a lovely, I always call it the beating heart of the school. It's wonderful. we do this with the understanding of we're socialising the children. It's one of the things we do at Michaela. And so people sort of say, well, it's their free time. They can do what they want in lunch.

Well, we don't believe in that. We believe that all of the time that they're in school, we're doing something with them, actually. And so this family lunch, there are different children on the tables eating the food. Some are Muslim, some are Hindu, some are black, some are white, and so on.

When we first started, we asked the children, well, what do you eat? And some said, I eat meat but no pork because I'm a Muslim. I eat meat but no beef because I'm a Hindu and so on. When we placed them out accordingly in the dining hall, I looked at the space and said, we've just divided the children according to race and religion. We can't do that. We're going to have to go vegetarian. And that way everyone can sit next to each other and we can make friendships across the racial

and religious divides. And so we've always been vegetarian for that reason. So we're all sacrificing, because the vast majority of children would like to eat meat, but everyone doesn't eat meat in order to make sure that we are, in order to make sure that we are all friends with each other. And that's one of the things, the beauty of Michaela is that, you know, we don't have issues between groups. You know, you might visit some other inner-city schools.

You will find fights happening between the racial groups, between the religious groups, you'll find big issues that happen outside of school between these groupings. Whereas Michaela, they are friends across those divides. And that is because we are socializing them in that way all the time. And what is quite sad is that, and this is for both the right and the left politically, the left feel that actually we should just be always celebrating diversity and that there's nothing to unify us at all. And while obviously I'm all for some diversity, you know, we eat

different foods, we might go to churches and mosques and temples and so on, and that's fine, but we also need to find things that unite us. And the cohesion of a community in a school for me is really important. Now obviously if you're in a school where things are a lot more relaxed and, you know, children do what they like at lunchtime, and you know, children do what they like at lunchtime, and they roam around the corridors and they can go out of classrooms, then clearly you might want to have a prayer room and that's fine. You know, I'm not saying that no school should have a prayer room. I'm saying it can't work for us, given the nature of our family lunch,

given the nature of our corridors, we walk in silence in the corridors, the children are not allowed to roam freely. They all go outside together. So, and then when they're outside, we are making sure that everyone is mixing, if there's a child being left out, we're bringing him back into the fold, which is why, you know, bullying is an absolute minimum, and if we were to find something, we would stamp it out immediately. And that's why our children are so happy and why it's such a lovely place to be.

And that, that for me, you know, is the beautiful thing about Michaela. I mean, Michaela, sure, last two years we've had the highest progress eight, meaning that we've been the top school in terms of, in the whole country, of the 4,000-odd secondary schools there are, And the whole country, we, from year seven, right through year 11, when they take the GCSCs, the last two years, they have made the most progress at our school in comparison to anywhere else. And so people say, oh, the results, the results. And I've always said, the thing I'm most happy about, most proud of is not the results. It's who our children are and who they are amongst each other. And so the left want to just celebrate this whole diversity thing.

And let's separate everybody into groups and how do you identify and which group do you? you belong to, which I think is the wrong way to go. And then you've got the right, I just read this article actually, where someone arguing from the right against us saying that we're having to do peacekeeping amongst all these groups who hate each other. That just isn't true. You know, as adults with children, whether your parents or teachers, it's our role to help to socialize them to be good citizens and good peace. That's what we should be doing and that's what we are doing at Michaela. We're not keeping the peace between groups that hate each other and You're teaching kids not to hate each other and to be friends with each other. That's what you're doing and we're teaching

So this guy who was writing was saying, you know, we don't want multiculturalism You know forget multiculturalism now multiculturalism is division, which often it is, you know So I understand why people on the right will say that of some multicultural situations. I get that But if we can make it so that we understand each other and we all understand this idea of sacrificing for the whole, and that everyone sacrifices, whatever it may be, why is this a bad thing? What I don't understand on the right is that they just go on, multiculturalism has failed, it's failed, it's failed. What are you going to do? Get all of us out of the country? I mean, is that what you're doing? I mean, I don't understand what your solution is. My solution is that with children, we teach them how to be kind to each other. Because even when you have a group of white children, they'll pick on the smaller one,

they'll pick on the one with the ginger hair, they'll pick on the one. That's always the case. The fact is children need to be taught how to get on with each other and how to like each other. And obviously you do that in the confines of what you, you know, as the head, we are very strict. So our very strict rules prevent wandering around classrooms and corridors and so on. Our ethos is such that prayer rooms simply wouldn't work. The building is also extremely restrictive. You can't, when we do our family lunch, I can't dismiss all of the Muslim children upstairs to pray

and all of the non-Muslim children outside. That is to divide according to race and religion, and I will never divide the children according to race and religion. I don't believe in that. So that's why we're fighting this. Now, and the other thing that this guy said in this article that so annoyed me was that he was saying, well, it's obviously failed at Michaela. Multiculturalism obviously fails. Like, no, it hasn't failed.

We've been going for 10 years. Yes, there is one family that's doing this. But the other night we had a year 11 parents evening packed 100% attendance, all of them there. massive hall filled with everyone. It was the day that I was on the cover of the evening standard. The parents actually had, some of them had copies of it and they were in their bags and so on. Not one of them said anything about the issues that I'm going on in the press, about the school, about the court case, about any of it.

Not one of them. We talked about GCSEs, we talked about working hard, we talked about how we support our kids at home. My teachers were telling me how parents were hugging them and thanking them for all of their hard work. and this is 50% Muslim population in the room, you know. So this idea that it's impossible for Muslims to get on with other people who are not Muslim is just it's a nonsense, you know? The fact is that our children and our families have got on for many years and everything's gone well. So to just take this one situation and say, well, there you go, it's failed.

It hasn't failed. In fact, we succeed every single day, not to be. just in terms of the results, but in terms of the people who they are. And so I criticize the right for saying that. And then I criticize the left who then say to me, well, unless you provide all these prayer rooms and abolish your ethos, and we'd have to move the bags and the coats out of the rooms. We'd have to move all the furniture. And the kids would have to be doing it daily. We would have total chaos in my view. In some people's view, it would be fine. It'd be more of a normal school. But it wouldn't be our strict school. We wouldn't have 800 visitors coming to the

school anymore every year because we do. We have 800 visitors coming to look to say, wow, this is such an amazing place. We would have to abandon everything that we are in order to provide these prayer rooms. Now, I think it's wrong to expect us to do that. I think that obviously, look, we're a very different school. At the beginning when families come to find out about us, I tell them. I don't just tell them about the lack of prayer room. I tell them that we have silent corridors. I tell them that the kids have family lunch. I tell them they all go outside and they play in this way and so on. I explain all the differences that make us different from other schools because as I always say to them, look, when you go to a shop and you buy a Kit Kat,

you want to get home and find a Kit Kat in your bag. You don't want to find a Mars Bar. So I'm going to tell you everything that you might not like about the school and then it's up to you. And if you decide to come on board, well, you need to come on board with everything that we you know, now. And to me, Catherine, that seems absolutely fair enough. And for everybody listening, they can have a drink because I'm going to say the words, I used to be a teacher.

I get it. I get everything. I really support what you do. I always thought that that is the most effective way to run a school. The more structure that you have, particularly for kids who lack structure outside of the educational establishment, they crave it and they need it.

And it sounds, and it looks like the school is a roaring success. at what point did you notice that you actually had a problem here? Okay, that's the very good question. So never had a prayer room. The kids have always been fine with that. There's never been an issue. And then last year, during Ramadan, in the yard, a few kids decided to pray. Now, we've always said that prayer would be allowed in the yard for the kids.

These are the lower school kids. We've always said prayer would be allowed, but nobody chosen to pray in the yard. and so it was always, which just wasn't an issue before. I have to say it wasn't an issue when they first started praying either. It's fine. It was allowed. We didn't, you know, it was fine. But then there was an incident where some children were badly behaved around the prayer. And a petition started up online. Now, the children apparently were not involved in this.

I'm assuming people from outside were. people could see through the gates, you know, what's going on outside. And of course, if the children are praying in the yard, then, well, why don't they have a prayer room? So there was this petition that started up demanding a prayer room. Thousands of people signed it. Now, none of this got into the main press at the time. And we were very grateful. You know, we had a media ban on this actually for all this time since those events until now. When you say we, the judge banned this from being discussed. Yeah.

Just to be clear, the strictest headmistress of the world has banned the media. No, no. No, we'd gone to court and managed to get a media ban, which was then lifted last week in court, which is why suddenly we've been thrown into the press. I was desperate for it to remain because some people who criticise me say, oh, well, she obviously just wants to be in the news. No, no, no. We were arguing to keep that ban.

Now, we were very lucky when this happened because we didn't end up in the media. and it only stayed online. But even when I say online on social media, a few blogs were written. There were some videos made on TikTok and that kind of thing. Now, because of this petition and because of the Furore that happened online,

we then started getting death threats and all kinds of abuse. One of my teachers, black teacher, got horribly racially abused, you know, being called the N-word, the C-word compared to a monkey, all kinds of horrible, horrible things. And I'm talking 15 to 20, you know, comments.

You know, it's not just one thing. There were the death threats. There was the bomb threat. The police had to come and search the school for bombs one morning. Both that teacher of mine and me, we had to take, you know, lifts into school and so on because we were frightened to travel. One of my teachers had an attempted break-in at her flat. one of my teachers had a brick thrown through her window we had bottles thrown into the yard

there was loads of intimidation and aggression that was all coming from the outside we had to hire security the police were outside often and it was a terrifying time we also had to close the school early just before the holidays because we were meant to go out on some school trips and they just couldn't happen it was awful

and so when was this Catherine just so this was about March last year March last year. And during Ramadan. Now, what was also interesting was what happened at school, which was that, so during Ramadan, some of the children, some of the Muslim children fast, some of them don't. Obviously, we have Muslim children who cover their heads, some of them don't. And obviously, we had some children who prayed, and some of them did not.

But what happened was that the culture changed over the days this was happening. And the children who were praying, some of them would then go to the breakhole food table and intimidate the other ones who were not fasting because they chose not to fast for whatever reason. They're Muslim, but they don't want to fast. And they were made to feel, I suppose, as if they were, you know, doing something wrong by not fasting. And so they were intimidated into fasting and they weren't able to take the food. A girl, one girl, she suddenly started wearing a hijab even though she didn't wear one before. One girl dropped out of the choir because music is considered haram. All of these things, more children started praying, more children started praying and so on.

And the intimidation, so there was the horrible intimidation and aggression that was happening outside. But then there was the intimidation that was happening between the children. Now, the thing is, it's my duty as headmistress to protect all the children, not just one particular group. So this includes the Muslim children who are being intimidated, but it also includes everyone, you know, so that everyone can feel happy and comfortable in our environment. So the governors took the decision to ban prayer because obviously of what had happened and we were in danger. I mean, our lives were literally in danger. So prayer was banned and you know it was fascinating because as soon as that happened and prayer stopped, everything just went back to normal.

the children were happy again. Everything was fine and calm and lovely and everyone was mixing across the races. It was just that incident, that time totally transformed the school into something that wasn't very nice. And so

we're fighting for the right to be able to run the school as we see fit, really. Which is, of course, and I'm fully in agreement that you should be able to do that. When did you know that there was a court case looming? Well, I suppose it was soon after that incident, the time in March that we knew that that was happening.

Now, of course, all of that, it takes ages before you actually get to court. And then there was this media ban, so nobody was writing about us. I think a couple of articles appeared in the last year in the papers, but they just talked generally. about a school somewhere in Britain, you know. So it wasn't us. And then on Tuesday last week, we had the case in the courts and I was there and our barrister was arguing to keep the ban because of the death threats and so on. But I mean, the judge has a hard job. He's trying to weigh up our interests against the interests of the public. And he was saying, well, this is of the interest, it's in the interest of the public to read about this.

Various members of the press stood up and made their case for why they thought it should be made public. Our barrister made the case for why it would be dangerous for us. The judge in the end decided that the family should not be named and that the teachers should not be named, but that I and the schools should be named. Now, I mean, ultimately if you name the school, you name me. So I get it. And so he threw us into the limelight. and I have been defending our decision to ban prayer

because obviously if we don't, well, you can imagine. We lose the narrative and nobody really understands why we've done what we've done. So we've been out, I've been out just explaining that on some of the news outlets and so on. And that must be really quite stressful because when you look at the situation, you're talking about banning prayer, that would significantly rile a certain percentage of the Muslim community. Do you ever felt worried about your own particular safety now that you've been thrust into the limelight? Yeah.

So it was very bad last year. This year, we've had one, I think, to the school threat, although my PA was saying. saying, oh, Catherine, I just haven't been sending you stuff, so I don't know what there is. And then also online, there are things that get said. And so, yes, when I'm on the tube and so on, I'm looking around me. I am worried. I do have to be careful.

Because it only takes one crazy person, you know, and that's it. So it's, yeah, that is a worry. I also understand that it is, I certainly understand now since, you know, when the judge was saying, I was so angry with him when he lifted the ban and I was thinking, how can it be that, you know, our lives are at stake here and that you're lifting this ban. But having seen the amount of public interest that there's been since, I sort of think, well, maybe he was right, you know. He's making a judgment without the emotion tied up in it, which I'm obviously feeling and the fear. that I feel. So you can hear my voice is gone. So it has been a very stressful time. But I mean, it has been the case and you guys have known me, you know, since a long time ago. I've always had to fight for the school. People have been fighting us ever since we, well, from before we established, it took us three and a half years to establish because so many detractors were stopping us from opening the school. We've been, that people have protested outside

before trying to stop us from, well, having the kids when we first started, claiming that the kids were in danger in the building and all sorts of nonsense with placards insulting me and shouting abuse at me and so on. Before we opened, we would have parent evenings where we'd be telling people about this new school and people would, they would bus people in from out of London. I mean, this is the things that were so crazy. And so we tried to open the school originally in Brixton and we had an event at a pub. And I was handing out all these flyers to all these black moms at the market and down, you know, the various mosques and churches and so on.

And they all came and there were all these white people who were standing outside with placards calling me a Tory teacher and shouting abuse at me. We had to hire bouncers for the possible violence that might ensue from this whole thing. And so these are the left who supposedly care about ethnic minorities, having a great education. Here we are trying to provide an excellent education,

and they are campaigning against... Now, I say the left. This is the extreme left, obviously. There's lots of very sensible people on the left. And, you know, there was one event that we had where one woman, because I had spoken at the Conservative Party conference in 2010, which is what threw me in the limelight in the first place,

and I'm not a conservative, I'm not a member of the Conservative Party. I do call myself a small C conservative, but I would argue that many of the big C Conservatives are not small C conservative. Yep. But when I spoke at that Conservative Party conference, this made people very angry,

and I would argue that that has to do with being an ethnic minority woman, that you're not allowed to have views that are conservative. You have to vote on the left. You have to think on the left. And if you don't, people get very, very angry about it. And I remember one woman at one of our events, she stood up, because often they would stand up and shout when we were trying to talk to the parents in order to drown us out so the parents wouldn't be able to hear what we were saying. She stood up and said, you betrayed us when you went to speak at the Conservative Party conference.

And I thought, but I don't even know who you are. What do you mean I betrayed you? But I think what she meant was. you as who you are, you're an ethnic minority woman, you are meant to be with us on this, fighting the evil conservatives. And then you went to their conference and you dared speak there. You know, so, and I did dare speak there

because I think for myself, you know, I don't agree with the conservatives on everything, obviously. Sometimes, I don't know, Kirstama says something I agree with. I absolutely hate what Rishi Sunak is saying about the British advanced standard and getting rid of A-levels and so on. I mean, I'm completely against that, and I've written about it. I mean, the fact is, if you think for yourself,

then you might agree with something the Labour Party says. You might agree with something the Conservative Party says. You know, I am a small C conservative. What does that mean? And these are, well, these are values that we give the kids at the school, which I think really make us what we are. Well, and it's one of the reasons I think all of these things that you're saying, Catherine, since we met you and found more out about Michaela, I've personally found you inspiring

and you're someone I really admire because you're someone who's consistently willing to stick up for the things that she knows are right, even when it's difficult as it is in this case and you attract a lot of negative publicity and all sorts of, you know, a very unfortunate threats and so on, which, you know, I hope obviously we all do, don't materialize in any way. And obviously, shouldn't be happening in the first place. But I think, as you say, the reason this story has attracted as much of public commentaries,

it sort of feels a little bit like a test case for all the things that you alluded to earlier for both left and right, because the right has now gone into a kind of reactionary position to some extent where it's like multiculturalism failed, which it has. We should acknowledge this, right?

The idea that we should divide people according to the very issues that you just talked about, you know, the white person standing up I'm going, you betrayed us. That's not, that's not, a multiracial society like ours cannot be made to work. I agree. And so you can obviously, we all understand the frustrations people feel.

However, the answer to that has to be to advocate on a national level what you've instituted at Michaela, which is, look, I don't... This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. Elderly widow working at an aquarium, Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their cramudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th.

I don't care if you're Muslim. I don't care if you're Hindu. I don't care if you're black, brown, white, whatever. We're all here under one roof, and we're all going to pull in the same direction and work together because we're all Michaela's students, or because we're all British or because we're all American and whatever that label is and everyone has to sacrifice and it can't just be me, me, me, my group, my group over everyone else, right? That's it in a nutshell. That's it in the nutshell. And so that's kind of where I think the right is misreate.

It's not the right. It's some people on the right. Well, true. But the thing is like one of the things, look, I do think for myself. So I come on a show where I know there are going to be lots of right wing people talking and I say, you know what, there is such a thing as racism because I think there is. And when I'm saying, look, I think ethnic minorities like me, there's a reason why Suella Braaviman and Priti Patel

and Kemi Badernaut get the hatred that they get. It's intense and it's so intense because they're women of color who say the things that they say and they're not allowed to say them. They're not allowed to be on the right. And I'm not saying that I agree with everything they say. You know, I am not part of the Conservative Party. But the fact is that we should be able to think for ourselves.

And ethnic minorities are not allowed to. And there's a real problem with that. Well, actually, no one is allowed to anyone. This was where I was going. Yes, possibly. So with the right, there is that overreaction where, yes, multiculturalism hasn't worked, but the solution is to create a multi-ethnic society that works. Because we are a multi-ethnic society.

You're not going to get away from that. Well, that's it. What are they going to do? Put me on a boat and send me to Jamaica. Exactly. I mean, this is ridiculous. Quite. But the left, the left also has an issue with what you are doing for the precise reasons

that they oppose the very thing that you cherish, which is everybody coming together and working together. They want to split... And being British. They want to split everybody apart and say, you're this group, you're that group. We can look at your skin color and say, these are the opinions you should have and this is your level of oppression and blah, blah, blah. That's why it seems to me this case

has got the attention that it's got because you're standing up for a very important principle against, frankly, what some people might interpret as the expression of an intolerant minority view of which there are different versions from all sides. Yeah. Although I wouldn't say that it's so minority these days.

I mean, what I mean is people don't sort of realize it, you know. Just everyone sort of thinks in that divisive way. You know, so I would say in 1995 we had far better race relations than we do know. You know, because everybody now just sees color, because that's all anybody ever talks about. So I have people who say to me, would you like to join our board because we really need a diverse board? Do you slap them? Because you should? Well, and I think to myself, do you know all that I've achieved?

Do you know anything about me? Like, I don't understand how you look at me and all you see is brown skin. That's all you see, you know? I don't understand that. And the thing is because the, well, I say because, look, for some people, I see some of the comments on there about, you know, when I'm trying to defend us, you know,

and some of the comments against Muslims or Muslim children. And I just think, this is all wrong. You know, so I'm not just saying racism comes just from the left, It also comes from the right. And some of the comments that I see, I just think, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I'm the one being taken to court, right? You can't talk like this, you know? Now, like, because as I say, we had our Year 11 parents evening,

and we had a group, a mixed group of people in there, Muslims and Hindus, black and white, all types. And everybody was there together. And when I say about the thing about being British, I think that's important. It's the one thing that we have in common. Yes. Now, the right can keep, you know, more of the extreme right can keep campaigning about, well, multi-countryism fails and we need to get rid of these people. Fine. That's not really a solution as far as I'm concerned. That's not going to work. Exactly. We children, look, the number one thing everybody needs to understand is the importance of schools. This is all I keep saying is the importance of schools and nobody listens to me and nobody cares about schools. People sort of think, rich people think, it's all right. I'll just get my kid into a private school and he'll be okay. People tend to panic when they're

is in year six and they're worried about where they're going to get the child to for secondary school and once he's in the secondary school and he seems okay they leave it people don't seem to realize that schools are not just engines of social mobility they're also engines of social cohesion right and it's there that children become who they're going to be as adults and their families and their schools are the are what play the most important role in making them into who they're going to be. And if we want to have a future for the country, we must look to our schools. Nobody cares about the schools. So the pundits, you know, like you and whoever, you know, we once had Jordan Peterson come to our school. And I said to him, why do you never talk about

schools? Because he never does. Now, since he came, I noticed he does mention schools a little bit more. It's probably terrified of you, Catherine, right? If you said that to me. But he said, oh, I don't know. I don't know. And I said, because you don't care about them. That's why. Nobody cares about schools. Nobody talks about. It should be mandatory. All of you guys should be forced to be talking about schools all the time they are the future to our country. Absolutely. You know? And so, and the only time people get interested really in schools is when it's an issue around gender, then everybody's going, oh, what's going on in schools, or it's an issue about critical race theory being taught, oh, what's going on in schools. And look, I'm glad. I'm glad. To be honest, I'm almost grateful for those recent changes. I am. I'm almost grateful because people at least paying attention. People are suddenly looking at schools. I have been shouting about this for 15 years. Nobody's been listening. And the reason why critical race theory and gender studies and all this sort of stuff has been happening in schools is because children have been leading the learning for 20, 30 years. Now, what do I mean by that? Child-centered learning as opposed to teacher-led learning. We have lost where of the adults gone, right? The adults need to be in a position of authority in the front of the classroom.

leading the learning. For many years now, I say 20 or 30, it's actually been longer than that, really since the 60s this has been happening. Child-centered learning has embedded itself in our schools. What that means is children are in groups. They are leading what they're doing, and the teacher is the facilitator of learning, moving amongst the desks, keeping the children on task. The teacher is no longer the authority leading the way. I always say the teacher should be driving the bus, and you're keeping the children on the bus with you, and you decide where you're going. You set the standards of the discipline. The leadership team at the school runs with and leads the culture of the school. What people often don't understand about our school.

So when they're talking about this situation about prayer, they say, well, it's five minutes. What difference does it make? It's their free time. They can do what they like. So what? Look, in our school, there really is no free time in a way. Yes, they're playing basketball, And yes, they're chatting to each other, but the teachers are all there and they're all making sure that we are being socialized in a way that means that eventually when we let the little birdies fly, they are good citizens and they are people that we can be proud of, you know? There's one of my deputies once gave me this quote, which says, you can be friends with your children when they are children or when they are adults. You cannot be both, right? And it's the same goes for parents, parents who want to be friends with their kids. You can't be friends with your kids. You're meant to be in charge of them.

You're meant to be role models. You're meant to lead the way. And the adults have left the room. The adults have left the room at home, and they've left the room in the schools. And I've been saying this for years. And then what's happened is, because the children are leading everything,

that's why they've led us straight into this madness, right? That is happening in too many schools, where children are being divided. And then it's become the norm now. It's become so much the norm that, you know, if anyone tries to push back, against that, then, you know, we can be vilified. And that is what has happened to me. And the one thing that I've noticed, because I've worked in many schools, both academically

outstanding, tough schools and places like Neum, and what I've noticed is that the individual has now become more important than the group or the collective. Yeah. And when that happens, what you get is chaos. And when I was reading about your case, I was like, this is the exact same thing happening again where one person has decided that this is unacceptable so everybody else can go do what they need to do, but I need to do this, regardless of the chaos that it causes. The thing is, is that in any group, whether it's multiracial or not, you're going to have to make sacrifices. You could take a group of white kids. They're all going to have to make sacrifices in order for them all to get on with each other

and in order for them to succeed together. So we have very much a sense of team. We talk about the team at school and there's the form group and then there's the year group and then there's the whole school. And why do we sing God Save the King? I mean, the thing is, I am no royalist.

I do not have the King's photo on mugs. You know, I take this. You've got a trigonometry mug. I do not have royal stuff at home. I don't really care about all. that stuff. But the reason why we sing God Save the King is because I know that he is a symbol of the country and therefore of our Britishness and of what we share together and what we have in common. That is what's important. And we find what we do works. Now obviously schools that have

different layouts, maybe have more of a free time at lunch, they may do different things, you know, but given what we do with our family lunch and all of that stuff, we just, we would have to turn into a different type of school. And then you need to think, well, is it reasonable to ask a school to give up its whole ethos to totally transform in order for, for us to have prayer rooms? Is that a reasonable thing? And I don't think it is, you know? Catherine, and is this really, is there an element of this where it's just one disgruntled, student essentially, who, by the way, from what I've read, it was a bit of a troublemaker. Is that where this is coming from, do you think? Or is this really somebody making a stand on principle?

It's hard to say, you know, it is, it's hard to say. I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, I understand different religious groups wanting different things. And not just religious groups, you know, there are all kinds of groups that want different things. But, you know, our small see conservative values that I was saying, what are they? We believe very much in personal responsibility, the children taking responsibility for their homework and all the rest of it, and not to blame other people, not to see yourself as a victim. So, and that's very much part of our culture. We believe in having a duty towards other people, towards your form. So if a child comes back at the end of the day to their tutor and he's had a detention, or three or four

of them have had detention, their form tutor will say, look, you've let us all down. The team has been let down. They haven't just let themselves down as the individual. They've let everyone down, you know, because we are part of a collective. We owe something to the people around us. And so in that there is the idea of self-sacrifice, you know, you sacrifice, things that are important to you when you recognize that it makes it better for everyone around you. Now, that's some of also we teach them gratitude. So on a daily basis, we have the children give appreciations at lunch. I would like to give an appreciation to Mr Eastman. To Mr. Smith.

To the guests on our table, Mr. Meir, for coming all the way from East London to visit our school, Michaela. So two claps on two. One, two. One, two. Thank you, Madeline. I mean, it's lovely. Anyone who on that day you think,

I really owe that person something today, and I want to be able to say thank you. We do it in a public fashion. We teach some gratitude because it makes you into a happier person. And because you're a better person. And because you're a better person for being someone who's grateful. And however little you have in life, you always have more than somebody else. So be grateful for it, you know, as opposed to seeing yourself as a victim, life is so hard for me.

So while I say that, yes, I believe that racism exists and so on, if all you ever do is see everything through that lens and see yourself as this victim, so, you know, yes, things happen to me that might, you know, have a racist tone to them, If I went round life all the time thinking about that, well, I'd never have set up my school. I would never have succeeded as I have. And that's the thing that I often find that left don't understand. Once I went and gave a talk, this is relatively recently, I talked about what we do in exactly as I'm just doing with you. And this white woman came up to me and she said, but what about the racism? Why aren't you teaching them about the racism?

And I said, sorry? You know, I mean, you know, forget the irony of this white woman telling me how terrible racism is. And she said, you must tell them about the racism. And I said, well, you know, they do know that they're black and brown, you know. I know. And she said, but you've got to tell them because how are they going to cope in life otherwise? And I said, okay, so we teach them how to jump over obstacles. We teach them resilience and stoicism.

We teach them how to handle difficulties. in life and how to make something of their life. There will be all sorts of obstacles in their lives. Some of those may be racist obstacles. Some of those may be any kind of huge numbers of obstacles. The point is, do they have the resilience and the ability to be able to get up? You get knocked down, you pick yourself up, you keep ongoing. I said that this morning in assembly, I say it practically in every assembly.

You know, the fact is, that's what they need. If I go on and on about how the establishment is against them and the man is against them and so on, well then they give up then they think what's the point because I don't belong in this country I'm not I'm not welcome here and that is what I often find the more extreme left don't understand is that if they're constantly promoting that kind of division and by the way just to say you know in terms of diversity I am the poster girl for diversity I mean what I mean by that my own family background you know I've got a Muslim grandmother I've got a Hindu grandfather well I mean they're dead now but you know I did I've got a black Jamaican mother my father is of Indian heritage but grew up in Guyana. You know, I mean, the fact is, I'm a mix, right? And actually even within our own family, I saw this. You know, over the years, you know, how do you get the different groups to mix? And, you know, this idea that only white people can be racist, I mean, you know, it's just

nonsense. My father, being of Indian heritage and English. Guyana, there's a big divide between the black people and the brown people, the Indian descent people in Guyana. And when my father married my mother, his family, you know, they stopped talking to him. I mean, that, you know, now over the years that changed and so on, you know, but it was, it was a, it was a scandalous thing that he did, you know. And so the fact is, race and religion are difficult things to talk about and to deal with. And children are so influenced by what they experience as children.

So that is why our jobs around socialization with children, helping them to see beyond the confines of race, religion, sexuality. And what is so terrible is that these days, that's all that's being promoted. And our humanity has been lost. Why do we read Shakespeare? Because there is a common thread of humanity in there. And that whether you're black or white or Hindu or Muslim, you understand what jealousy is, you understand what war is, you understand what anger is, and all that Shakespeare does, what love is, you know, that is what we should be.

Trying to do. And meanwhile. Yeah. You are doing, Cassidy. You are doing. And I'm grateful that you are doing that. We try to talk about some of these things on our show in order to do the same thing that you are doing in a smaller way, which is to put that idea out there that human beings can connect as human beings instead of looking at each other through skin color and all sorts of other things. So I'm really grateful that Mikhail exists.

And I hope you are allowed to continue with that ethos because I think it's much needed. When is the court case and when can we expect an outcome? in your case? Well, I mean, they say it could be a couple of months. We don't really know, so we're just sort of waiting. I have to say I wait with trepidation because whatever the press has been now, I expect it will be 100 times more

when that verdict comes out. But, you know, we've got to soldier on. We've got to fight for what's right. You know, our Western values, you know, people take them for granted. they think it's normal to have societies that mix successfully and that you get on a bus and it works and you get on the tube and it works

and that you know... What city do you live in, Cameron? She was like to say you get on the train, it works. No, Catherine, we joke. You're 100% right. They take it for granted, they think it's normal. And I feel like saying to them, go and travel. You know, the thing is, it was one of the things

that helped me when I was. a teacher. I was on the left, very much so. And I changed my mind to become more of a small sea conservative because I went and visited other countries. And I worked a summer in South Africa in schools. I visited schools in India and China and in Jamaica and all over, you know. And I saw what what it's like elsewhere, you know. What is it like elsewhere? Well, um, groups don't necessarily mix together. she's putting it very gently. You know, the schools don't have the resources

and the teaching quality is nowhere near what we've got and things that we take for granted that a bell rings between the lessons, you know? It's simple stuff like that. Just wouldn't happen, you know? And then, of course, the poverty that you see elsewhere, the terrible ways in which people are treated. I went to visit this school that had been set up by a charity,

by an Indian heritage man, but he was American for Dalit children in India. I mean, they couldn't go to the well because other people wouldn't be able, they would kick them away because that well was not for Dalit people, you know? Like it was racism on a level that, you know, that we are totally unfamiliar with.

We don't know what it's like. And I mean, I always say that Britain is such a brilliant place to live in terms of race, you know. In terms of Europe, my goodness. I mean, you want racism. You go and find other parts of Europe. Forget about India and China. I mean, in China, oh my goodness. I mean, racism is off the charts, you know.

But just in Europe, other places in Europe, the kind of racism that you'll find. In Britain, we're so, we're wonderful. We're a wonderful country, I think. You know, I remember watching this movie with Denzel Washington called Book of Eli. And it's this post-apocalyptic world in which, you know, most of the things we now take for granted don't exist. It's kind of a mad max. There's nothing works. You have to scrounge forever.

And there's a young girl who asked him what it was like before the apocalypse happened. And he said, oh, people used to just take everything for granted. and the stuff that we now kill each other for, they used to throw in the bin. Yes. And that's kind of how I think about Britain and, you know, Western countries, mostly, and the rest of the world. Yes.

People in the West just so fundamentally don't appreciate what we have here. That's right. And they've got to go and see it with their own eyes, otherwise they never will. That's right. Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned Denzel Washington because I did my assembly this morning, partly on him. And, you know, he gives this great speech about how you've got to keep working.

You fall down seven times, you get up eight, he says. And he says that ease is a greater threat to success than a hardship. And I was saying to the kids, you've got to push through the pain. You've got to push yourselves to you feel it's hard, right? Because if it isn't hard, if it's easy, then you're not really making a success of anything. It's got to be difficult. You know, and Denzel Washington has done more than 64 films, and he's 69 years old. And he's worth more than $280 million.

I know this because I did my assembly this morning on him. And I was saying, look at this man. He's so successful. He gives his little speech. And at the end, he says, see you at work. Because he works all the time. That's how he's made over 64 films, you know? And whatever comes at him, doesn't matter.

And he understands that point. You don't want it to be easy. You want it to be hard. And that's why our motto is work hard, be kind. And we took that motto, your viewers might be interested. We took that motto. We stole it from. Kip in the United States, the charter chain there, they used to have a motto called

Work Hard Be Nice. And we changed it to be kind, just to be different. And when George Floyd happened, Work Hard Be Nice, they were accused of racism because if white teachers are teaching black children to be nice, that means you're teaching black children to be subservient, therefore it's racist. And so Kip had to abandon their motto. Now, we still have our motto. We're called, be kind. I'm not changing it. You know, like, what is this insanity?

Why can't a white teacher teach a black child to be nice? Lend him a pen, open the door. You know, be kind to your friends. I don't understand it. We've all lost our minds. I mean, we've lost our minds. And there's something very important worth saying here because within education,

there are some people within it who see as a controversial figure, but there are a lot of teachers, believe me, who I've spoken to, who've reached out to me, who's people that I have also worked under who see you as a guiding light and someone pushing back against this nonsense, not because you're interested in becoming a public figure, but because you care about the kids. And that's what it always comes down with you, Catherine, which is why it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. It's always a place to talk to about education. Thank you so much for coming on. And the final question, as always, is

what's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be? Scoles! Beautiful. And of course, it's not the final question because we have questions from our supporters on locals where we're going to head over in a second and ask them and they all go behind a paywall on local so they can see that. Thanks for watching. Head on over to locals for the rest of this conversation. The best thing you can do for your children, say this to Absolutely everyone.