The modern world enjoys little more than dividing us and few feel that pull more strongly than young people. But education can be anathema to all that, a place where children of all backgrounds, abilities and interests can come together for the highest of purposes: learning.
Step forward Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacher of Michaela Community School in Wembley, known as Britain’s “strictest headteacher”. True or not, this is to miss the point about what drives her. Ms Birbalsingh not only runs a hugely successful school, she seeks to ensure that the ethnically diverse students are not divided along religious or racial lines. To that end, the school instituted a ban on prayer.
