Parents upset over school's headscarf ban

Parents of a young Muslim girl have threatened to take a primary school to court over their refusal to allow their daughter to wear a headscarf.

Officials from St Cyprian’s Greek Orthodox Primary in Croydon, south London, say the parents of the unnamed girl demanded that she wear a headscarf once she hit puberty. The school has refused and the parents have threatened to go to the High Court.

The case bears similarities to a failed claim by schoolgirl Shabina Begum six years ago that her school had breached her human rights by refusing to let her wear a larger headscarf. Ms Begum won in the High Court but later had her case overturned in the Court of Appeal.

Current Government guidance on uniforms states that schools should “act reasonably” in accommodating beliefs relating to clothes and hair.