Mirfield Free Grammar School: Muslim pupils 'forced to pray outside'

'We are a broadly Christian academy and have never had a prayer room,' school reportedly says

Children pray outside the Mirfield Free Grammar School and Sixth Form in Mirfield, West Yorkshire (Mercury Press & Media)

Parents of Muslim pupils at a Yorkshire grammar school are threatening legal action after claiming their children were forced to pray outside.

Families of students at Mirfield Free Grammar School, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, say their children have had to perform their prayers in cold temperatures and rain in the playground since October 2014 because the school offers no indoor facilities.

Parents told the Daily Mail that their children had previously been allowed to use the school hall to pray before permission was withdrawn. The school insisted the hall was never used as a prayer room for pupils.

Students at Mirfield Free Grammar School have to pray outside as the school allegedly has nowhere else for them to pray (Google Street View)

Sixth form pupils are allowed to pray offsite and use the town’s House of Resurrection monastery to pray.

But the three-mile round trip means students are absent from school and potential classes for up to an hour.

Akooji Badat, chairman of the nearby Masjid and Madressa Noor-Ul-Islam mosque, told the Daily Mail: “For children to be made to go outside in horrible conditions is surely wrong in anybody’s eyes.

“The school has acted disgracefully. I am hearing from parents that children have been soaked to the skin and cannot concentrate in lessons.”

Parents, along with Mr Badat, have presented the school with a petition signed by 70 pupils to find somewhere for the children to pray.

The Masjid and Madressa Noor-Ul-Islam mosque has reportedly offered to help the school financially by raising money to provide somewhere for children who wish to pray.

Solicitor Yunus Lunat has taken on the case on behalf of a number of families.

He said: The last thing the parents and students want is for this to affect their studies.”

Executive Principal, Lorraine Barker said in a statement: “We are a broadly Christian Academy and have never had a prayer room.

"Before students join the Sixth Form, we make them aware of the facilities we have on site and we make it clear that we do not have a prayer room.

"Sixth Form students are welcome to leave the site to attend their own mosque, however, local mosques have offered their facilities to them if this is more convenient.”