A London primary school teacher was reportedly banned from working with children after telling a Muslim pupil that “Britain is still a Christian state.”
The educator is said to have been reported to his local child protection board following remarks made to students at the school in the capital.
A senior detective from the Metropolitan Police’s child abuse investigation team subsequently became involved in the matter, launching a hate crime investigation, it has been reported.
The incident arose after the teacher allegedly reprimanded pupils for washing their feet in the boys’ lavatory sinks.
According to the pupil who lodged the complaint, the teacher stated that the school was not a religious institution and suggested there was an Islamic school approximately a mile away if they preferred to attend there instead.
The teacher was said to have also noted that King Charles serves as head of the Church of England.
Following the alleged feet-washing incident, the teacher attempted to explain British values of tolerance to his Year 6 class.
He reportedly reminded the children that Islam was a minority religion in the United Kingdom.
A Primary school teacher has been banned from working with children after telling Muslim pupil that ‘Britain is a Christian state’
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GETTY
Legal representatives for the teacher have highlighted the school was a non-faith institution where prayers had been informally prohibited from the playground, with foot washing in sinks similarly restricted to a designated prayer room.
The school suspended the teacher in March 2024 before subsequently dismissing him, per The Telegraph.
The teacher was informed in April 2024 that he had been referred to the safeguarding board and Scotland Yard. The force’s investigation was later dropped.
However, the safeguarding officer determined the teacher had made hurtful comments about Islam and that the child had suffered emotional harm, resulting in his ban from working with children.
The incident arose after the teacher allegedly reprimanded pupils for washing their feet in the boys’ lavatory sinks
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GETTY
Three pupils submitted written complaints against the educator.
Nine individuals reviewed these complaints, comprising the local safeguarding officer, a detective sergeant from the child abuse investigation team, two social workers, an HR adviser and the headteacher.
The children alleged they felt upset and frightened by the teacher’s outburst, claiming he had shouted at them.
The teacher successfully appealed against the ban and is now understood to be employed part-time at a school outside London.
Lord Young, director of the Free Speech Union, stated: “This teacher lost his job and almost ended up being barred from the profession for life just because he pointed out to a class of Muslim schoolchildren that the national religion of England is Anglicanism.”
“Things have reached a pretty pass in this country if a teacher can be branded a safeguarding risk because he says something that’s incontestably true.
“If he’d claimed that Islam is the official religion of England, even though that’s not true, I doubt he would have got into any trouble.”
The Free Speech Union is supporting the teacher’s legal action against the local authority and has assembled a dossier containing more than twelve cases where adults working with children were allegedly referred to safeguarding boards for expressing right-wing views.