Muslim school Al-Khair wins outstanding ratings from Ofsted

Praised: Al-Khair School in Croydon
Google Street View
Danny Buckland8 December 2015

A muslim faith school which started in a converted warehouse has won praise from Ofsted for its teaching and pupils’ personal development.

In its report, the education watchdog rated the Al-Khair school’s approach to personal development, behaviour and welfare as “outstanding”. It was rated “good” in every other category.

The independent 400-pupil primary and secondary school aims to create positive Muslim role model graduates to encourage more inclusive societies.

Headteacher Aisha Chaudhry said: “A nurturing environment is so important so the pupils can be the next generation with a balanced view who accept others.

“I don’t think it’s about just their knowledge and what they’ve learned here, it is about their character.

“We want them to be honest, fair, polite and good role models of the Muslim community. We cannot be represented by idiots going around doing barbaric things.

“It is trying to break the mould and stereotypes — and a lot of those come form our own culture.

"They say, ‘Girls can’t do this or that’, so the only careers they should go into is doctor, lawyer, engineer and I’m trying to be a little bit different.”

Al-Khair began life 13 years ago in Croydon after a local imam, Qasim Ahmad, promised to educate five children excluded or disadvantaged by the school system.

Ms Chaudhry said: “I put my plans on hold and drew up the first ever timetable with humanities in the morning and science in the afternoon.

“I had no experience of Islamic schools and wasn’t part of any movement in Britain.

"But I had experience of good schooling and wanted to promote that.

“It was just me and one other teacher and it was really good to establish something from scratch. We got it through its first Ofsted inspection and it has grown from there.”

The £5,000-a-year boys and girls school, which accepts Christian pupils, has a teacher-pupil ratio of 1 to 16 and offers activities including archery, fencing and scuba-diving.

America’s ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun, recently held a workshop with pupils.

“The Government is doing a lot to harmonise society but schools also need to do a lot to create young people who have understanding and tolerance rather than hatred,” Ms Chaudhry said.

“A new generation can get rid of racism.

"We want our pupils to be a benefit to society.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT