We were delighted to receive the Autumn / Winter 24 edition of School House @schoolhouse_magazine this week and read our contributions to Peter Stanford reports on the multi-faith schools creating a really positive ethos in his feature `EAT, PRAY, LEARN`
" [Queen`s Gate`s] intake, as befits its location at the heart of a diverse capital city, is distributed across many of the religious traditions. There is no majority,` says Wallace, `but a core number of Jewish girls, significant number of Muslims, some from the Middle East, Christians of various denominations including Eastern Orthodox, and some Sikhs and Hindus. One of her favourite moments, she recalls, came in her first year after she joined in September 2022, with the Muslim feast of Ramadan, marked in Islam by a month of fasting, prayer and reflection. `We marked it by having Muslim girls standing up in front of the school and explaining how Ramadan is a real living thing. It was about getting everyone thinking - about how to support their Muslim friends, how it was okay to ask questions, how not to put up barriers even if you don`t have faith yourself.`
The multi-faith environment nurtured at the school, adds
Vice-Principal, Christian Kendall-Daw, includes the way the staff there behave. `One of the things about our school is how staff care for each other and their spirituality. Our team staff have that real interest and understanding of a person`s faith journey? It is reflected, too, in assemblies that are, he says, `a real feature of the school`s life` not a resented legal imposition. When we approach subjects such as meta-physics, our girls are not remotely afraid. Some have quite strong views that religion can be a harmful thing, some are profoundly religious and some questioning. We navigate our way through that, even when trying to deal with world conflicts."
Read the whole feature in the latest edition of School House.