The school challenged a decision of the respondent Secretary of State to the effect that it was not providing suitable education with the threatened loss of its accreditation. The teaching was based upon a narrow bible-centred fundamentalism.
Held: Woolf J said: ‘education is ‘suitable’ if it primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as a whole, as long as it does not foreclose the child’s options in later years to adopt some other form of life if he wishes to do so.’ However: ‘the Secretary of State is entitled to regard a particular form of education as being too narrow but the requirements he lays down must not go beyond that which is necessary in his opinion to make the education suitable and he should be sensitive to the traditions of the minority sect and only interfere with them so far as this is necessary to make the school suitable.’
Judges:
Woolf J
Citations:
Times 12-Apr-1985
Education
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.452405
