Image copyright BBC contributor Image caption Transgender rights activist Kalki Subrahmaniam officially opened the school, which will start out with 10 pupils

A residential school for transgender people has been opened in the Indian city of Kochi, to help adults who dropped out of school finish their education.

Transgender people can face judgement and hostility in India, and around half of them fail to complete their schooling as a result.

Sahaj International is the first school of its kind in India.

It will welcome 10 pupils, aged 25-50.

The students will be prepared for India's Class 10 and 12 board exams, normally sat when students are aged 15-16 or 17-18 respectively. The curriculum will also include some vocational skills.

Transgender activist Vijayraja Mallika, who heads the school, told the BBC: "The school aims at making transgenders eligible for taking decent jobs and living a dignified life."

"We have admitted six candidates so far, all male-to-female persons, from 14 applicants. Of the 10 seats, we have reserved one for female-to-male and one for the disabled."

Teachers are also transgender

The school is in Kerala, which is the first Indian state to adopt a transgender policy against discrimination. It promotes inclusive education, and offers free gender reassignment surgery at government hospitals.

The centre's organisers said they had arranged sponsors for all the students, to pay for their food, accommodation and studies.

The teachers also belong to the transgender community - a measure designed to protect and encourage the pupils.

The decision comes after India's first transgender college principal, Manabi Bandopadhyay, resigned from her post claiming that some of her students and fellow teachers had agitated against her because of her sexual identity.

Image copyright BBC contributor Image caption Kalki Subrahmaniam called the opening of the school a "historic day"

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Transgender activists hope the school will boost students' employment prospects

India has an estimated two million transgender people, and in 2014 the country's Supreme Court ruled that they have equal rights under the law.

As well as the right to marry and inherit property, they are also eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions.

But abuse and exploitation are still common. Many transgender people are thrown out of home by their families, denied jobs, and forced into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

'700 people turned us away'

Even finding a venue for the school was a challenge, as nobody was willing to rent the founders their premises.

"We approached some 700 people and 51 households, and all of them turned us away. They seemed to think that we were looking for space for prostitution," Ms Mallika said.

Finally, a suitable site was found.

All of the school's first students come from Kerala, but Ms Mallika hopes to gather more from beyond the state.

"This is a model centre. Once proved successful, we will expand the facilities and admit more people, from across India," she said.

"Kerala has some 25,000 transgenders, and 57% of them were forced to drop out of school due to stigma. They all should get a decent accommodation the policy initiatives envisaged."

The school was opened by activist Kalki Subramaniam, who is a transgender woman herself.

"This day is historic for me," she said.

Reporting by Ashraf Padanna in Trivandrum, Kerala</s>India has opened a residential school for transgender people in Kochi – a city in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala – to help them to finish their school education.

Sahaj International, which is first of its kind of school, will welcome ten students, aged 25-50. Then, they will be prepared for senior secondary examination and higher senior secondary examination, i.e. 10th and 12th grade, respectively.

Transgender activist Vijayraja Mallika, who heads the school, told the BBC: "The school aims at making transgenders eligible for taking decent jobs and living a dignified life."

"We have admitted six candidates so far, all male-to-female persons, from 14 applicants. Of the 10 seats, we have reserved one for female-to-male and one for the disabled."

According to reports, the school's curriculum includes inclusive education with some vocational skills. It will also provide free gender reassignment surgery at government hospitals.

India has over two million transgender people. Despite having equal rights under the law, they face shame and are forced to get involved into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

The school head, Mallika, said that even finding a suitable place for starting the school was a herculean task.

"We approached some 700 people and 51 households, and all of them turned us away. They seemed to think that we were looking for space for prostitution," Mallika added.

The first batch of students is from Kerala, but the transgender activist hopes to get more from all over India.

"This is a model centre. Once proved successful, we will expand the facilities and admit more people, from across India.

"Kerala has some 25,000 transgenders, and 57% of them were forced to drop out of school due to stigma. They all should get a decent accommodation the policy initiatives envisaged," she added.</s>India’s first transgender school opened in Kochi on Friday. The school, named Sahaj International, was inaugurated by transgender activist, writer and actor Kalki Subramaniam at Thrikkakara in Kerala’s Ernakulam district. This alternative learning centre works in collaboration with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). The school, the first of its kind in the country, is expected to go a long way in ensuring equal opportunities for transgenders who have dropped out from school. The new learning centre will help them continue their education and appear for Class X and XII examinations.

“Today is an important day, a historical day, historical time… An important day, time we are opening a learning center for transgenders. Nowhere in India it has been initiated so far. That way this will be the pioneer for many other organisation in different states, a model to follow,” Kalki said.

“The most improtant tool for the underprivileged, discriminated marginalised, oppressed community is education, because education brings light, knowledge, truth and confidence.”

“Education brings the path to the beautiful life, because transgender people like me, we are abandoned by our families. Most of our biological parents don’t accept us and because of this reason most of us are left on the street and forced to beg and do sex work. This has to change if we have to change the destiny of those people who were abandoned by their families and who had lost opportunity to get educated,” Kalki said.

Lauding the organisers, district collector Muhammad Y. Safeerulla said such initiatives will help end discrimination and ensure gender justice. He said the administration will extend all support for the welfare of the transgenders.

Training for soft skills, stitching, organic farming, oration, personality development will be given to students. V S Raveendran, regional director of NIOS, said the alternate learning centre for transgender community will soon be a special accredited institution of NIOS.

The transgender school is headed by six transgenders and a woman under the Transgender Foundation. “The school will initially start with 10 students including a migrant and a differently abled transgender. There will be a pool of 60 trainers which includes teachers, social workers, doctors and engineers to support the educationally disadvantaged to strengthen their community’s social status,” said Vijayaraja Malika, the driving force behind this pioneering institution.

The transgenders had great difficulty in finding a place to start the school in the city. The organisers said most building owners had refused to give them space to start the school. The school became a reality after a Christian organisation, CMC Vimala Province, leased out a rent free building situated in a 1.5 acres plot in Thrikkakara.

Thrikkakara Municipality chairperson K K Neenu said it as a proud moment in her life as the country’s first transgender alternate school is opened in her municipality. Thrikkakara MLA P.T. Thomas also spoke.</s>The school will function near NGO Quarters in Kakkanad. (Representational image)

Kochi: Transgender activist and artist Kalki Subramaniam inaugurated India’s first residential transgender school in Kochi on Friday. Sahaj International School, which will operate under the National Open School system, will initially have 10 transgender students. The school is considered as an Alternate Learning Centre for school dropout transgenders.

The school will have boarding facility. It will provide opportunities for soft skill training and organic farming.

Maya Mohan and Vijayaraja Mallika, the two office-bearers of Trans India Foundation attended the event. District Collector Muhammed Y. Safeerulla, P.T. Thomas MLA also attended the inauguration. The school will function near NGO Quarters in Kakkanad.

The institution will be run by six transgenders working with the Trans India Foundation. The students have been selected from different sections of the transgender community. Besides regular subjects, the curriculum will have other skill development programmes.</s>MUMBAI: A centre for transgender school dropouts is set to open this week in India to help address the challenge of a lack of formal education that forces them into low-paid jobs.

The Sahaj Alternative Learning Centre in the southern state of Kerala will initially house 10 transgender students taught by volunteer teachers and social workers.

“This is a centre for those transgender students who had to drop out of school because they were abused or because they were kicked out by their families or school authorities,” said activist Vijayraja Mallika, a founder of the centre.

“We want to try and mainstream them, and integrate them into society with a complete education and some skills with which they can find a job and be independent,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

India is estimated to have about 2 million transgender people. In 2014, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that they had equal rights under the law, and granted legal status to the third gender.

Alongside the right to marry and inherit property, they are also eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions.

But abuse and exploitation are common. Often thrown out of home by their families, many lack a formal education and are denied jobs, forced into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

Recently, there have been moves to extend more benefits to the community, with Odisha state becoming the first to give transgender people welfare benefits such as pension.

Bollywood is also lending a hand, with 6 Pack Band, a pop band of transgender women, featured on the soundtrack of a Bollywood movie this year.

It was hard to find a property for the centre in Kerala, and the founders were rejected by more than 50 owners, Mallika said.

“This centre is very important because despite the laws, social acceptance is still low and we are discriminated against by employers and our own families,” said transgender activist Kalki Subramaniam, who is inaugurating the school on December 30.

The curriculum will also include some vocational skills.

“Education is the only tool we have to advance, to support ourselves and to make something of ourselves,” she said.</s>It is sad that the students of a boys’ government high school in Thatta Khalil union council attend their classes in a graveyard. The same place also serves as a playground for those children during their recess time. The school is located ten kilometres from the Taxila-GT Road which is three kilometres from the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway. The government primary school was set up in 1905 for children of 14 villages, but only has 12 classrooms for 650 students.

The schoolchildren are deprived of their basic rights and sit under the hot sun to get an education. The boys do not have any facilities to conduct their practical classes and are compelled to go to a girls’ school to do those. It is hoped that the government will realise its responsibility and provide schoolchildren with classrooms so that their education does not suffer.

School in Turbat was posted in Newspost of TheNews International - https://www.thenews.com.pk on December 30, 2016 and was last updated on December 30, 2016. This news story is related to Print/175394-School-in-Turbat/ - breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Permanent link to the news story "School in Turbat" is https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/175394-School-in-Turbat.</s>Generous pupils at a city school are top of the table when it comes to fundraising, and that’s official.

After the pounds rolled in for the Pudsey Bear appeal at Kettlethorpe High during the annual fundraiser, their tally topped almost £14,500 - more than any other school nationally.

The fantastic final total was helped, in no small part, by BBC’s Blue Peter heading to the Standbridge Lane school to film a Children in Need Bake Off-special programme.

The presenters took part in a ‘Tryathlon’ - collecting ingredients for a cake around the country before baking the cake at Kettlethorpe High in front of the cameras.

However, it was Kettlethorpe’s solo effort last year that got them noticed by the BBC after they managed to top the £10,000 figure mark on their own.

And the five-figure tallies could continue to roll in if you study the school’s fundraising form in recent years.

Lynda Barker, assistant headteacher, said: “In the last three years we have raised, £10,000, £7,000, £10,500 and now £14,479 - our overall total being £41,979.

“Our target for this year was £10,000 with a £10 challenge for each pupil.

“However, our philosophy is that every penny counts no matter how little you give, it makes a difference.

“We had totals, per pupil, ranging from 21p to £1,479.

“We smashed our expectations by raising £14,479 which is over £4,000 more than we have ever done before.

“Our community have been incredibly generous in their support of the children and the school.

“We would just like to say thank you.”

Pupils and staff at Kettlethorpe High School undertook a number of fundraising events which included sponsored family walks, a 100k bike ride, The Great Kettlethorpe Bake Off, cake sales, raffles, a sponsored silence, a sponsored spell, 10k ‘AlterG’ run and selling handmade cards.

Mrs Barker added: “Blue Peter chose Kettlethorpe High School because last year we raised the most amount for Children in Need across all schools nationally - we are very proud of this achievement.

“Whether we can break the total will be a question for the future.

“We’ve been focussing on other events during the year; including providing Christmas hampers and shoeboxes for disadvantaged children and families has already started.

“We know how lucky we are to have the support of our children, parents, carers and the wider community.

“We are sure we will raise a brilliant total next year.”</s>(Bala Cynwyd, PA) Dr. Sherman Leis, founder of The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, one of the leading resources for transgender surgery and medical support in the United States, presents his annual list of the top 10 trends that will affect the transgender community in 2017. According to Dr. Leis, “While cultural and public support for the transgender community and its people has grown tremendously in the last year, there is still much more to be accomplished. However, due to the changing political climate, there is an air of uncertainty among the transgender community and its advocates about the continuity and pace of this progression. That said, I remain optimistic and believe the achievements we have made through 2017 will continue to move in the right direction.”

1. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be curtailed or eliminated causing changes in health coverage for transgender people and others.

2. There will be a reduction in priority for LGBTQ issues and actions as part of public policy and conversation.

3. There will be a plateauing or reduction in health insurance coverage for transgender people, especially through government programs.

4. Although public support for transgender issues may diminish, corporations’ and non-profits’ role as advocates and supporters may increase and expand.

5. The establishment healthcare community’s focus on transgender people who are minors will continue to expand.

6. 2017 will see major growth in the number of transgender surgeries scheduled, influenced by uncertainty regarding the future political climate in the U.S.

7. More high-profile figures will share their coming out as transgender stories, influencing cultural standards of acceptance.

8. There will be a continued reduction in the alarmingly high transgender suicide rate as awareness, education, institutional and societal acceptance, and transitioning increases and expands to create a more nurturing environment.

9. Transgender care will be more available, due to a continuing rise in healthcare professionals being trained to practice transgender medicine, although it may become less affordable as government insurance programs are reduced.

10. The attitudes and environment prevalent in the United States will influence and effect global attitudes towards transgender people.

The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery is located in suburban Philadelphia at 19 Montgomery Avenue, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004. Phone: 610-667-1888.</s>BY ANDY HUMM |Â After decades of dragging its feet on LGBT inclusion, the New York City public schools ââ the nationâs largest school district ââ took two big public steps forward in recent weeks in tandem with a hearing in the City Council Education Committee led by its new chair, Daniel Dromm, a veteran out gay Queens public school teacher.

On the eve of the February 25 hearing, the Department of Education (DOE) issued long-awaited Transgender Student Guidelines that are âintended to help schools ensure a safe learning environment free of discrimination and harassment, and to promote the educational and social integration of transgender students.â

The guidance calls this âan evolving area for school districtsâ that âwill undoubtedly change over time.â

Dromm told Gay City News, âI made it clear to the chancellor that LGBT students were my top priority.â

âThe stories she heard from students were spellbinding,â Dromm said, including testimony from transgender student Rocky Sanabria, 15, of Queens, âwho described what he had gone through. His principal in grade school told him he was going through a phase and was a tomboy and would get over it. He was made to stand in girlsâ lines. He had a similar experience in middle school and was moved to special education. Now heâs in Maspeth High School where he complained one kid still bullied him, though the overall experience was wonderful.â

The DOE directive cautions that âschool personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a studentâs transgender status,â but adds that in âsome cases, transgender students may feel more supported and safe if other students are aware that they are transgender.â

While it notes that certain records require use of the studentâs legal name and birth gender, to âthe extent that the school is not legally required to use a studentâs legal name or gender on school records and other documents, the school should use the name and gender preferred by the student.â

The full guidelines are available online at tinyurl.com/lefsd3u.

The guidance says that students âshould be addressed by school staff by the name and pronoun corresponding to their gender identity that is consistently asserted at school.â It also provides complex guidelines for bathroom and locker room use and participation in athletics, not all of which are satisfactory to advocates.

While the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund âcommendedâ the DOE for issuing the guidelines, the group wrote in a release that they âfail to take a clear position with respect to competitive and contact sports. And they do not clearly require schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and other gender-segregated facilities that match their gender identity.â

Following Drommâs hearing, FariÃ±a issued a âChancellorâs Memoâ to all principals that thanked the councilman for the hearing, stating, âWe heard testimony from some remarkable young people who spoke movingly about their isolation and their determination to create an atmosphere of acceptance for themselves and their families.â

FariÃ±aâs also wrote, âI encourage you and your staff to implement lessons and small group discussions that offer students ââ especially those in middle and high school ââ the opportunity to gain insight on and sensitivity toward the experience of their LGBT peers.â

Dromm said that the memo and the guidelines are âthe culmination of 22 years of work that began with EColAGY [the Education Coalition on Lesbian and Gay Youth that lobbied for such changes in the 1990s] that tried to get the chancellor to put out a note to give [school personnel] the green light to move forward with lessons on tolerance for the LGBT community. Now we have what we need to move forward. Next step is they have to do these things. One of the students at my hearings asked, âWhy isnât there a Gay Straight Alliance in every school?â I asked for a list. They are trying to compile it.â

Dromm pledged more oversight and more discussions with FariÃ±a.

âNow we have to make sure it is implemented,â he said. âWe have a chancellor who is on board. She put out this memo on her own and the wording was very good.â

Regarding the transgender guidelines, Kate Barnhart, executive director of New Alternatives for LGBT Youth (on whose board this reporter sits), said, âThe situation is definitely getting better for trans youth in the schools, but a lot of trans youth end up not completing their education because they get bullied out of schools or wind up homeless because they get bullied out of school.â

Barnhart said in the case of many of her transgender clients, some from elsewhere but including some in New York, âschools have made an active effort to push them out of school. They start telling the client, âYou really should just take the GED.â Message is that theyâre wasting the schoolâs time.â

Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the DOE, wrote in an email, âWe have never heard of this and we would never support this. This is an outrageous accusation.â

Barnhart said that there need to be more alternative high school slots in LGBT-sensitive settings and âthey need to be accessible to those who are homeless or a little older.â

Barnhart also said that âtrans youth are at disproportionate risk for HIV ââ even higher than for gay male youth. The New York City public schools AIDS curriculum is very short on information for LGBT youth. And there are questions about whether the curriculum is even being implemented.â

In response to Barnhartâs assertions about the AIDS curriculum, DOEâs Feinberg wrote, âWe offer a comprehensive program under state requirements.â

Asked what was new about the transgender guidelines, Feinberg wrote, âWe have never had written guidelines for schools around supporting transgender youth. While many schools clearly used the practices in the guidelines, this new document provides clear direction for the school system.â

As to who was responsible for putting them together, she wrote that they are âbased on national best practices.â

Responding to TLDEFâs criticisms that they do not go far enough regarding sports and use of gender-segregated facilities, she wrote, âThese are the best practices ââ we think they are clear and allow for responsiveness to the needs of individual students.â

But the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, while praising the school systemâs efforts, echoed TLDEFâs concerns. In an email message, Daryl Presgraves, GLSENâs director of communications, wrote, âBased on the guidelines released last week, the DOE took several GLSEN-recommended steps to ensure that transgender students are respected and supported in schools. The guidelines fall short of our recommendations in some areas, such as gender-segregated spaces and physical education/athletics, but we are grateful to the DOE for recognizing the need to provide schools with a roadmap for better supporting transgender students.â

Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), called the new guidelines âa necessary component in any effort to protect transgender and gender-variant students from discrimination and bias-based harassmentâ in the schools. âHowever, these guidelines give enormous discretion to school staff and Department of Education authorities to adjudicate disputes on a case-by-case basis, and so the true test of these new guidelines will lie in how teaching and non-teaching staff use them in practice.â

Park called for âtransgender sensitivity trainingâ for all school staff.

Transman Jay Kallio, whose LGBT activism goes back to the early 1970s, called the guidelines âlong overdue.â In an email, he wrote, âAs a young student [in New Jersey] in the 1960-70s, I was stalked, harassed, assaulted, and nearly blinded while at high school by the KKK in my community because of my gender nonconforming ways and sexual orientation. I was forced to drop out of high school because of the physical attacks and bigotry. Later when I nevertheless managed to get into a top college on the basis of near perfect SAT scores, I was also told to leave after a year by admissions staff, saying, âWe don’t want your kind here. Don’t come back, you will never get anything good out of us.ââ

Kallio also wrote, âThere are many caveats and âwiggle roomâ built into these DOE guidelines, with most recommendations subject to âcase-by-caseâ decision making. I would prefer to see the room for judgment weighted preferentially toward the needs, safety, and dignity of trans students, given their extreme vulnerability in the school environment. When policy is being decided regarding such a profoundly disadvantaged group, an âaffirmative actionâ set of protections and accommodations for past harm should be strongly considered.â</s>It is billed as the strictest school in Britain – but the headteacher says its biggest challenge is not keeping pupils in line but with critics from outside.

At the Michaela community school in Brent, north London, the emphasis on discipline has earned it a formidable reputation, with the headteacher, Katharine Birbalsingh, touted as “Britain’s strictest teacher” by the Sunday Times. But some educationalists are less enamoured: almost every evening on social media sees skirmishes between pro- and anti-Michaela factions.

Sometimes, according to Birbalsingh – one of the small number of black or ethnic minority women heading a secondary school in England – the debate turns sour. The emails are the worst, she says.

“They wish us cancer and things like that, because they don’t like what we are doing,” she says. “People ask me, what’s your biggest challenge running the school? It’s the detractors on the outside. On the inside there are daily challenges. But the detractors on the outside are very time-consuming, emotionally draining. And they are obsessive.”

At the school, a group of pupils prepare to end their break and move to their next lesson. They line up quietly under the eye of their teacher – who stops to ask one of them to pick up a grape from the floor.

“Do you see that?” Birbalsingh tells a group of visiting teachers. “In other schools that would never happen. You’d never see a teacher ask a pupil to pick up a grape, because they’d go mad.”

She says one of the things that is different about Michaela, the state secondary school she founded three years ago, is its unwillingness to let even a single pupil – or grape – go astray.

“It’s about habit change, and constantly reminding pupils to be respectful,” Birbalsingh says. “We have made it unacceptable not to pick that grape up.”

The year 7 pupils file out to their next class, illustrating another Michaela principle: silent corridors. The children walk between classrooms without speaking, in single file, moving quickly. Anyone who does not gets a demerit, leading to a detention.

The reason, says Birbalsingh, is that corridors in schools are where bad behaviour often takes place: pushing and fights breaking out as large groups of children mill around. By moving in a straight line, the children stay calm and focused for their next lesson.

Michaela’s staff are mostly young and active on Twitter and the education blogosphere, and Birbalsingh and the school have just published a book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers. It carries an endorsement from the philosopher Roger Scruton, who says Michaela is a model “that all our schools should imitate”.



One of the staff, Joe Kirby, has detailed Michaela’s “no excuses” policy: detentions are awarded for arriving one minute late to school, for not completing homework, for scruffy work, for not having a pen or ruler, for reacting badly to a teacher’s instruction by tutting or rolling eyes, and even for “persistently turning round in class” after being told not to.

Detention for not having a pen sounds harsh – until you learn that Michaela provides pens to all pupils at the start of the year, that there is a school shop selling cut-price ones each morning, and that parents are given persistent reminders about the equipment their children need to bring every day.

Michaela hit the headlines in 2016 when it emerged children whose parents had not paid for school lunches were made to eat in a separate room. But Birbalsingh was unmoved by the criticism. She says: “At other schools if their parents didn’t pay they wouldn’t get any lunch at all. Here they still get lunch, a good lunch.”

Birbalsingh herself has been in the news since she spoke scathingly about the state of England’s schools at the 2010 Conservative party conference. After her appearance, she left her job as vice-principal of an academy in south London.



The launch of free schools gave her an opportunity to open Michaela in 2014, in an old college building close to Wembley stadium.

In her office, Birbalsingh briefs the visitors – teachers and officials from Abu Dhabi’s education council – on the school, starting with its discipline.

“The children love it here because they know that in comparison to their primary schools or schools where they were before, that they learn so much here, it’s quiet, they are not being bullied,” she tells them.

“They can go to the toilet here and not be worried about being bullied. At other schools you will find children who train themselves not to go to the toilet all day because they are so scared of the bullying that takes place. So they just don’t go to the loo. That isn’t the case here.”

The second big difference, Birbalsingh says, is the school’s traditional style of teaching.

“We have the teacher standing at the front and imparting knowledge. We believe the teacher knows more than the children. Most teachers in Britain do not believe that. They believe that the children and teachers all know pretty much the same stuff, which is why the children just need to be guided by the teacher as opposed to being taught by the teacher.”

But the third reason is more arresting. “We teach kindness and gratitude, because we think children should be kind to each other and to their teachers and be grateful for everything we do for them.”

Being a teacher and a parent, Birbalsingh explains, is “the most exhilarating, most exciting, most important job in the country”. Instead, she says, teachers in Britain were “driven into the ground”.

She adds: “Teachers and parents need support and appreciation. That doesn’t happen in this country. Teachers are constantly being vilified in the press, they are constantly being attacked. There are actual examples of teachers getting attacked in the street, and nothing really happens to the assailants.

“If I’d have had those children in this school, they wouldn’t be attacking anybody. They would be different human beings when they grow up, and that is because they would have learned kindness and gratitude here.”

“You will find in other schools children are not kind at all, they are horrible. And they are horrible because nobody has taught them how to be kind,” Birbalsingh says.

There is an element of hyperbole in Birbalsingh’s depiction of other schools. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the outgoing Ofsted chief inspector, made his name with a strict regime as head of Mossbourne academy in Hackney. And the Ark academy chain’s King Solomon academy in Paddington uses similar techniques.

The stakes for Michaela are high: it is awaiting its first Ofsted inspection, and in two years’ time will produce its first GCSE results.

What is particularly striking is the school’s attention to detail. The corridor carpet has a black line woven into it for the pupils to follow. The classrooms have hooks on the back wall to stow jackets and bags, to stop them getting in the way. Pupils must use a school-issue pencil case made of clear plastic.

The pupil’s bathrooms don’t have mirrors, and makeup is banned. The staff bathroom has a framed letter of praise from a government minister in one of the cubicles.

Every detail, and the silent corridor routine, has a single purpose: to maximise the pupils’ time in front of a teacher so that learning takes centre stage.

Even lunch, a spirited affair starting with pupils loudly reciting the poem If, includes exhortations from the deputy head about pupils completing the homework over Christmas. “Don’t make the wrong choices,” he warns the pupils, underlining a Michaela theme.

Birbalsingh, meanwhile, is applying to open another free school, this time an “all-through” school from reception to sixth form.

But would Michaela need to be strict if it was in a wealthy suburb such as Hampstead rather than deprived Brent, where 30% of pupils are on free school meals?

“I don’t think it would need to be. But I think all schools should be like this,” Birbalsingh says.
Sahaj International opens in Kochi in the South Indian state of Kerala. The country's first school for transgender pupils, it caters for adults who left school early.