History
History
We began as one of the first Muslim Schools in the UK.
Before, education was not an equal space for Muslim children in the UK. Yusuf Islam recognised this in the 80s and decided to build a school that could provide a safe and inclusive environment for Muslim students to excel academically.
In 1983, Islamia Primary School was founded to meet a vital need. As our children progressed, we expanded into secondary education—establishing a girls' school in 1989 and a boys' school in 1996.
Our enduring legacy has been to build the way where none exists. Three decades on, Islamia Girls' School continues to nurture the British Muslim pioneers of tomorrow. Read Founder’s Message
The first UK Muslim School to gain state funding
Establishing a Muslim school in the UK was a mission fraught with challenges.
Funding was always an issue in those early days. Despite tuition fees and private donations, Yusuf Islam remained the school’s primary benefactor through many of the crises we faced.
Gaining Voluntary Aided (VA) status—just as other faith-based schools had—would have solved many of our problems. It would have meant qualifying for 100% of running costs and a substantial portion of capital costs. But the process of securing it proved long and difficult.
Yusuf Islam applied repeatedly for Islamia’s right to receive state funding. Despite meeting all the requirements, our applications were rejected multiple times.
Pupils know that staff will do all they can to help them achieve. This is a school with a true community spirit. Pupils enjoy school life and thrive here.
Ofsted 2023
Meanwhile, Jewish and Christian schools were granted VA status with ease, even nearby ones during our own application process!
Yusuf Islam refused to give up. After almost a decade of ceaseless campaigning, we finally won VA status in 1998, becoming the first Muslim school in Britain to do so.
You can read more about Islamia’s battle to gain state funding for UK Muslim schools, here in The Conversation article by Helen Carr.
A reputation for academic excellence
As our secondary schools developed with leaps and bounds, our students began to achieve consistently high results in the GCSE exam timetables. Meanwhile, Ofsted was rating our quality of teaching ‘outstanding’ and said the breadth of our curriculum was ‘a real strength’ for our schools.
In 2015, Islamia GIrls School featured in The Times. We’d made it into the top 50 schools in that year’s secondary school league tables, with 100% of our students being awarded five good GCSEs, and 58% achieving the English baccalaureate. Our headteacher at the time, Sadaqat Jabeen was quoted, as she praised our girls for being competitive.
The Times (January 30 2015) article featuring Islamia Girls Secondary School.
