Britain’s first state-funded Hindu school will open its doors in London today, offering its pupils yoga, meditation and prayer as well as lessons in an outdoor amphitheatre.

The Krishna-Avanti school in Harrow is expected to be vastly oversubscribed. Although there are an estimated 15,000 Hindu children living in the borough, the school will initially admit just one class of 30 four and five-year-olds. It hopes to build up to a total of 236 places by 2014, including a nursery.

Naina Parmar, the head, described the school as “a huge step forward for Britain’s one million Hindus”. Some 587 secondary and 6,253 primary schools in England, representing around a third of the total, are faith schools. The vast majority are Christian. A handful are Muslim and Jewish.

As yet there are no state-funded Hindu schools.

Critics of faith schools said that the new school could be divisive. Rabbi Jonathan Romain, chairman of Accord, a new coalition of religious and nonreligious groups that seeks the reform of faith schools policy, said: “It is vital for the good of both the children and wider society that the Krishna-Avanti teaches appreciation of all traditions, does not opt out of local religious education syllabus, does not discriminate against employing nonHindu staff or bar children of other faiths from having the right to attend.”

Ms Parmar said the school would place an emphasis on “developing the whole child, including through integration with the wider community”.

“I want our school to be a haven of peace. Hinduism is a very inclusive faith which promotes a calm, caring and cooperative learning environment. This will be reflected in the curriculum, which will include prayer, yoga and meditation alongside usual subjects, and in the school’s ethos and environment,” she said.

Anjana Patel, Harrow Council’s portfolio holder for schools and children’s services, said: “We are one of the UK’s most diverse boroughs. We recognise the value of faith education in the excellent results already being achieved in our numerous existing faith schools. We are delighted to be able to extend that choice of a faith education to our many Hindu residents as well.”

Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, said: “Now Hindus, like all the other communities, have a choice and can decide whether or not to send their children to a school based on their faith.”

Lessons will at first take place in temporary classrooms. The £10 million new building is to open next year.

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