Religious Education is outdated, unpopular and opens the door to proselytising.
There are many more subjects children and young people need to learn.
It's time to replace RE with something more appropriate for 21st century students.
It is important for children and young people to learn about different religions and beliefs. But we don't think our schools need a dedicated subject to do this – especially a subject as out-of-date and as irrelevant as Religious Education (RE).
Surveys consistently show RE is one of the least popular school subjects, an indication of its increasing irrelevance.
58% of British adults think religious studies is unimportant at secondary schools. And a quarter of England's secondary schools do not offer RE.
Unlike any other compulsory subject, RE is determined at a local level in England. In each local authority the agreed syllabus for RE is determined by committees representing the Church of England and other religion and belief groups, as well as the local authority and teacher's groups.
As a result, schools not only face a local lottery regarding what their RE syllabus will contain; they will have to teach a subject under significant control from religious interest groups. These groups are strongly motivated to ensure their religion is represented in an overwhelmingly positive light. The current arrangements mean the subject lacks objectivity.
Many faith schools don't even need to follow the locally agreed syllabus and can instead teach religion from their own exclusive viewpoint.
A new nationally-determined civics and citizenship subject could encompass teaching about religious and nonreligious worldviews and allow students to consider moral and ethical issues. Religion and belief could also be explored in other relevant areas of the curriculum.
In Wales, RE has recently been replaced with Religions, Values and Ethics (RVE). While we welcome this broader and more inclusive subject, problems remain regarding the influence of religious groups and exceptions allowing faith schools to teach confessional RE.
We need a reformed subject to ensure education about religion and belief is broad, balanced and proportionate.
We've created a series of resources – Exploring Secularism – for anyone wishing to explore issues of religion, belief, ethics, and worldviews in schools. The resources aim to provide teachers with the material they need to engage with secularism in an informed way.
As British society considers how to respond to greater religious diversity and growing irreligiosity, it is become increasingly important for children and young people to develop their understanding of the interaction between religion, society, and politics. The study of secularism explores this interaction, together with questions about how we balance freedom of, and from, religion with other rights.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Support our campaign to ensure every pupil has the same entitlement to high quality, non-partisan education about religious and non-religious worldviews.
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join us
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
National Secular Society welcomes call for faith schools to face Ofsted inspections of their religious teaching
Posted: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 16:00
The National Secular Society has welcomed calls from Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt for religious teaching in faith schools to be inspected by Ofsted.
In remarks at a Progress event earlier this week, Hunt said that whilst he understood the "principle" of "other communities of different faiths" having their own schools on the basis of "religious equality", this had to be considered against what Hunt called the growing "segregation" in British cities.
David Aaronovitch, the Times columnist, posed questions to Mr Hunt and asked whether the Labour government, since 1997, had opened up "the 'why not us too'" argument with religious minorities, who had called for their own faith schools on the basis of equality with existing Christian schools.
The Shadow Education Secretary stated that "you cannot have a situation where you have these schools as islands, either around ethnicity or religion". Hunt said that this was "exactly what we tried to undo in terms of Northern Ireland", where religious schools separated the children of Protestant and Catholic parents in education.
Though the Shadow Education Secretary said that "faith schools remained an important part of the English schools landscape", he went on to state that Labour would end the Free Schools programme, which Hunt said had resulted in schools "not delivering a broad curriculum".
Stephen Evans, campaigns manager for the National Secular Society, welcomed the policy announcement. He said: "It is vital that Ofsted inspects the religious teaching taking place faith schools in order to both uphold the integrity of a state education, and to protect the right of children to a broad range of knowledge.
"Any education about religion or belief in publicly funded schools should be impartial, objective, relevant and academically rigorous – children and young people deserve no less.
"One of the crucial objectives of education should be to be to promote community cohesion. This is not achieved by schools teaching the superiority of one belief system over another – and Ofsted should be able to step in if they find that happening."
Hunt mentioned the "worrying trend in terms of ethnic identification through schooling" and also drew attention to the findings of the Cantle report published over a decade ago, which had found that white and Asian residents of Northern towns were living "parallel lives".
Aaronovitch raised the example of Jewish children, whom he said are now far more likely to attend Jewish faith schools than they were twenty years ago. The day after Hunt made his remarks; the Guardian reported that the Beis Yaakov orthodox Jewish school had failed a no-notice Ofsted inspection. Ofsted found "major gaps in students' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Students are not provided with sufficient opportunities to learn about or understand people of other faiths or cultures".
After hearing evidence from a former pupil of a Jewish faith school at an All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group meeting last week, Lord Warner said that "indoctrination, rather than education is taking place".
Hunt said the "absolutist answer" to the problems faced today of "no more faith schools" was not practical given the "forces pushing against this," but said that Labour's answer was that "Ofsted inspects all schools on a broad and balanced curriculum". Hunt also called for "local oversight and accountability".
Hunt also argued for "curriculum stability" and warned that the UK could not have a new government coming in after every election and completely rewriting the syllabus.
Stephen Evans said: "We would like to see publicly funded faith schools phased out. We're some way off that yet, but it is encouraging to at least see the role of such schools being examined. Dividing children by the faith of their parents has led to terrible situations across the world, and entrenched sectarian divisions. We don't want to see any more of that in the UK."
Survey reveals schools failing to take religious education seriously
Posted: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:18
A third of community schools and over a third of academies without a religious character are failing to meet their legal or contractual agreements to provide religious education, according to a survey published today by The National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE).
NATRE's research found:
- 33% of community schools and 35% of academy schools without a religious character say they do not meet their legal requirements to teach RE in Key Stage 4
- A quarter of all schools (26%) do not offer RE to 14-16 year olds
- 57% of schools plan to make no GCSE RS Short Course entries, as opposed to 41% in 2012
- 30% of schools give less than the recommended teaching time of 120-140 learning hours for a Full Course RS GCSE
- In around a third (31%) of secondary schools, one in five RE lessons are filled by teachers with timetable gaps, rather than expertise and understanding of the subject
- One in five (20%) community schools and academies without a religious character reported a reduction in the number of specialist staff employed to teach RE. This was in addition to the 24% that reported cuts last year. Academies with a religious character and voluntary aided schools reported cuts of 14%.
RE is a compulsory subject in all English schools, and the only statutory subject that is not part of the National Curriculum. Local authority controlled schools teach a syllabus determined by local committees, largely dominated by religious representatives. Schools and academies with a religious character (faith schools) are free to teach their own syllabus – which may be confessional in nature.
NATRE say the subject has been "edged out" of schools by government reforms, and is using the research to lobby the government for additional resources and strengthened provision of RE.
However, the National Secular Society has called for serious reform of RE to make the subject relevant.
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns manager, said: "Without any clear educational purpose, it is not surprising that many schools fail to take religious education seriously.
"Education about religion and belief needs to be revitalised by scrapping the dated concept of RE and replacing it with a new objective National Curriculum subject for all pupils. To develop young people's understanding of the world we live in, pupils should be equipped not only with a good understanding of a range of faith perspectives and world religions, but also of non-religious beliefs and secular ethics. A reformed subject would enable young people to take a more balanced approach to the consideration of moral and ethical issues.
"Rather than allowing the Church of England and other faith groups to dictate what is taught in schools, any subject covering religion and belief should be devised by the same process as other National Curriculum subjects. It goes without saying that faith schools should lose their ability to teach about religion from their own exclusive viewpoint."
The National Secular Society's position on RE is set out in full here.
