Our schools are being targeted and exploited by evangelical groups as part of their missionary work.
We help parents challenge these attempts at indoctrination.
The legal obligation on all state schools to provide a daily act of worship provides a foot in the door to organisations with evangelistic intentions.
The ambiguity about the specific aims and purpose of religious education, and its low status in schools, also creates an ideal environment for evangelical groups to exploit.
- In our survey of 300 schools, only 16% of schools had a policy or policies concerning the partisan promotion of religious or political beliefs by external speakers.
- No policies of schools surveyed requires parents to be informed of visitors in advance, and no policies clearly prohibited religious proselytising.
Schools which invite external evangelists may have good intentions, but are often unaware of the group's agenda and unprepared to set appropriate boundaries. Our research has found only a minority of schools have adequate policies in place to ensure inappropriate evangelism doesn't take place. Meanwhile, parents are too often not informed of the visits of the backgrounds of evangelical groups.
External groups can make a valuable educational contribution to schools. With the right boundaries in place, staff and parents can be assured of no inappropriate proselytising.
Take action!
1. Challenge inappropriate evangelism in your school
Is evangelism happening at your school? Read our guide to challenging proselytisation.
2. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support a code of practice so external groups can contribution to schools without evangelism or proselytization.
3. 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.
4. 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
Edinburgh secularists challenge religious interference in schools
Posted: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:29
Edinburgh Secular Society has published full details of all 91 unelected religious representatives sitting on the education committees of Scotland's 32 local authorities.
The representatives are appointed after nomination by their local churches and have full voting rights on all educational issues coming before their local authority. Their expenses are paid for by council-tax payers. The undemocratic nature of the appointments has angered many elected officials.
In a significant number of areas of Scotland, these unelected representatives hold sway. Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council, in a report earlier this year to their General Assembly, claimed "We estimate that... Church Representatives hold the balance of power on 19 Local Authority Committees (of 32)."
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1994 requires local authorities to appoint a representative of the Church of Scotland, an official from the Roman Catholic Church, and another religious figure to their education committees.
Edinburgh Secular Society has argued that continuing with this practice is damaging to local democracy in Scotland, and politics in general.
Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, said: "In a society in which increasing numbers of people don't practice any religion, it's high time that we questioned a practice which gives religious hierarchies an influence over every child's education. I'm particularly concerned at the involvement of people who would promote utterly unscientific notions like creationism; pushing this absurd ideology at children is the very opposite of education."
Bailie Dr Nina Baker, Glasgow City councillor (one of two Scottish Green Party seats on the city council's executive), told the ESS: "Whilst I can see that representatives of major world faiths might have a role in advising on curriculum content for the teaching of comparative religion in schools, I believe they should have no right to vote on councils' decision-making bodies. Those votes should be reserved for accountable, elected members only. A recent contribution from the Roman Catholic representative on Glasgow's executive was to make clear his church could never accept the principle and practice of shared-campus schools, a policy with full cross-party support."
Commenting on the presence of unelected religious representatives on local authority education committees, City of Edinburgh Councillor Sandy Howat added: "Unelected, unaccountable and I would suggest untenable? Undemocratic influence over public education is fundamentally at odds with the principles of respect, equality and shared freedoms. All contributions to committee deliberations should be welcomed, yet continued undemocratic privilege of the few over the many is an outdated tradition we should remove. As we look to create a fairer Scotland with liberty at its core, we need to ask ourselves what this 'privilege' says about our values; it's time for a new enlightenment."
Edinburgh Secular Society point out that the 'religious representative' placements are not open to those without any declared religious beliefs, nor to humanists, or to the many minority religious faith groups, as the law calls for representatives to have a recognised 'place of worship'.
Edinburgh Secular Society is calling on the Scottish Government to review the clause, with a view to removing it from the Act. The group also believes that it is not compliant with the Equality Act 2010.
Christian group targets schools with frightening and dubious anti-abortion message
Posted: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:12
A Christian group has been touring schools in Sussex telling children frightening untruths about the supposed consequences of abortion.
Lovewise has been telling pupils in religious and community schools that abortion causes holes in the womb, depression and infection and that women who have abortions are twice as likely to get breast cancer.
Lovewise is based in Tyneside and has branches around the country. Its Director, Dr Chris Richards, said that the group had run "a handful" of sessions in schools around Sussex. He declined to say which ones.
But he told the Brighton Argus: "I'm not going to pretend we are morally neutral because we are Christians teaching Christian values."
Schools invite the group to give presentation of up to an hour to children from year 5 to 11.
Bill McIlroy from the Brighton and Hove Humanist group told the paper: "Preaching in Christian schools is one thing because parents know what their children are going to be taught. But teaching such stuff in community schools is disgraceful.
Kate Smurthwaite, the vice chair of the Abortion Rights group, said: With this move towards free and faith schools, the Government has less and less control over the curriculum and what goes on in our schools. To teach this stuff to children who are extremely impressionable is just plain wrong."
Dr Richards added: "Schools are no longer educating children about marriage and relationships, so that's where we come in."
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, commented: "More and more of these extremist religious groups are targeting schools. At the NSS we receive a constant stream of complaints about their activities. Surely schools are capable of exercising some kind of quality control over who they expose their pupils to. A quick look at the websites of some of these groups should ring alarm bells – even though they sometimes very cleverly conceal their real agenda."
More information
Evangelism In State Schools report (PDF, 493 Kb)Read our 2013 report on the activities of evangelical organisations in state schools.
