Faith schools undermine equality, choice and social cohesion.
Let's build an inclusive education system today, to ensure an inclusive society tomorrow.
Our education system should be open and welcoming to all. That's why we want publicly funded faith schools phased out and an end to religiously selective school admissions.
Around a third of publicly funded schools in England and Wales are faith schools – schools with a religious character. Scottish and Northern Irish schools are still divided along sectarian lines.
Separating children according to religion is divisive and leads to religious, ethnic and socio-economic segregation.
To make matters worse, many faith schools can discriminate against pupils and teachers who do not share the religion of the school.
Parents are entitled to raise their children within a faith tradition, but they are not entitled to enlist the help of the state to do so. The state should not allow the schools it funds to inculcate children into a particular religion.
Faith schools seriously limit choice for parents who do not want a religious education for their children, or do not share the faith of the local school. Our research has found that 18,000 families were assigned faith schools against their wishes in England in 2017 alone.
Despite a consistent and dramatic decline in church attendance, and a growing majority of non-religious citizens, successive governments have paved the way for ever greater religious involvement in education, often to the detriment of inclusive community schools.
A secular approach to education would ensure publicly funded schools are equally welcoming to all children, regardless of their backgrounds.
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1. Write to your MP
Please call on your MP to support a secular, inclusive education system for all.
2. Share your story
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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
Scottish Catholic schools to marginalise children who don’t pray
Posted: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 16:22
The National Secular Society has criticised a proposal to exclude children at Catholic schools in Scotland from nativity plays and fundraising if they are withdrawn from prayers.
On Monday the Catholic Church said Catholic schools would "ensure" children are excluded from activities such as "charitable fundraising", nativity plays or "feast day celebrations" if they are withdrawn from religious observance.
The statement came amid speculation that the right to withdraw from worship in Scotland may be extended from parents to pupils.
Earlier this month the Scottish government said it would incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scottish law. The UN's children's rights committee has recommended extending the right to withdraw to pupils.
A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said: "Parents and pupils who wish to opt out on grounds of conscience are advised that, in order not to contradict their wishes, schools will ensure they are not part of any other religious education and religious observance activities such as religiously-motivated charitable fundraising, nativity play or feast day celebrations.
"Very few wish to be excluded in this way from the life of the school."
Alastair Lichten, the NSS's education and schools officer, called the statement "mean-spirited" and "the ugly side of coercive worship".
"The Catholic Church quite astutely predicts that extending the right of withdrawal from religious education and religious observance to pupils will result in fewer pupils taking part in Catholic prayers and worship.
"This threat of exclusion from important aspects of school life that can also be found in non-denominational schools, including school plays and charity fundraising, is cold and calculating. Good people of all faiths and none should reject this coercive worship.
"It's this sort of contempt for children's independent rights, including their freedom of belief, that should be addressed by properly incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into public policy."
The statement also prompted criticism from Scottish humanist and secularist groups.
Gordon MacRae, chief executive of the Scottish Humanist Society, called it "disturbing".
Robert Canning, chair of Secular Scotland, added: "We would not agree that children opted out of religious observance, by themselves or their parents, should automatically be excluded from all activities connected with religion, since not all such activities involve worship or prayer.
"Children acting in nativity plays are obviously expressing the outlook of the characters and not their own beliefs, and a child might want to be part of a fundraising effort without having the religious motivation that other participants might claim."
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland's largest teaching union, said actively excluding children from religion-related activities which "would not be classified as religious observance" would be "likely to invite strong legal challenge".
The EIS has also welcomed the Scottish government's plans to allow pupils to withdraw from religious assemblies, citing schools' legal duty to avoid discrimination.
All school children in Scotland require parental permission to withdraw from religious worship. In England and Wales, sixth form pupils can opt themselves out.
Guidance from the Scottish government on religious worship in schools states: "Where a pupil is withdrawn from religious observance schools should make suitable arrangements for the pupil to participate in a worthwhile alternative activity. In no circumstances should a pupil be disadvantaged as a result of withdrawing from religious observance."
See also: Scottish worship law needs reform to protect children's rights
Replace RE with ‘religion and worldviews’, says commission
Posted: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 06:09
The National Secular Society has given a "qualified welcome" to a commission's recommendations to replace RE with a subject entitled 'Religion and Worldviews' and introduce a national entitlement to it.
In its report on the future of RE teaching the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) has said all publicly-funded schools should be required to teach the national entitlement. All pupils should be entitled to study it until the age of 16 (year 11) and post-16 students should have the opportunity to do so.
But the report recommended allowing Section 48 inspections, where religious bodies rather than Ofsted inspect the way RE is taught in faith schools, to continue. The NSS has said this recommendation gives too much leeway to religious interests.
The report said schools' programmes of study must "reflect the complex, diverse and plural nature of worldviews" and may "draw from a range of religious, philosophical, spiritual and other approaches to life". The report says if pupils encounter only religious and not non-religious worldviews, or smaller, local, indigenous or newer religions, their understanding of the subject is "impoverished".
It called for a review of the requirement for local authorities to draw up agreed syllabuses on religious education, a measure the NSS has long advocated.
But it recommended changing, rather than abolishing, the local authority bodies charged with drawing up the RE curriculum. The bodies, currently known as Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (SACREs), would become 'Local Advisory Networks for Religion and Worldviews'. The NSS has called for the abolition of SACREs.
The report said the Department for Education should provide legal clarification on whether the change in the subject's name would affect parents' right to withdraw their children from the subject.
It added that schools would be expected to publish a detailed statement about how they meet the national entitlement.
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said the recommendations deserved "a qualified welcome".
"The introduction of a national entitlement to teaching about religion and worldviews is a positive step. If enacted these proposals would represent significant progress although the deference to religious interests has limited the commission's ambitions, making it an inevitable fudge.
"But if the government is prepared to listen then this report is a potential game changer for the way we teach about religion in schools. All children should have an education that enables them to develop their own independent and informed beliefs. Whilst the proposed national entitlement is welcome, a more fundamental review of religion's role in education is necessary to make this a reality and to challenge confessional teaching and undue religious influence in our state-funded schools."
On the recommended name of the new subject, Mr Evans said: "The inclusion of the word 'religion' appears to be a sop to religious interests – which could undermine efforts to reinvigorate and improve the reputation of this contentious are of the curriculum. Calling a subject 'Religion and Worldviews' is a bit like calling PE 'Football and Sport'. Religion would fit in to a study of worldviews but should not get special attention."
The NSS submitted evidence to the commission ahead of both its interim report, which recommended "strategic, urgent intervention" last year, and the final one published today.
The society called for legislative change to enshrine a national entitlement giving every pupil the right to high quality, non-partisan education about religion and belief. It argued that schools should teach about a diverse range of religious and non-religious worldviews.
It said pupils should study how people's worldviews may influence their thinking on philosophical, moral and cultural issues and how the freedom to manifest religion and belief interacts with the rights of others.
And it called for a separation between any form of confessionalism or religious instruction and education about RE, arguing that the promotion of religion should only take place in a voluntary or non-state funded environment.
The NSS has set out its vision for high-quality, non-partisan education through its 21st Century RE For All campaign.
In April the NSS hosted a conference on the future of teaching about religion and belief, where panellists from educational backgrounds argued for reform. The keynote speaker, philosopher AC Grayling, called for teaching to look broadly at "the history of ideas", including topics such as classical mythology and different types of thought.
A survey published this week revealed that religious education is was one the subjects least enjoyed by pupils.
The final report is available to download here: Final Report of the Commission on RE
An executive summary is available here: Final Report (Exec Summary) of the Commission on RE
More information
Protect relationships and sex education
Age-appropriate relationships and sex education should be every child’s right.
Remove religious appointees from Scottish councils
Religion shouldn’t grant people privileged places in local democracy.
Research and reports
The faith schools research bank
The choice delusion: how faith schools restrict school choice
Three in ten families across England live in areas where most or all of the closest primary schools are faith schools and thousands are being assigned faith schools against their wishes.
Power grab: Academisation and the threat to secular education
Academisation has enabled faith groups to increase their influence over all schools, including those with no religious character. With little public debate, religious governance has increased, while secular oversight has diminished.
Religiosity inspections: the case against faith-based reviews of state schools
Faith based inspections of state schools are an unnecessary drain on public finds, frame widely held values as exclusive, and promote biased religious education.
Faith-shaped holes: How religious privilege is undermining equality law (PDF, 1.3 Mb)
