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.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Please call on your MP to support a secular, inclusive education system for all.
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
Welsh faith schools will keep distorting sex education, NSS warns
Posted: Fri, 25 May 2018 11:59
Allowing Welsh faith schools to teach sex education through a religious lens will distort the subject and teach children to be ashamed, the National Secular Society has warned.
In a letter to Kirsty Williams, the cabinet secretary for education in Wales, the NSS welcomed plans announced by the Welsh government this week to make LGBT-inclusive Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) compulsory in schools from age five.
But the letter expressed concern that plans to allow faith schools to continue to deliver the subject in a manner "consistent with their ethos" will undermine efforts to support young people to develop healthy relationships, maintain good mental health and keep physically and sexually safe.
NSS research has found that all 12 of the secondary state faith schools in Wales which have a policy on sex and relationships education (SRE) are teaching the subject within the tenets of Catholicism or the Church in Wales.
The policies the NSS examined in faith schools included condemnations of contraceptives, homosexuality, abortion, sex outside heterosexual marriage and masturbation.
In one case a school lifted wording from Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which banned the 'promotion' of homosexuality. The law was passed 30 years ago this week and repealed in 2003.
In its policy, which was updated in September 2017, St John Baptist Church in Wales High School in Aberdare said: "Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 prohibits Local Education Authorities from promoting homosexuality or 'promoting the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship'."
St Joseph's Roman Catholic High School in Newport promotes Church teachings on abortion, says "masturbation is wrong" and "does not accept homosexuality in practice".
Its policy says: "The act of sexual intercourse is also the action through which the human race is continued. Therefore, any sexual acts where the creation of new life has been deliberately ruled out – including the use of artificial contraceptives – must be regarded as a wrong use of sex."
In the NSS's letter to Williams, chief executive Stephen Evans sought assurances that the new curriculum would "not provide the opportunity for faith schools to use SRE to promote religious teachings".
Explaining the decision to write the letter, Mr Evans said: "The Welsh government's professed commitment to making sex education inclusive and comprehensive is welcome. But the continued special exemptions for schools with a religious character will undermine plans to ensure every child has access to age-appropriate, consistent education.
"The Welsh government's expert panel on the future of SRE has called for a curriculum that is 'fundamentally non-judgemental, non-stigmatising and anti-discriminatory'. Yet 15 years after the repeal of Section 28 its shameful shadow still stretches over sex education in faith schools. State-funded schools are still preaching shame, in line with the schools' religious ethos.
"A new curriculum for Wales needs to be a curriculum for all students in Wales. All students should have the right to access education that will give them clear and accurate information on topics that are so important to their wellbeing. Our research shows how faith schools are letting young people down in this respect."
There are 18 secondary state faith schools in Wales. Six have not made their RSE policies available.
The NSS's findings follow the publication of its report Unsafe Sex Education: The risk of letting religious schools teach within the tenets of their faith, which found that most secondary faith schools in England were distorting sex education.
Image: © Shairyar Khan, via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0]
NSS: guidance for independent schools “strikes the right balance”
Posted: Thu, 24 May 2018 14:53
The National Secular Society has broadly welcomed revisions to the Independent School Standards (ISS) which brings advice regarding eight separate areas together in a single document.
The proposed guidance currently under consultation covers a range of subjects from safeguarding in schools that shield pupils from modern technology to creationism, and from partisan political teaching to gender segregation.
NSS education and schools officer Alastair Lichten said: "This guidance strikes the right balance between protecting children's educational (and other) rights and the freedoms of independent schools. Schools with narrow curricula, aimed at preparing pupils only for life within a specific religious community, critically undermine children's rights to an open future."
The NSS called for a duty on all schools to demonstrate how they were preparing pupils with the life skills to flourish, whether or not they remain in a specific religion or belief community. The proposed guidance currently requires curricula to "take into account that pupils will inevitably have some contact with wider society".
Following the Al-Hijrah ruling on gender segregation in mixed-sex schools, the proposed guidance requires schools to "ensure that any such practices are compliant with their duties under the Equality Act 2010". Schools will also need to show "how the children are being prepared for engagement with communities where gender mixing is common".
Mr Lichten said: "The UK's tradition of accepting single-sex schooling is not predicated on or supportive of gender segregation in wider society." The NSS also welcomed what it called an "unequivocal statement" that PSHE teaching must be consistent with the Equality Act.
The guidance also says schools "should endeavour to minimise the impact of" faith-based ostracism of families. The NSS called for this to be strengthened following the case of J vs B – where Mr Justice Jackson felt he had no choice but to deny a transwoman any access to her children, so great was the level of ostracism likely to face the family at their independent Jewish schools.
In a new enforcement policy, the Department for Education (DfE) proposes taking enforcement action – including possible deregistration of the school – after a single failed (or rejected in cases of serious failings) improvement action plan.
Mr Lichten said: "Of course the DfE should work constructively with independent schools to address concerns without immediately jumping to the harshest sanctions. However schools which repeatedly fail the standards without improving can't be allowed to shamble on, zombie-like."
In 2017 research by Schools Week showed Ofsted repeatedly fails dozens of independent faith schools. In the same year research found that half of independent faith schools were failing to meet the standards.
Mr Lichten said: "Since 2015 some independent faith schools have complained about an 'anti-religious bias' in efforts to hold them to the same standards as other independent schools. Just this month we saw a worrying manifestation of this when parents at a failing independent Jewish school tried to block students from speaking with inspectors."
As part of the consultation the DfE published an assessment of the impact of the proposed guidance on equalities and their obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The assessment confirmed that small faith schools had a higher propensity to fail to meet the ISS, but that this did not amount to discrimination given that the guidance was "appropriate" to improving standards.
Update 4 June 2018
Following further research and discussions, the NSS updated its response to the consultation. The updated response added a call for a duty requiring//presumption that local authorities will issue school attendance orders to children affected by an independent school being deregistered and for the DfE to support local authorities to do this. Mr Lichten said: "An independent school can't be ordered to close one day, only to reopen with the same pupils as an unregistered school the next day. Interventions intended to protect children's rights shouldn't inadvertently sweep them through the cracks into the unregistered sector."
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)
