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
NSS: government must listen to Greening on faith-based admissions
Posted: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:16
The National Secular Society has said the government must "urgently rethink" plans to allow more discriminatory faith-based school admissions in England after the former education secretary Justine Greening criticised them.
In an interview with Tes, published on Friday, Greening criticised plans to allow new faith schools to select all their pupils on a religious basis.
"I think schools should be places that bring children together and, ideally, that prepare them for life in modern Britain, and modern Britain is a very diverse place in many different ways actually.
"So, from my perspective, I don't think removing the faith cap is something that particularly helps that."
The government's plan would abolish a rule that new faith schools are only allowed to select 50% of their pupils on the basis of their families' religious affiliation.
Greening said the cap "has had some shortcomings" but added that she was unsure "that particularly means you necessarily need to remove it".
She resigned from the government in January after refusing to move from her role as education secretary to another position. She was replaced by Damian Hinds, who has since declared his intention to lift the faith-based admissions cap. An official announcement is expected shortly.
Alastair Lichten, the NSS's education and schools officer, said the government "must listen to the former education secretary on this".
"She has made an important intervention which must prompt an urgent rethink of the government's plans. The 50% cap on faith-based admissions is far from ideal but the government must consider the severe drawbacks of abolishing it.
"Justine Greening rightly identifies several of these. If the government presses ahead it will exacerbate social segregation, encourage more discrimination and undermine efforts to prepare children for life in modern Britain."
The NSS has campaigned against plans to scrap the 50% cap since the government first announced them in September 2016. In its response to a consultation on the issue the society urged the government "to do everything it can to ensure that children of all faiths and none are educated together in inclusive schools".
The NSS is currently encouraging supporters to write to their MPs about the issue.
Greening's intervention came as Conservative peer Lord Ridley prepared to ask a parliamentary question on the contribution schools can make to the policies outlined in a recent government paper on integration.
Several high-profile experts have criticised plans to scrap the cap. Professor Ted Cantle, who is widely regarded as the UK's leading authority on community cohesion and intercultural relations, has said the proposal to drop the 50% cap is "incredibly worrying".
He described the cap as "the only measure of any substance, really in the history of the modern education system, that has directly sought to address the segregation that has been and continues to be caused by religious selection in schools".
Last year Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools at education watchdog Ofsted, said she was "uncomfortable" with the plans, which would lead to "increased levels of segregation within communities".
And Linda Woodhead, a professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, has argued the changes side with hardline interpretations of religion while undermining the religious centre ground.
Image: Justine Greening, © Jessica Lea/DFID, via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Lords committee: respect the law before “the values of others”
Posted: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:26
Public policy must put "respect for the law" before "respect for the values of others" and defend "the shared values of British citizenship", a House of Lords committee has said.
In a report published yesterday, the Lords select committee on citizenship and civic engagement said faith schools should not be exempt from requirements to promote "shared values of British citizenship". It suggested using this phrase to replace the current term 'fundamental British values'.
It also said rules on school admissions should only be changed if doing so does not increase social segregation. This is a blow to government plans to allow more faith-based discrimination in new faith schools.
The committee also backed efforts by education watchdog Ofsted to crack down on schools which promote discriminatory attitudes about sex and relationships.
Several of its recommendations closely resembled the suggestions the National Secular Society made in its submission to the committee (begins on p.1096).
The NSS said a multi-faithist approach to public policy had undermined common citizenship, eroded some common human rights and values and harmed the rights of women and "minorities within minorities".
"Accommodating the vast plethora of identities within Britain requires engagement to be based on equal citizenship, rather than any particular identity frame," the NSS's submission said.
It added that the UK should "develop notions of universal rights and responsibilities that transcend all faith and belief systems" and that "equality and human rights" should be "central to young people's education".
The committee's report was titled The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century. Its summary said "the creation of a country in which every one of its citizens feels secure, engaged and fulfilled must be a primary objective of a successful modern democratic nation".
"While a variety of faiths, beliefs and customs can enrich our society, and respect for the values of others is a high priority, respect for the law must come first. There is no place for rules or customs whose effect is to demean or marginalise people or groups – equality before the law is a cornerstone of our society.
"The rule of law, together with a commitment to democracy, individual liberty and respect for the inherent worth and autonomy of all people, are the shared values of British citizenship from which everything else proceeds. These are 'red lines' which have to be defended."
The committee added that these values should "be promoted in their own right rather than simply as an adjunct of counter-extremism policy". It said guidance to teachers should show that the promotion of "shared values of British citizenship" was intended "to encourage positive citizenship rather than solely aiming to counter extremism".
"Shared British values can present a positive vision of what people in Britain believe, and could help prevent the need for counter-extremism intervention," it added.
The committee said faith schools should have "no exception to the requirement to teach shared values of British citizenship, still less the requirement to abide by the rule of law". That recommendation also applied to non-faith schools which are mainly attended by children from a particular faith background.
It also said "any change in the rules governing admissions criteria to faith schools should ensure that they do not increase social segregation". The government is currently considering allowing new faith schools to admit all their pupils on the basis of their parents' faith, a move the NSS is lobbying against.
On Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), the report said it was "entirely right" for education watchdog Ofsted to sanction schools which "fail to teach about LGBT people". It said: "Although religious groups are not bound by anti-discrimination law in the practice of their faith, promoting discrimination has no place in schools."
In February the NSS told the government that young people's access to RSE should not be restricted on religious grounds.
The committee also questioned whether the Department for Education was "sufficiently considering" whether faith schools would "promote shared British values" before they are opened, rather than "relying on Ofsted to inspect these schools further down the line".
And it said the DfE should ensure unregistered schools are "not used by communities as a way of avoiding learning about shared British values".
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said there was "much to commend in this report".
"The committee has rightly stressed that public policy must not allow religious groups special exemptions to the laws and policies that affect the rest of us. It has also made the case for a positive vision of British society which tolerates difference while upholding the rule of law for all.
"Its recommendations on schools are also generally welcome. The government should pay particular attention to what this report says on faith-based admissions and sex education.
"But ultimately the government will need to go further than this committee is recommending. Promoting a free and fair society for all citizens relies on the rollback of religious influence in our public life – particularly in the education systems of the UK's constituent parts."
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)
