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 criticises creation of Muslim state schools in Manchester
Posted: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 13:05
The National Secular Society has criticised the creation of two state-funded, single-sex Muslim secondary schools for up to 800 children each as Manchester City Council prepares to build them.
The council's Planning and Highways Committee will consider a plan for a permanent development in the Cheetham Hill area of the city on Thursday evening. Its remit is focused on construction and planning issues and a report to its members has recommended approving the plan.
Tauheedul Trust, which runs 26 schools across the north of England, the Midlands and London, has been running the schools in temporary accommodation since September. The decision to create the academies, one of which will be for boys and the other for girls, has encountered opposition from local MPs.
In advance of the vote Graham Stringer, the MP for Blackley and Broughton - which includes Cheetham Hill - has said the plan "doesn't fit in with the current philosophy and priorities of Manchester schools".
"Land is scarce and should be used for the purposes of education - or housing - that is in line with the council's policies."
The council's current "vision for Manchester", The Manchester Strategy, says one of its main five themes is creating "a progressive and equitable city". Under that section of the strategy it says "everyone will have the same opportunities and life chances no matter where they're born or live".
And last year an education strategy document said the council faced the "particular challenge" of "ensuring fair access and inclusion for all".
Lucy Powell, who represents Manchester Central and is on the parliamentary education committee, has previously described the schools as the "completely wrong" fit and said single-sex education would worsen Manchester's school place shortage.
An NSS spokesperson said local and national politicians should "roll back the influence of religious groups in schools" and "prioritise genuinely inclusive and secular schooling in areas where there is a shortage of places".
"Education should enable children to make their own minds up about religion when they are ready to do so. These large Muslim schools, which appear to be out of line with Manchester City Council's stated priorities, will also exacerbate social segregation in Manchester."
Recent developments have also highlighted the issue of misogyny in Islamic schools. In October the Court of Appeal ruled that an Islamic school's policy of segregating boys from girls amounted to unlawful sex discrimination.
And in November a dossier of evidence from Ofsted reports revealed a series of endorsements of wife-beating and misogyny in Islamic schools. The findings prompted the government's former integration tsar, Dame Louise Casey, to call for a moratorium on the opening of new faith schools.
The NSS spokesperson said this context should "give policy makers pause before approving single-sex Islamic schools".
"They should be aware of their potential to limit girls' horizons, promote misogynistic attitudes and encourage gender segregation in wider society."
There have previously been concerns about Tauheedul Trust promoting intolerance. In 2011 Haras Rafiq, a former government adviser on the prevention of extremism, highlighted issues at the trust in a dossier given to the Department for Education.
And in 2013 a report in the Sunday Times outlined policies at Tauheedul Islam Girls' High School in Blackburn. The school required girls to wear the hijab [headscarf] "outside the school and at home", to "recite the Koran at least once a week" and "not bring stationery to school that contains un-Islamic images", such as pictures of pop stars.
Around 10% of those in the sixth form wore the niqab and all pupils had to ear "long purple tunics over black trousers so no flesh is exposed".
Tauheedul now runs both faith-based and non-faith primary and secondary schools. It has said the new Manchester schools work to "an inclusive Islamic faith ethos" and do not select on the grounds of faith.
DfE consults on creating home education register
Posted: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 14:19
The government is considering introducing a register of home-educated children and issuing school attendance orders for parents who refuse to comply, as it undertakes a consultation on home education.
The Department for Education launched the consultation on Tuesday. The consultation documents ask for feedback on "mandatory registration of children educated at home, with duties on both local authorities and parents in this regard".
It also asks whether parents who refuse to register their children should be issued with school attendance orders or penalised in other ways, and if so how. It says the government "has not made any decision on these issues".
Local authorities have a duty to ensure children are receiving an adequate education, but there is widespread confusion about how this relates to home schooling. Some local authorities have voluntary registration and well developed inspections and support, but the government's document says some authorities "feel uncertain" over how they should assess the suitability of education.
The National Secular Society's education and schools officer Alastair Lichten said he looked forward to responding to the consultation.
"We hope that this conversation over home schooling prompts a wider discussion of children's educational rights. This includes tackling cases where parents are pressured into homeschooling without adequate support. Those involved in genuine homeschooling should be the first to welcome such a discussion.
"However legitimate home schooling can't be allowed to cover children being sequestered into illegal unregistered schools, or religious fundamentalists inculcating children with only a narrow dogmatic worldview.
"Whether children are educated in the state, independent or home sector, they have a basic level of rights that must be safeguarded."
The NSS has also repeatedly raised concerns about religious hardliners' abuse of out-of-school educational settings. In January a report from Hackney Council found that "legislation around the regulation of unregistered education settings is at best patchy and at worst contradictory". As a result council and other statutory bodies found it "impossible to satisfy themselves that the expected standards of safety and safeguarding are in place".
Last month a Metropolitan Police study revealed that half of 70 known extremists in London had removed their children from state schools to educate them at home.
In November NSS honorary associate Lord Soley introduced a bill which aimed to register and monitor children receiving elective home education. Mr Lichten responded by calling for "a wider conversation about safeguarding children's rights no matter their religious background".
Home education has become the subject of growing attention amid an apparent rise in the number of children receiving it.
In October a survey of all 152 local authorities in England estimated that 45,000 children and young people were receiving home schooling. The real figure is believed to be higher as some children may be being home schooled without the knowledge of the authorities.
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)
