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
Call to found an Islamic faith school in Scotland ‘open to all’
Posted: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 09:26
An academic at the University of Edinburgh has called for the Scottish Government to open an Islamic faith school in response to the country's "multifaith and multicultural landscape".
Dr Khadijah Elshayyal of the University of Edinburgh's Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary world said Scotland should open a state-sponsored Islamic faith school "open to children from all backgrounds".
In response, the National Secular Society said: "It's nonsense to say that an Islamic faith school will be open to all. It is very hard to imagine why non-Muslim parents would want to send their child to a school with a religious ethos they don't share.
"By their very nature faith schools are discriminatory and segregate children from one background. That does nothing to aid integration.
"In the wake of the Casey Review on integration, which found that ethnic segregation was worst in minority faith schools, the very last thing we need is more divisive faith-based schooling.
"Muslim state schools are not the answer to increasing religious diversity in Scotland."
Though Muslims make up less than 1.5% of Scotland's population, the Muslim population is concentrated in specific areas, with some parts of Glasgow where almost half of the school-age population is from a Muslim background.
The report said: "At the moment, there is no state-funded Muslim school in Scotland, although there is a strong tradition of state funding for Roman Catholic schools, as well as three state-funded Episcopalian schools and one state-funded Jewish school.
"The evidence in this report suggests that, in view of the significant proportion of Muslims among school-aged children in some wards within Glasgow and Dundee, there is an opportunity for the Scottish Government to demonstrate its commitment to parity by taking steps towards funding a Muslim school.
"While there may be opposition from some quarters to the potential expansion of the faith school sector, in the context of real anxieties around sectarianism for example, such a step would signal a solid intention to deliver equity in parental choice.
"If such a school were open to children from all backgrounds, it would serve as an acknowledgment of Scotland's multi-faith and multicultural landscape, and could represent an opportunity for successful community engagement with the education system, as well as for inter-faith integration, interaction and learning."
NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans said: "Scotland has relatively little of the non-Christian religious diversity that England has, and it can avoid making some of England's mistakes when integrating religious minorities into society.
"In the long-term, balkanising society by dividing children by their parents' faith will do nothing to help religious minorities or foster integration."
The report seeks to "promote improved religious literacy and understanding," but Mr Evans added that dividing pupils by faith "will do nothing to promote understanding."
NSS urges Government to abandon plans to expand religious selection
Posted: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:16
The National Secular Society has responded to the Government's consultation on plans to remove the faith based free-school admission cap and criticised alternative measures to promote integration as "ineffective and tokenistic".
Though acknowledging that the admissions cap had failed to prevent minority faith schools from being segregated, the NSS warned the Government that the cap was the "only meaningful effort" to "address the problems caused by faith-based schooling."
At present, all oversubscribed faith based free-schools are subject to a 50% cap, requiring them to keep at least half of their places open to local children, regardless of religion or belief. However, the Catholic Education Service has refused to open new free schools, insisting on the ability to select all pupils on religious grounds.
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns director, said: "The Department for Education appears to have bullied into this proposal. Rather than being subservient to the Catholic Church, ministers should consider making religious involvement in publicly funded education conditional on the schools they run being non-discriminatory.
"A further expansion of religiously selective faith schools is the antithesis of inclusive education. Whilst these proposals may create extra capacity in the schools system, they will do so by sacrificing equality and social cohesion. We urge the Government to abandon them."
Measures suggested by the Government to ameliorate the segregation inherent in minority faith-based schools were "tokenistic" and likely to be "ineffective", the NSS said.
One recommendation made by the Government to replace the cap is to require new faith schools to prove that there is demand for places at the school among parents of other faiths.
The NSS response reminded the Government that this was not a new proposal.
"Under the existing arrangements for opening schools, all free schools, including those with a designated faith or faith ethos, are required to demonstrate how they will be 'attractive to parents and pupils from outside your faith community'."
The Department for Education already claims the requirement to be inclusive is "tested rigorously at every stage of assessment and 'pre-opening' as well as after schools open".
The NSS suggested that "Given that this measure is already supposed to be in place, we are highly sceptical as to whether it will be enforced in the future."
Support for a good local school should not be conflated with support for a faith school explicitly, the Society warned.
The Casey Review into integration in the UK, launched last week, warned that "segregation appears to be at its most acute in minority ethnic and minority faith communities and schools".
"If we don't want Britain to be religiously and ethnically segregated, our schools shouldn't be," the NSS submission said.
Other DfE recommendations included asking schools to consider twinning arrangements with schools of other faiths, but the NSS said that this was "no substitute for ongoing real world interactions between pupils in integrated schools in the same school for every school day."
The NSS said the Government was "deluded" if it believed its proposals would make minority faith schools more integrated, inclusive and appealing to those who do not share the religion of the school.
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)
