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
Conservative MP criticises division caused by faith schools
Posted: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 11:19
A debate in the House of Commons on the role of faith and grammar schools saw MPs quiz the Government over its plans to remove the 50% cap on faith-based selection to new faith-based free schools.
Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, who has criticised Government plans to allow more discrimination in the admissions arrangements of new faith schools, asked the chair of the Education Select Committee Neil Carmichael MP if he shared her concerns about the proposals.
"Can he think of a single reason why the child of an atheist parent like myself should be excluded from a school because of their parents' lack of faith? Does he also share my concern that 100% selection by faith risks driving communities into further segregation and does nothing to improve social cohesion?"
Mr Carmichael replied that "we must have an inclusive society; we cannot parcel people up".
Dr Wollaston has strongly opposed the proposals, saying they have "nothing to contribute to a more integrated and cohesive society".
Keith Vaz MP, said faith schools can be a "powerful force for integration" and praised Leicester's Catholic, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim schools.
"It is important that if parents wish to send their children to faith schools, they are allowed to do so", he insisted.
Caroline Spelman MP, representing the Church of England in the House of Commons, defended faith-based education and urged colleagues and "the secular world" to remember that "faith schools offer a great deal to people of all faiths and none."
Responding for the Government, Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for School Standards, said that the admissions cap which was "designed to promote inclusion by limiting the proportion of pupils that oversubscribed new faith free schools can admit on the basis of faith, has not worked to combat segregation."
Stephen Evans, campaigns director of the National Secular Society, said: "If the Government was serious about tackling segregation and religious discrimination it would start by ensuring that all new schools are fully inclusive and equally welcoming to all children, irrespective of their religious backgrounds. Instead, it is planning to open more faith schools and increase the extent to which they can discriminate in admissions.
"Meanwhile it has come up with no meaningful way of tackling the dreadful religious and ethnic segregation that the growth of minority faith schools is exacerbating."
This week the National Secular Society met with Department for Education officials and urged them to advise ministers to abandon plans to allow full religious discrimination in school admissions.
Read our briefing on the proposed changes to faith-based admissions and new faith-based academies.
“Complete segregation” of genders within Islamic school is not discriminatory, says High Court
Posted: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 11:21
Ofsted is set to appeal a High Court ruling that gender segregation by an Islamic state school is not discriminatory.
Considering the case of a school inspected by Ofsted, which is referred to only as X, the High Court concluded that "it is unhelpful to say that segregation on the ground of sex is inherently discriminatory."
The court ruled that while "less favourable treatment on the ground of a protected characteristic is inherently discriminatory" without "proof of less favourable treatment" of female students there "is no discrimination at all".
Ofsted had argued that the school was acting unlawfully by making "parallel arrangements" within the same site for pupils based on their gender.
The school was described as "applying a regime of 'complete segregation' for all lessons, breaks, school clubs and trips."
But the judge said that Ofsted's "argument would only be well-founded if it could be established that faith schools in general, and Islamic schools in particular, segregate the sexes because they regard the female gender as inferior, and/or that girls should be separately prepared for a lesser role in society."
There is "no evidence in this case that segregation in a mixed school, still less segregation in an Islamic school, has a greater impact on female pupils".
Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has said he will appeal the judge's conclusions on gender segregation because it was not in the "best educational interests" of children to segregate them.
The school was trying to prevent publication of a very critical Ofsted report, and after the judge's finding that Ofsted's criticism of gender segregation was undue and not inherently discriminatory, the court concluded that the report "cannot be promulgated in its current form."
However other aspects of Ofsted's strong criticism of the school were upheld and the judge said that Ofsted was "entitled to place this institution on 'special measures'."
Ofsted's report also drew attention to "offensive books" "prominently displayed in the library".
The books "included derogatory comments about, and the incitement of violence towards, women".
Discussing the books' content in his ruling, the judge said: "one of the books states that a wife is not allowed to refuse sex to her husband. Another opines that women are commanded to obey their husbands and fulfil their domestic duties. Two books made clear that a husband may in certain circumstances beat his wife, provided that this is not done 'harshly'."
The judge said that "leaders at the School conspicuously failed in allowing these books to enter, or re-enter, the library, and the report's assessment to that effect cannot be impugned."
NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans commented: "It is clear what view the Islamic ethos of the school takes about women from the content of the books. In this instance 'separate but equal' is not equal at all. The segregation of girls and boys is not coincidental."
The judge said that Ofsted had not "laid the groundwork" for an argument that "Islamic schools segregate because their religion (or their interpretation of it) views girls and women as second-class citizens". Had Ofsted done so, "I would have been duty-bound to address the issue."
The ruling said it was not "axiomatic" that separating students by gender was inherently discriminatory.
Ofsted also highlighted "the inadequacy of opportunities to help pupils understand the risks associated with issues such as forced marriage and sexting, and weaknesses in record-keeping in relation to child protection case files."
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)
