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: Efforts to better integrate religious minorities must include a reappraisal of faith schools
Posted: Tue, 10 May 2016 06:57
The National Secular Society has welcomed comments from Trevor Phillips calling for the "active integration" of religious minorities but warned that this cannot be done without tackling faith schools.
The former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission says the UK must plan for the social consequences of 'superdiversity' and change, and warns that a laissez-faire approach to differences in and between communities is "dangerously misguided" and risks allowing the country to "sleepwalk to a catastrophe".
In a new pamphlet published by Civitas, Trevor Phillips says that Britain is too complacent about its ability to manage diversity and urgently needs to adopt a "more muscular" approach to integration.
In a searing critique of the "smugness" about the 'success' of multiculturalism, Phillips warned that the "organic integration" of religious and ethnic minorities would not succeed without societal confidence in shared values and time to allow integration to take hold. "In the 21st century, these qualities are both in short supply," he said.
The National Secular Society said Phillips was raising legitimate concerns but warned that "without tackling faith schools and the segmentation of education along religious and de facto ethnic lines, this problem will be insoluble."
Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, said:
"Modern Britain is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, and home to more non-believers than ever before. Religious conflict and sectarian grievances have the potential to tear our society apart, so we cannot afford be complacent about social cohesion. Our system of state-sponsored faith schools is a significant and growing part of the problem, and runs the obvious risk of worsening social fragmentation".
Phillips said that all schools, including minority faith schools, should be given a "duty to integrate" and "demonstrate that they are making efforts to give their pupils a real experience of living in a diverse society".
Mr Evans said: "It's not at all clear how a system designed to segregate children by religion can be plastered over with a new duty handed down by government.
"Making faith schools more 'inclusive' will simply mean some children are educated in a school with a religious ethos that runs counter to their own and their parents' wishes. Clearly this is problematic from a human rights perspective. Rather than paying lip service to cohesion and diversity, what's really needed is a complete reappraisal of the whole concept of faith schools and a move towards inclusive secular schooling for all.
"Reversing the expansion of faith schools is not a silver bullet, but at the very least government policy should not serve to exacerbate the problems over integration as faith schools do."
"We welcome Trevor Phillips' calls for more active efforts to integrate society, but in this area he seems strangely reluctant to not follow his own argument to its logical conclusion."
Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence, includes critical commentary on his proposals, and the writer Jon Gower Davies said that racial diversity presented no huge obstacle, but that "What is likely to make the lives of my children and grandchildren dangerous and perhaps catastrophic, is religion, indeed one religion, Islam".
Gower said that "Islam is indeed a singular and very serious problem, and should not be considered under the general rubric of multiculturalism".
In response to Gower, Phillips said "faced with a religion unused to having its adherents form a small minority in a society, we all have to work much harder than in the past."
In the book, Phillips has also argued for a liberalisation of free speech in the UK. Regardless of "incompatible attitudes" about gender, sex, religion and the limits of free speech, he wrote, "Parliament should take the opportunity in this administration to renew and formalise a presumption in favour of freedom of expression."
He added that society should "dial down the anxiety about diversity, ignore the angst about Islamophobia. Superdiversity calls out for honest and open speech."
The NSS particularly welcomed Phillips' defence of free speech and his call for "the accretion of limitations and caveats on freedom of expression to be swept aside and replaced by legislation ensuring that only speech and gestures that directly encourage physical harm are subject to legal restriction."
Mr Evans added, "there is troubling ambiguity in Britain's laws about what exactly freedom of speech means in practice. Worryingly a senior police officer shared a post online that said 'freedom of speech does not mean freedom of offending culture, religion or traditions.'
"The law on free speech needs to be liberalised and made much clearer – particularly if senior police officers do not even know what freedom of expression protects.
"Phillips is absolutely right that this is a vital topic for discussion which is alarmingly neglected, and this is an important contribution. The Government must take these entrenched, long-term problems seriously. Sadly faith schools still seem to be a no-go area."
Independent Islamic schools undermining British values with gender segregation, says Ofsted
Posted: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 15:41
Sir Michael Wilshaw has warned that leaders in some independent Islamic schools are continuing to undermine British values, after inspectors found more evidence of gender segregation.
In a letter to Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education and Equalities Minister, the Ofsted chief wrote that inspectors "continue to find that staff are being segregated because of their gender in Muslim independent schools."
Ofsted Inspectors who inspected the Rabia Girls' and Boys' School in Luton "expressed their concern when, at the initial meeting with inspectors, the school insisted on segregating men and women through the use of a dividing screen across the middle of the room," he wrote.
In addition to the gender segregation in that meeting, inspectors "gathered evidence that male and female staff are segregated during whole-school staff training sessions. Male staff sit in one room and the session is simultaneously broadcast to female staff in another part of the school," Sir Michael wrote.
Despite improvements in the "inadequate" school elsewhere since the last inspection, the Ofsted inspectors "were so concerned about the behaviours modelled by the leaders of this school they informed the proprietor that the school would remain in the inadequate category despite improvements being made elsewhere."
Between 12 April and 21 April 2016 three inadequate faith schools were subject to emergency follow-up inspections by Ofsted, at the request of the Department for Education, and inspectors found extensive evidence of gender segregation.
Sir Michael said the pattern of gender segregation "clearly does not conform to the spirit of the equalities legislation".
The Chief Inspector added that despite the 2014 instructions issued by the DfE that all schools have a duty to "actively promote" British values, it was "clear" that these rules "are not being followed by some independent schools."
He went further and said that British values in some Islamic independent schools "are being actively undermined by some leaders, governors and proprietors."
Ofsted would remain tough in dealing with gender segregation he said, and any form of "segregation, without a good educational reason, is likely to lead to an inadequate inspection judgement for leadership and management."
Sir Michael has urged the Secretary of State "to further review the DfE guidance to independent schools on these matters and, if necessary, write to the proprietors of independent faith schools to clarify your expectations and to reaffirm the government's commitment to the promotion of British values."
In November 2015 Ofsted raised serious concerns about gender segregation in Islamic schools. In 2014 it warned that there was a "serious risk" to students' physical and/or educational welfare in six Islamic schools.
NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans said it was "very welcome to see Ofsted holding failing independent faith schools to account".
"We owe it to children and young people to ensure that all schools are held to certain standards regardless of how they're funded. Any school which enforces segregation against their own staff, discriminates against women and fails to give children the education they deserve isn't worthy of being called a 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)
