No more faith schools

No more faith schools

Page 208 of 310: We need inclusive schools free from religious discrimination, privilege or control.

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.

  • 58% of Brits oppose faith schools and only 30% say they have "no objection" to faith schools being funded by the state.
  • 72% of voters, including 68% of Christians, oppose state funded schools being allowed to discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy.

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.

  • Other representatives

    We also have template letters to write to your Members of the Scottish or Welsh Parliaments or Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly.

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

Cambridge councillors take stand against new faith schools, call for inclusive education

Posted: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 13:46

Cambridgeshire councillors have lambasted "segregation" caused by faith schools and recommended against building new schools with faith-based admissions.

Joan Whitehead, chair of the Cambridgeshire County Council's committee for children and young people, said that new schools should be "inclusive". She warned that "a lot of the troubles we see today around the world are when people of different faiths are not able to get along together."

"Children need to learn to get on with all faiths," she added, in comments warmly welcomed by the National Secular Society.

Cambridge News reports that "an influential group of councillors criticised faith schools for separating children and called for any new schools to be inclusive."

The Children and Young People's Committee was discussing proposals on building a new denominational school, after the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia called for new Catholic primary schools to be established.

One LibDem councillor, a former headteacher, argued that the council should not be involved in "assisting segregation" and that differences should be embraced rather than entrenched through faith-based schooling.

He said it was "not helpful" for school admissions to be based on parents' membership of a "particular faith."

The committee recommended that the Council "not support the establishment of a denominational school … unless its admissions policy was to give priority to children living in the catchment [area] and not to reserve a certain number of places for those from a particular faith."

The committee also decided that proposals for new faith schools would only be considered if there was actual evidence of "unmet local demand" for more faith-based schools.

The National Secular Society welcomed the decision as recent years have seen several faith based schools established despite low demand, diverting taxpayers' money away from areas where additional places really are needed. In some instances parents have been allocated places at undersubscribed and unwanted faith schools despite not sharing the faith of the school.

Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns manager, commented: "Even where there is local demand for faith-based schools, public money would be more wisely spent providing inclusive schools that teach objectively and enable young people of all faith backgrounds to learn and participate in school life together and on an equal footing."

The only councillor to vote against the committee's recommendation was UKIP's Peter Ashcroft, who said Britain was "supposed to be a Christian country."

Mr Ashcroft said that Christianity should be the "bedrock of the education system," despite the fact that recent polling found that 62% of Britons say they are "not religious".

NSS briefs UN committee on state of children’s rights

Posted: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 16:24

The National Secular Society has warned that faith schools are becoming increasingly divisive and inimical to the realisation of children's rights in a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The warning came in a briefing to the pre-sessional working group ahead of the Committee's examination of the UK's progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In its submission the NSS made recommendations relating to concerns about the way in which faith-based education is impeding the realisation of young people's rights under the Convention.

The UN Committee has previously raised concerns about the extent of segregation in Northern Ireland schools and in its submission the NSS says insufficient progress has been made in addressing this, pointing out that just 7% of children in Northern Ireland currently attend integrated schools.

The NSS also warned that the organisation of education around religious identities in other parts of the UK, fuelled by the Government's free school initiative, is leading to greater religious and ethnic segregation. The submission says the opportunity for schools to play a vital role in building social cohesion is being missed.

In a series of proposals on education the NSS urge the Committee to recommend that:

  • Children and young people's access to local schools is never determined by their religious beliefs or activities, or those of their parents.
  • All new publicly funded schools are secular in character and truly inclusive and equally welcoming to children of all religion and belief backgrounds.
  • Legislation is changed to remove any requirement on children to "take part" in worship and make attendance at collective worship voluntary in all schools.
  • Legislation is passed requiring all state-funded schools, including faith based schools, to provide age-appropriate and objective sex education.

The NSS also raised concerns about the prevalence of children being taken out of mainstream education to attend unregistered religious schools without proper regulation or oversight.

The submission said a greater emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring that all children receive an education which allows them to develop to their fullest potential; develops respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and prepares the child for responsible life in a free society.

To that end the NSS urged the Committee to recommend that the UK Government does everything within its power to ensure that all children and young people attend registered schools which are subject to regulation and monitoring.

The NSS' warnings come as the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) released an alternative report to a Government submission, welcomed by 76 NGOs, warning that the Government had failed to "fully address" recommendations made by the UN in 2008.

The CRAE report points to emerging evidence of the free school programme leading to "narrow or religiously-based curricula being taught in some places, religious proselytization, unequal treatment and gender segregation" in violation of children's rights to a broad and tolerant education under Article 29 of the CRC.

It notes that "16% of places at state schools are allocated on the basis of religion, despite evidence that religious selection criteria may lead to discriminatory selection of pupils and curtail children's ability to make their own choices over religious beliefs."

In addition to expressing concerns about education and social segregation exacerbated by faith schools, the National Secular Society raised issues around child abuse by clerics and a "consistent pattern" of abuse being covered up by religious institutions.

The NSS called on the Committee to demand that all diplomatic avenues are exploited and pressure is applied to "secure co-operation and the recovery of necessary evidence" held by the Catholic Church.

Because of this, and other large-scale abuse, the NSS has recommended that the Committee call for the UK to introduce mandatory reporting of child abuse, including within religious organisations, and urged that within the "maximum ability of the law" the duty should apply to historic abuse, with severe penalties for non-compliance.

More information

Research and reports