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
Academy teaches “abstinence” as contraception and sex education in line with the “Maker’s Instructions”
Posted: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 12:21
A parent has raised serious concerns with the National Secular Society over the strongly religious nature of sex and relationships education at their child's school.
The sex and health education policy of the King's Academy in Middlesbrough warns pupils of the "consequences" if they ignore the "Maker's Instructions" about sex and relationships.
The taxpayer-funded school teaches "chastity outside of marriage", that "human life begins at conception" and that marriage is "the lifelong union between a man and a woman."
The school begins their policy statement on sex education by stating that they "believe that human beings are created to a Divine design".
The school says that "sexual information will be presented across the School Curriculum within a Biblical moral framework".
The Academy describes its ethos as based on "traditional Christian faith" and the school website says Jesus is "the perfect example of how to know God and love our neighbour as ourselves."
The mission statement for King's Academy says the school is "committed to upholding Biblical values, concepts and morality."
Noting that "other lifestyles exist", the school claims that delivery of SRE takes place in the "absence of judgemental dogma", but ends its policy with the teaching that abstinence is "the only 100% effective form of contraception".
Year 9 students have "special lectures" by "staff and medical practitioners" who present the "Biblical advice on chastity before marriage" and who give so-called "medical reasons" for abstinence before marriage.
The school covers "stereotyping and prejudice" about homosexuality but within the school's teaching "marriage is presented" as only between a man and a woman.
Religious education for Year 7 students covers different "gender roles" and "the institution of marriage".
The policy notes that parents have the "right to withdraw" their child from the programme, but given the pervasive nature of religion throughout the teaching, and that the Bible is presented as authoritative "across the School Curriculum" and throughout different subjects, it is unclear how realistic such a right to withdrawal actually is for parents who do not want their pupils taught SRE from a 'biblical' perspective.
The National Secular Society has urgently raised the issue with Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, noting our serious concerns about the provision of sex and relationships education by faith schools.
The parent who contacted the NSS about the school said: "This is why we need a fully secular education system for state-funded schools." The parent added that the school's policy needed to be "fully exposed" and that the public "has a right to know" what taxpayer-funded schools are teaching.
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns manager, said: "If the Government seriously wants to prepare young people for adult life it should ensure that all schools, including faith schools, free schools and academies, have a statutory duty to teach comprehensive and unbiased sex and relationships education.
"Any school which allows its religious ethos to take precedence over the health and wellbeing of its pupils is not worthy of public funding.
"Evidence suggests that abstinence based approaches can be worse than ineffective, leaving young girls more vulnerable to teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. LGBT children are also put at risk by the ability of faith schools to teach SRE within their religious framework.
"If schools are unable to distinguish between evidence-based fact and religious belief then there are serious questions as to whether they're capable of running schools in young people's best interests.
"Children's education shouldn't be based on dogma. Taxpayers should not be paying for the propagation of religious beliefs in state-funded schools."
Maintained secondary schools are required to provide basic sex education but academies and free schools do not have to follow the National Curriculum and so are not under the same statutory obligations.
In February 2015, MPs on the Education Select Committee recommended sex and relationship education become mandatory. The Government's response to the select committee report is expected soon.
In a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the National Secular Society this week warned that some schools are failing to put the best interest of young people first and urged the Committee to recommend that UK legislation should require all state-funded schools to provide comprehensive age appropriate sex and relationships education with no permitted opt-outs.
Widespread local denial over Trojan Horse, as DfE accuses select committee of ‘downplaying’ the scandal
Posted: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:12
A Birmingham councillor has warned of widespread local denial over the Trojan Horse scandal, days after the DfE said downplaying the affair risked undermining counter-extremism efforts.
Councillor Matt Bennett warned that the "narrative in the community is that the whole [Trojan Horse affair] was a stitch up."
The Birmingham Mail reports that Tahir Alam, formerly chairman of the Park View Trust and reportedly the "prime mover" behind the scandal, had "spoken to an audience of 180 people… without anyone arguing against him", according to Councillor Bennett.
"He has put this narrative out there and it needs to be tackled," the councillor added.
"Trojan Horse has been very, very damaging to community relations."
The council is reportedly concerned that schools outside the control of local authorities are particularly vulnerable to infiltration by hardliners and extremists, a concern shared by the National Secular Society.
The deputy leader of Birmingham City Council, councillor Ian Ward, said that there was "a narrative that does not recognise the outcomes of the inquiries and their recommendations."
His comments reflect the findings of the Department for Education which recently published a report that accused the education select committee of downplaying "the seriousness of events in Birmingham" in a way which "risks undermining our efforts to tackle extremism."
The select committee, which investigated the Trojan Horse allegations, found that there was "no evidence of extremism or radicalisation, apart from a single isolated incident" and that there was "no evidence of a sustained plot" or similar situations "elsewhere in the country."
The Department for Education has strongly criticised this finding, and said that a "particular hard line strand of Sunni Islam" had left pupils "vulnerable to radicalisation" and that the "life chances of young people attending these schools was wilfully narrowed".
The DfE argues that children were left "vulnerable to indoctrination by extremist ideologies."
There have been several prior investigations around the Trojan Horse scandal, and the DfE report highlights Peter Clarke's review, which found a pattern of behaviour which "emerged over two decades" before the scandal made headlines.
Stephen Evans, campaigns manager for the National Secular Society, commented: "Until we successfully challenge the mind-set that says it's legitimate for schools to be used to promote the religious agendas of the adults involved in running them, the risk of a repeat of what happened in Birmingham will remain.
"It's clear from the concerns the City Council have expressed that the number of schools now free from local authority control could make the situation considerably worse and leave many more schools open to this kind of infiltration in the future.
"As for the debate about whether the takeovers were a 'plot' or not, in some ways it is much more concerning if it was not an organised scheme. If the problems did just emerge from the local community, that would be far more troubling than a small, organised group of people deliberately subverting the schools.
"This is particularly concerning given Councillor Bennett's warnings about the widespread denial among the local Muslim communities over the Trojan Horse affair. While we are glad to see the DfE taking steps like a national database of school governors to obstruct deliberate 'plots', there are much deeper underlying problems which need to be addressed."
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)
