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
School to investigate governor over LGBT "child abuse" comments
Posted: Tue, 11 Jun 2019 16:56
A school is investigating a governor who called LGBT-inclusive education "child grooming" and said it "opens the door for sexual predators" in remarks first highlighted by the National Secular Society.
St Alban's Church of England Primary School in Rotherham and its academies trust say they have opened a "due process" after the NSS wrote to them to highlight Peter Hughes's comments.
Hughes, a local reverend and ex-officio school governor, called on Christian parents to "take back control" and "follow the example" of Muslims behind recent school protests in a church magazine.
He called the government's proposed relationships and sex education (RSE) programme "nothing but state sponsored child abuse" and said pupils "all over the UK" are being "indoctrinated in culturally Marxist LGBTI ideology".
The NSS wrote to the school's executive headteacher Alison Adair to highlight the remarks and question Hughes's suitability to be a governor last week.
In response the school and the Diocese of Sheffield Academies Trust said they had opened a process which is followed if they "feel any governor has brought the school or academy into disrepute". The process includes "a full investigation before a decision is made" regarding Hughes's position.
NSS spokesperson Chris Sloggett said the investigation was "welcome" but added that "wider lessons should be learnt from this episode".
"The school and diocese have responded reasonably to Reverend Hughes's remarks. His spreading of misinformation about LGBT-inclusive education and his endorsement of the bullying campaign against this teaching have rightly brought his fitness to be a school governor into serious question.
"But he was given his position as a governor simply because he was a religious official. Governors' suitability should be decided on a secular basis, and for that to happen the government needs to roll back faith-based education.
"Religious officials should be able to express their opinions without the risk that doing so would automatically bring their local school into disrepute. For that to happen they need to be judged as ordinary citizens, rather than being given roles in the running of local schools solely on the basis of their religious status."
In his remarks Hughes accused "LGBTI activists" of "imposing a sexual philosophy which at its heart is both anti-Christian and harmful" via "the Trojan horse of teaching tolerance and opposing bullying".
He said activists "greatly exaggerate" the extent of bullying and that bullying would be better deterred by teaching "the biblical truth that every person is made in the image of God".
Hughes is the governor designated with responsibility for combating bullying at the school.
Ex-officio governors are normally appointed by the local church diocese's education board to promote its ethos and interests. Usually one governor must be the parish priest.
The school and trust said they were "fully behind" Department for Education proposals to make RSE statutory from 2020.
Update (2 July 2019): Peter Hughes has resigned from his role as a school governor.
Exposed: Orthodox Jewish schools’ plan to escape LGBT-inclusive RSE
Posted: Tue, 11 Jun 2019 16:10
Ultra-orthodox Jewish schools are planning to refuse to teach aspects of relationships and sex education (RSE) by exploiting loopholes in Department for Education regulations, the National Secular Society can reveal.
Schools in the Charedi Jewish tradition plan to claim LGBT-inclusive teaching is not "age appropriate" and not appropriate for their pupils due to their religious background.
Charedi independent schools also plan to exploit guidance which says they will not face official action if they "only" fail to meet "one or two" of the relevant standards.
The NSS criticised the Department for Education (DfE)'s decision to introduce these loopholes last month, saying it was watering down requirements to promote respect for difference.
Legal advice received by Orthodox Jewish activist Shraga Stern, which the NSS has seen, says a legal challenge to RSE guidance on human rights grounds would have a "low chance" of success.
Stern's lawyers wrote to the DfE in January to claim that requirements to teach about LGBT people violated the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights.
According to the advice, the rights in question are "not absolute" and the government would be able to demonstrate that the rules are "necessary for achieving a legitimate aim".
But the advice notes that government regulations require schools merely to "have regard" to relationships and sex education guidance. It says schools that did not wish to comply with guidance could "legitimately argue" they had done that if they issued a policy statement explaining their reasoning.
The advice makes a specific reference to a letter published by the DfE from the education secretary Damian Hinds on the topic. The letter says: "Primary schools are enabled and encouraged to cover LGBT content if they consider it age appropriate to do so."
It also notes that in April the DfE said schools would not "normally" face "enforcement action" if they "only fail to meet "one or two" of the school standards.
The advice recommends "a unified approach from Charedi schools" which would make it "politically unattractive for the government to take an aggressive approach to this issue".
"The more uniform and widespread the action taken, the better chance there is of the government taking a less aggressive approach and reaching a resolution amicably," it states.
The NSS understands that the advice is being distributed among both state and independent Jewish schools and their lawyers in north London.
The advice also notes that "noisy demonstrations in Birmingham" – where mostly Muslim protesters have objected to schools promoting LGBT-inclusive teaching – may "weaken the government's desire to press this issue head on".
The NSS has previously warned that DfE guidance gives religious schools too much leeway to teach RSE in accordance with their faith.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the NSS, said: "For the sake of a quiet life, the government appears to have gifted religious authorities running schools an opportunity to evade expectations which are placed on all other schools. In doing so it has risked creating a two-tier education system that holds religious schools to lower standards and sells children from minority religious backgrounds short.
"We therefore urge inspectors to reject the soft bigotry of low expectations and instead ensure that independent school standards are consistently applied to all schools across the independent sector. We also urge the government to issue a statement making clear that all schools will be required to provide LGBT inclusive RSE and teach pupils about all the protected characteristics and the importance of respecting people who have them."
In a major report on sex education in England last year the NSS revealed that more than three-quarters of state-funded faith schools in England were failing to teach sex and relationships education impartially.
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)
