Supporter comments

Our closest secondary school is a Roman Catholic school. It's the only mixed school we are in catchment for. It's a ten minutes walk away but my son won't get to go there because we are not Catholic.

"My own (atheist) children were taught creationist beliefs in their village primary school (there was no non-faith school we could choose), and that other faiths were essentially primitive. At secondary level, in our nearest town, there are three non-selective schools, two of which are faith schools. These faith schools don't accept children from families with no faith unless the families lie about their lack of faith. Our 'choice' was restricted to one school, therefore, unless our children passed the selective tests for the non-faith grammar schools. The faith schools' admissions criteria therefore massively distort the secondary system here."

"I live right by a school (2 min walk) that I would like my daughter to go to. But as we are not a religious family I'm told she can't go there and will now have to drive my child to school as the others are 5-10 minute drive from our home."

We are a non-religious family, but I sent my son to our local village school because we could walk there. Like all in the area it was CofE. I told him to be respectful of other people's beliefs, but they were not the same back. He was forced into prayers. A couple of years after he started at this school, they changed the admissions criteria so that you had to go to church to get in and we would never have got him into our state funded village school. This is absolutely outrageous.

Our children are discriminated against in our potential secondary schools. There is no choice, only one we can apply to (without having to jump thru hoops of entrance tests). We refuse to begin attending church to get our "Stamps" Schools should be secular across the board and parents given full opportunity to bring up their children in the religion of their choosing outside of the education sector.

As a British born Sikh, the first time I felt excluded by society was when applying for primary schools. Despite having faith and regularly attending our local temple, my children were excluded from a primary school that we meet the distance criteria for. This segregation adds to the modern racism, prejudice, and discrimination in our workplaces.

"My child had no choice but to go to a faith school - all of the state primary schools near us are faith schools. We eventually placed him in a private school in order to get out of the faith system - not an ideal solution. I really object very strongly to the stranglehold that religion is taking in our children's education. The state system is forcing non-faith families into religious obligations around our children's education. This is unacceptable and contrary to the freedom to follow and practice any religion or none!"

"As an atheist, my children are automatically not eligible for a great number of local schools in my area because I refuse to attend church to get them in. I am paying for these schools as a taxpayer but am not allowed to benefit from them."

My children have no choice but to attend a Church in Wales faith school, as with all our local council schools. It indoctrinates and teaches biased religious education. This is religious discrimination. Other faiths and atheism are dismissed. Rather than allowing more faith schools to be setup, existing faith schools funded by the taxpayer must be converted back to be secular schools free of religious discrimination and indoctrination.