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.
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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
Let children make their own minds up about religion, says report
Posted: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 12:10
The National Secular Society has welcomed an academic report which calls on English state schools to raise children in a religiously neutral manner.
The report 'How to regulate faith schools', which will be launched at the UCL Institute of Education in London tonight, says schools should not be allowed to teach religion "directively".
The report calls for a ban on confessional religious instruction and acts of school-directed worship during school hours. It argues that schools should be allowed to have a faith ethos provided they do not guide their students "in their direction to such an extent that it threatens their autonomy".
The authors, from the University of Warwick and University College London, write that it is "important for individuals to decide for themselves what kind of life to live and to reflect and act upon those decisions in a well-informed manner".
"There should be no classes that encourage children to believe that they are duty-bound to worship God, that Jesus is the son of God whose crucifixion and resurrection redeemed mankind, that Allah is the one true God and only He is worthy of worship, or that there is no God and human beings can only find ethical and spiritual fulfilment without belief in a divinity."
The report adds that schools should introduce "a universal entitlement to an adequate programme of civic, religious, ethical and moral education", to be known as CREaM.
The proposed CREaM syllabus would "explicitly place religion alongside a broader education in citizenship, ethics and morality".
"Non-directive" religious education would be part of CREaM. Its purpose would be "to equip children with the understanding and capacity to decide for themselves what gods (if any) there are and what goals and relationships are worth pursuing".
The report calls for the 50% cap on faith-based admissions which currently applies to new faith schools to apply to all state-funded faith schools. Earlier this year the government decided not to lift the 50% cap after vigorous campaigning by the NSS and others.
The authors say independent faith schools should only retain their charitable status if they accept the same regulation as state-funded schools. Independent schools which engaged in religious instruction or operated an unrestricted faith-based admissions policy would lose their charitable status.
The report says parents should be required to register with their local authority if they wish to educate their children at home. Home educating parents would also be required to provide an education that "attends to the development of educational goods" and to teach the CREaM curriculum. They would be allowed to teach their children religion directively.
Alastair Lichten, the NSS's education and schools officer, said the proposals "are largely a welcome dose of common sense".
"Education should value individual autonomy and give children the tools they need to make informed decisions, including about religion. This report has recognised that and the proposals would certainly represent a welcome change if adopted.
"The state should put children's independent rights ahead of the interests of religious leaders. Ending collective worship and teaching about religion in an informed rather than a confessional manner would both strike major blows in favour of that. And the proposals for change beyond the state sector are sensible and balanced.
"While the report is practical and recognises where we are rather than a theoretical ideal, it doesn't shy away from challenging the entrenched interests of the faith school lobby. While the proposals to remove faith schools' special privileges would mitigate much of the harm they do, it's difficult to see what role they could really play in a truly religiously neutral education system."
The NSS has long campaigned for the end of compulsory worship in schools. Under the law state schools in England and Wales are required to ensure children take part in worship on a daily basis.
The NSS calls for reform of RE so children have a national entitlement to a broad, balanced education about religion and belief. Last month a major report by the Commission on Religious Education called for RE to be replaced by a subject entitled 'Religion and Worldviews'.
Mr Lichten said: "High quality education about worldviews (religious or otherwise) may well be best delivered as part of the proposed CREaM syllabus."
The NSS's No More Faith Schools campaign calls for the end of state-funded faith schools.
The report said the proposals were "grounded in a normative framework of basic values" and "explicitly" appealed to "philosophical principles".
"Some will doubtless regard our proposals as reflecting a secular worldview, suspecting us of being hostile to religious believers… But schools that do not direct children towards particular religions are not anti-religious, and antipathy towards religion plays no role in our thinking."
The report was written by Professor Adam Swift, of University College London, and University of Warwick academics Dr Ruth Wareham, Professor Matthew Clayton and Professor Andrew Mason. It has been published by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.
Ireland lifts discriminatory ‘baptism barrier’ in school admissions
Posted: Thu, 4 Oct 2018 10:40
The Irish government has stopped Catholic primary schools and primary schools which have spare capacity from discriminating on religious grounds in admissions.
On Wednesday Ireland's education minister, Richard Bruton, signed an order removing religion as a criterion which schools could use to determine admissions in almost all cases. The measure will apply to admissions for the 2019-20 school year.
The order, which brings sections of Ireland's Admissions to Schools Act 2018 into operation, lifts the 'baptism barrier' which undermined children from non-Catholic families' chances of getting into their local schools.
The barrier allowed Catholic schools to choose children who had been baptised ahead of those from non-Catholic families who lived more locally. The Catholic Church runs around 90% of Ireland's primary schools.
Bruton said the decision was an attempt to "be fair", non-religious families would now "be treated the same as all other families in school admissions" and it would now be "easier for a child to attend their local school".
Schools with spare capacity will be obliged to accept applicants regardless of religion. The order does not apply to schools from Ireland's minority faiths, such as the Church of Ireland, when they are over-subscribed. Bruton said this loophole would allow parents from those religions to access schools with the religious orientation of their choice.
Around 20% of Ireland's primary schools are over-subscribed.
A National Secular Society spokesperson described the decision as "a step in the right direction for Ireland's schools".
"Children should not face discrimination because of their parents' religious belief or lack of it. Politicians, whether in Ireland, the UK or elsewhere, should ensure religion is not a factor in admissions at all. That is best achieved by rolling back religious state schools so children go to school together and get the education that is best for them, not religious leaders."
The NSS campaigns against discriminatory school admissions across the UK and calls for an end to the exemption from equality law that permits state-funded faith schools to select children on the basis of their parents' religion.
Earlier this year the NSS's lobbying helped to convince the government to abandon plans to lift the 50% cap on faith-based admissions to new free schools in England. But the government also said it would introduce a new wave of voluntary-aided schools, which are allowed to select all their pupils on the basis of their families' religion.
The NSS recently expressed support for a motion at the Scottish Liberal Democrats' conference which included a proposal to roll back faith-based admissions in Scotland.
Image: Richard Bruton, © World Trade Organisation from Switzerland, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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)
