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
Comprehensive sex and relationship education delayed till at least 2020
Posted: Tue, 17 Jul 2018 10:06
Following mounting equivocation from DfE officials, and growing rumours, it has been confirmed that compulsory relationships and sex education (RSE) has been delayed from 2019 until 2020.
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 required the Government to bring forward statutory guidance to make relationships and sex education compulsory in English schools. Since then some religious groups have been lobbying the Government for greater opt-outs – particularly over addressing LGBT issues.
Under the 'reducing teachers' workload protocol', schools would have needed twelve months to prepare for the new curriculum requirements. That can't happen until the draft guidance (expected this week) is launched, consulted on and reviewed, before being voted on by Parliament. A response to the call for evidence which would have preceded the guidance (and which closed in February) has yet to be published, after receiving a reported 23,000 responses.
One example of a response to the consultation, circulated by an Islamic group, claimed children "from the age of four" would be "exposed to indecent resources". A guide by a Christian group warned of the "active promotion of an LGBT agenda" and the problems of treating "all lifestyles as equally valid", calling for Christian beliefs to be promoted through all aspects of RSE and PSHE.
In January a delegation of Jewish Orthodox leaders told schools minister Lord Agnew they would make "no compromise when it came to the protected characteristics relating to alternative lifestyles and recently-legitimised forms of marriage which could not be accommodated within any orthodox educational framework". At this meeting the principal of Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School (a state funded school with a history of censoring textbooks and exams over issues of gender, sex and sexuality) urged Lord Agnew to "appreciate Judaism's strict religious rules governing relationships issues, that certain very personal matters could not be taught or discussed in the classroom".
In a recent meeting with Lord Agnew, The National Secular Society urged him ensure that all schools are required to teach impartial and LGBT inclusive SRE, informed by healthcare and educational professionals, rather than religious scripture.
In May 2018, research by the NSS (Unsafe Sex Education: The risk of letting religious schools teach within the tenets of their faith) found that 77% of secondary faith schools are teaching RSE subject in accordance with religious scripture. Many faith schools explicitly teach that same-sex relationships are wrong and criticise sex outside of marriage. Some condemn contraceptives and abortion and teach taboos around menstruation.
It is not clear to what extent lobbying from faith schools has delayed the publication of draft sex and relationships guidance.
NSS education and schools officer, Alastair Lichten, commented: "We're sympathetic to teachers' concerns about a lack of time to prepare, but the Government's delays have helped bring us to this point.
"We want to see a sex education curriculum that is comprehensive, age appropriate, non-stigmatising and non-discriminatory. We look forward to the draft guidance being published soon and will strongly advocate against any faith school opt outs which undermine this."
See also: Consultation launched on relationship & sex education guidance
Head of faith school that hired terrorist banned from teaching
Posted: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 17:02
The head of an Islamic faith school that hired the London Bridge terrorist attack ringleader has been banned from teaching.
Sophie Rahman, former headteacher of Eton Community School, was given a prohibition order as a result of a teacher misconduct panel in June.
Eton Community School is an independent Islamic school for children aged 3-11 in Ilford. The Mail on Sunday reported that the school was inspected by Ofsted just two months before the terror attack and given a positive report, which even commended how teachers had fulfilled their obligation to halt extremism in pupils.
The panel found that Ms Rahman was guilty of "unacceptable professional conduct" by hiring Islamist extremist Khuram Butt as an unpaid volunteer to teach Quran classes at Eton Community School.
Mr Butt was one of the three terrorists who killed eight people and injured 48 in an attack on London Bridge and Borough Market in 2017.
The report stated that Ms Rahman had permitted Mr Butt to teach after-school classes at the school when she ought to have known about his connections to an extremist jihadist organisation and his appearance on the Channel 4 documentary 'The Jihadist Next Door.' Additionally, Mr Butt had no suitable qualifications or experience, was unable to provide any references, and had received a caution for a violent offence.
Furthermore, the report found that Ms Rahman had not adequately supervised Mr Butt's contact with the children. It is suspected that Mr Butt used the classes to expose pupils to extremist views.
Ms Rahman had also attempted to mislead the authorities by playing down the number of children who had attended Mr Butt's classes, and by telling a police officer that she only knew one of Mr Butt's jihadist contacts ('Individual S') professionally through the school, when in fact he had fathered her children.
The panel found Ms Rahman had failed in safeguarding her pupils, in addition to Prevent duties. She has been prohibited indefinitely from teaching, with no entitlement to apply for restoration of her ability to teach.
Picture: Floral tributes left on London Bridge following the attack. By Matt Brown [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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)
