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
Government plans to create 36 new religious free schools in England
Posted: Thu, 10 May 2018 12:12
The government plans to create 36 new faith schools in England as it rolls out its latest round of new free schools, the National Secular Society has found.
An NSS analysis of the latest data from the Department for Education found that it plans to open 20 Church of England schools with a Christian faith character or ethos. It will also create nine other Christian schools, four Muslim schools, two Hindu schools and one Jewish school.
The C of E will also open three new schools which do not appear to have a faith character or ethos.
A number of the faith schools will discriminate on religious grounds in their admissions criteria. City Gates School in Redbridge says it "will admit up to 50% of our pupils based on their Christian faith if the school is oversubscribed".
The Church of England Wren Academy Enfield says "priority for up to half of the available places will be given to those who attend church regularly". It also says "all students, be they Christian, of other faiths or none, will be expected to attend events which celebrate our Christian ethos" - in defiance of the parental right to withdraw from collective worship.
Four of the proposed schools will be Islamic, including the Hujjat Primary School in Harrow. An article on Islamic education on the Hujjat.org website by Sister Tahera Kassamali makes clear that the goal of Muslim schools is to inculcate Islamic beliefs.
Kassamali writes: "In a non-Muslim environment the child struggles to belong, and often has to compromise what he/she believes in. Even when not compromising, it can become a continuous battle with the self, or parents, community etc." She says this battle can "…lead to skepticism [sic] and rejection of faith as the child has overwhelmingly witnessed beliefs and practices contrary to Islam".
She adds that "the environment in an Islamic school models what it means to be a Muslim".
"Children can see practical examples of Islamic behavior each day. This reinforces the behavior in them and encourages the child to follow the examples he sees. Seeing their friends and peers say the salaat, wear the hijab, fast . . . etc. creates a desire to do the same."
The other three Muslim schools are two boys-only secondary schools and one primary school run by Tauheedul Education Trust. Feversham Education Trust, which runs the Islamic Feversham College, will also open a new girls' school but this will not have a faith designation.
Two new free schools will be opened by Avanti Schools Trust, which is governed by iFoundation. This charity's purpose is to evangelise the Hindu faith, specifically the teachings of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more commonly known as the 'Hare Krishna' movement.
The Kisharon Academy Trust will open a Jewish special free school in Barnet. Kisharon, whose tagline is "Jewish answers for learning disabilities," was rated 'requires improvement' by the Care Quality Commission in January due to unsafe recruitment practices.
NSS education & schools officer Alastair Lichten said: "Despite the government saying that it wants to build strong integrated communities, the number and variety of new religious free schools in the pipeline suggests that it is still unwilling to tackle one of the core causes of division in society: faith-based segregation.
"It is particularly disappointing to see that a number of these schools will apply faith-based criteria in their admissions policies, including Church of England schools. This flies in the face of the Church's common claim that church schools are inclusive.
"With the government proposing to drop the 50% cap on faith-based admissions for new free schools, it doesn't look like the situation is set to improve any time soon."
The faith schools will be among 318 new schools which open in total.
NSS renews call to end faith schools’ ‘religiosity inspections’
Posted: Tue, 8 May 2018 13:13
The National Secular Society has asked the government to stop funding religious inspections of faith schools after the Church of England announced plans to make them more rigorous.
In a newly-published schedule the church has outlined plans for more intensive inspections of religious education provision in voluntary controlled (VC) schools. VC schools generally teach RE in accordance with syllabuses agreed by local authorities. This is in contrast to voluntary aided (VA) schools, which teach denominational RE in line with their religious ethos.
The church's Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools (SIAMS) evaluations will now explicitly include assessments of RE teaching in current and former voluntary controlled (VC) schools. The guidance says inspectors will evaluate how effectively "religious education expresses the school's Christian vision" and "pupils flourish through the provision of high quality religious education reflecting the Church of England Statement of Entitlement".
The Statement of Entitlement promotes a theological approach to RE teaching. It outlines three aims of teaching RE: "to enable pupils to know about and understand Christianity as a living faith that influences the lives of people worldwide and as the religion that has most shaped British culture and heritage"; "to enable pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and world views, their impact on society, culture and the wider world, enabling pupils to express ideas and insights"; and "to contribute to the development of pupils' own spiritual/philosophical convictions, exploring and enriching their own beliefs and values".
It explicitly says schools which are required to teach less than two-thirds of their RE curriculum about Christianity should "enrich their Christianity input". It also promotes the church's Understanding Christianity resource, which says schools should develop "theological thinking" among pupils as part of its drive to ensure "every child has a life enhancing encounter with the Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ".
In 2013 the church's inspectors were allowed, rather than required, to take account of the statement.
During SIAMS evaluations the church undertakes a broader inspection regime of schools as a whole. Inspectors will be charged with answering the question: "How effective is the school's distinctive Christian vision, established and promoted by leadership at all levels, in enabling pupils and adults to flourish?"
They will make judgements on seven areas, which include "wisdom, knowledge and skills", "dignity and respect" and "the impact of collective worship".
In the process they will consider the extent to which "values" are "grounded in a clear theology firmly rooted in a Christian narrative". NSS education and schools officer Alastair Lichten said this would "further the tendency of SIAMS reports to criticise schools for promoting values like tolerance as 'shared', as opposed to distinctly Christian or Christian in origin".
In light of the publication the NSS has written to the Department for Education and asked it to confirm that grants to the church to support these inspections will not increase. Last year NSS research revealed that the DfE had given almost £5m of public money to "faith bodies" to inspect the religious ethos in faith schools over the previous six years.
The NSS also expressed concern about the impact of the schedule on multi-academy trusts which contain both church schools and non-faith schools. The schedule says a leader of a C of E school is expected to "ensure that the distinctively Christian nature of its vision is maintained, remains discernible and is effectively applied within any multi-academy trust or federation partnerships into which it enters".
The NSS has also written to Ofsted seeking assurances that the news SIAMS regime will not undermine inspection of religious education in VC schools, saying: "The purpose of state-funded inspections should surely be to ensure that schools are serving the needs of their pupils, not the interests of religious organisations."
The letter sought assurances that Ofsted's inspections would "guard against promoting exclusive religious claims to the practice or origin of 'Fundamental British Values', and other broadly held values" and "not be undermined by the competing aims of SIAMS inspections" to which RE in VC schools is now subject.
Mr Lichten said the shift in tone between the 2013 schedule and the 2018 one was "marked" and that the guidance would "further blur the line between learning about religion and learning how to be religious".
"This is part of the church's systemic efforts to increase the fervency with which 'its' schools promote their religious ethos. As the C of E's adherence falls it is increasingly looking to state schools as vehicles to promote faith in general and the Christian faith in particular. It gives the lie to the myth that 'church schools' aren't faith schools.
"The government and Ofsted should stand up to the C of E. Education should open children's minds, including by treating religion as impartially as possible. Giving religious institutions the power to tell teachers what to do and decide what children should be learning undermines that."
The NSS is calling for reform of RE to give every pupil a national entitlement to high quality, non-partisan education about religion and belief and to prevent the subject being used to advance a religious ethos.
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)
