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
Sadiq Khan: Imperative that pupils from different backgrounds mix at school
Posted: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:06
Sadiq Khan has hit out at the Government's plans to allow total religiously-selective admissions in new free schools with a faith ethos.
Proposals to remove the current 50% limit on religiously selective admissions "could represent a threat to the drive to pursue greater integration in our schools," wrote Matthew Ryder QC, the Deputy Mayor with responsibility for integration.
Mr Ryder said "the Mayor and I share the view that it is imperative that every effort is made to encourage people of difference backgrounds to mix as much as possible, and this is as true in our schools as it is in workplaces and communities."
The Deputy Mayor said that faith schools in London, as in the rest of the country, "have lower proportions of pupils on Free School Meals than other schools" and he cited work by integration expert Professor Ted Cantle which raised concerns that "religiously-selective schools are less accessible to children from poorer backgrounds."
This picture "must therefore be of concern to those of us who believe we should be striving to create more avenues for social integration, not fewer," Ryder said.
He was writing in response to Tony Armour AM, chairman of the London Assembly, regarding a motion passed by the Assembly in November expressing its concern about the Government's proposal.
He also noted the significant Casey Review on integration, released last year, which had recommended work "to promote more integrated schools and opportunities for pupils to mix with others from different backgrounds."
The Government would make this task harder, the Deputy Mayor said, and the proposal to lose the admissions cap "will run the risk of making it less likely that religious free schools will achieve greater integration and diversity among their intake."
Even if the cap has failed to achieve greater integration in faith schools, the right response "is not to remove the cap", particularly without a concrete new measure to replace it. At best this would preserve the status quo, "and in all likelihood make things worse."
Maintaining the cap, on the other hand, "would at least underline the message" that faith schools must retain an "open approach to others."
"This is the message that we should be sending to our schools and I am happy to consider with colleagues ways in which we might be able to achieve this."
The National Secular Society has been vigorously campaigning against the Government's plans to expand religious selection in faith-based free schools. In response to a Department for Education consultation last December, the NSS urged the Government to abandon the proposal to drop the 50% cap and criticised alternative measures to promote integration as "ineffective and tokenistic".
Report confirms deep ethnic divisions in English faith schools
Posted: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:55
A new report, Understanding school segregation in England, has set out the extent of ethnic and religious division in England's schools.
Faith schools "add a further layer of segregation due to the links between faiths and ethnicities," the report found, and this was particularly acute in minority faith schools.
More than 84% of non-Christian faith schools were considered to be segregated because of their disproportionate ethnic makeup and minority faith secondary schools were "even more likely" than minority faith primary schools to under-sample White British students". 64% of the small number of non-Christian secondary faith schools fell into this category, the research found, compared to 13% of schools on average.
The report also found that all "Faith schools at primary are more ethnically segregated than schools of no faith," and that segregation was "particularly pronounced" in Roman Catholic schools.
Government proposals designed to replace the 50% cap which limited new faith schools from making admissions decision on religious grounds were insufficient, the report said.
The report, produced by the Challenge, SchoolDash and the iCoCo Foundation, said that while proposals to increase contact between pupils in different schools were "helpful" they were "not a substitute for the day to day mixing of children at school."
Measures suggested by the Government include mixed-faith multi-academy trusts, twinning arrangements and token governors who are not of the same faith as the school.
None of these would be entirely sufficient, the authors concluded. Ongoing contact between pupils from different backgrounds in the same school and contact between their parents is essential and the measures proposed would not achieve this.
Education offers "the greatest opportunities" to provide young people with the "skills and experience" necessary to further integration, the report's authors wrote.
Additionally, the research found that secondary schools rated 'Inadequate' following Ofsted inspections "tend to be more ethnically segregated compared with neighbouring schools". The research also found that "the opposite is true" of secondary schools rated 'Outstanding'.
The report also noted that 80% of the children born of immigrant families "were in schools with high concentrations of other immigrant or disadvantaged pupils, reinforcing the interconnection between faith, ethnicity and social class."
NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans said, "This important research demonstrates again the need for a school system that brings pupils and parents from different communities and backgrounds together.
"We note the correlation between integration and performance."
Higher performance by faith schools is often cited in their defence, but the report noted evidence from the Education Policy Institute that faith schools "educate a lower proportion of pupils with special educational needs" and that the percentage of faith school pupils on free school meals is "below both the national average and the figure for non-faith schools".
Primary schools were "more likely to cater to more advantaged students," the researchers found.
To encourage school intakes that are "more representative of local communities" the Government should "set a clear direction to reduce the growth of school segregation and to reduce segregation wherever it is at a high level".
Inter-school measures like those proposed by the Government "should continue", but this "must not be seen as an alternative for school and community integration".
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)
