No more faith schools

No more faith schools

Page 171 of 310: We need inclusive schools free from religious discrimination, privilege or control.

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.

  • 58% of Brits oppose faith schools and only 30% say they have "no objection" to faith schools being funded by the state.
  • 72% of voters, including 68% of Christians, oppose state funded schools being allowed to discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy.

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.

  • Other representatives

    We also have template letters to write to your Members of the Scottish or Welsh Parliaments or Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly.

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

Non-religious parents will be disadvantaged by new faith school, NSS tells Council

Posted: Thu, 2 Feb 2017 12:31

The National Secular Society has warned Powys Council that significant numbers of non-religious parents and young people will be disadvantaged under plans to replace existing schools with a faith school.

Powys Council have announced that four existing primary schools will be replaced with two 'super-schools'. One of these schools will be a Welsh language school, and the other will be 360 place English-medium Church in Wales primary school.

In a letter to Powys Council, NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans urged the local authority to recognise that "parents of school children are likely to be from one of the least religious cohorts in society."

The Society highlighted the fact that "for all ages in Powys the number of churchgoers dropped successively from 15.0% of the population in 1982 to 7.1 in 2012." He urged the Council to establish new schools with this trend in mind.

"To ensure that everyone's right to raise their children in accordance with their own religious or philosophical convictions is respected equally, we strongly urge Powys to rethink plans to proceed with the opening of a religious school to serve the local community."

The Welshpool Labour Party have already raised their concerns about "lack of choice for parents who do not wish their children to have a faith education".

In their objection to the Council's decision they said it was "strange that parents are given the choice of Welsh-medium education for their children, but must send their children to a faith school."

The plans will "deny non-religious parents the choice to send their children to a non-faith school".

They said that while they applauded the historical role of the church in education in prior centuries, they were "firmly of the opinion that faith schools have no place in a modern education system."

In response to the Labour Party, the Council claimed that "Church in Wales schools are similar to non-denominational schools" – despite also boasting that the schools have a "distinctively Christian context" "underpinned by a clear code of values derived from the Gospels."

Church in Wales schools are expected to demonstrate a "wholehearted commitment to putting faith and spiritual development at the heart of the curriculum" and ensure that a Christian ethos "permeates the whole educational experience".

Mr Evans said: "This Council's decision to expand faith-based education and allow it to monopolise local education provision is completely at odds with the local and national drift away from Christianity. These plans will disadvantage the majority and force children from non-religious and minority faith backgrounds into a church school.

"Though the school will not require church attendance for admissions, the religious ethos pervades all aspects of Church in Wales schools and is impossible to escape.

"Leaving parents with little choice other than a faith school clearly undermines both parental and children's rights and is simply unacceptable in a 21st Century school system."

The National Secular Society recently published a manifesto calling for a statutory right to a secular education, to protect parents who seek a non-religious education for their children as religious groups bid for greater influence and control over the education system.

Don’t force the hijab on young girls, says Muslim women’s rights campaigner

Posted: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 10:33

Shaista Gohir of the Muslim Women's Network has criticised Muslim parents who make their young daughters wear hijabs.

Her comments came after controversy over a Catholic faith school which said that a four-year old pupil could not wear a hijab to school because it breached the school's uniform policy.

Under the policy hats, scarves and large headbands are clearly prohibited, along with certain hair styles.

The St Clare's Catholic Primary School home-school agreement also requires parents to support the school in the application of the uniform policy.

Gohir said that making very young girls were the hijab should not be normalised.

"The school is as entitled to tell children not to wear [a hijab] as they are to stop a child wearing trainers or even a Superman costume.

"Let them be children, they've got their whole life to wear a headscarf if they want to."

Gohir said in her view that there was "no Islamic requirement for a four-year-old to wear a headscarf."

"We challenge parents who spray tan or give pole dancing classes to seven-year-olds, so we should be challenging Muslim parents who make young children wear the hijab.

"I've seen girls of two wearing them. We should let children be children. I would personally not like to see it normalised for four and five-year-olds to be wearing headscarfs."

Gohir added that the purpose of the hijab is to "prevent unwanted male sexual attention" and she asked "what message" was being sent by making a four-year old wear it, arguing that it amounted to "sexualising a child".

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