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
Faith school pupils punished for not attending mass
Posted: Thu, 6 Oct 2016 10:10
A group of non-Catholic students in a Scottish school have been punished with a week's worth of detentions after they refused to attend a religious service.
Pupils at Taylor High School in New Stevenston were instructed by the school to attend Patron Day Mass with Bishop Joseph Toal. The local paper reported that the mass was also to serve as a memorial service for former members of staff who had died.
But several non-Catholic students said they didn't want to attend because they were not practising Catholics.
One sixth form pupil was quoted by the Motherwell Times saying: "Although pupils are usually forced to go, there [are] not usually consequences for not being there and I believe it is unfair to have forced religious observance towards many pupils who may not be religious, me included.
"When I was 11 I did not have the choice of which school I would go to. To now move would be pointless, I should just be able to have an enjoyable last year, without being forced into detention for a whole week and banned from the social area."
The school said that not attending a compulsory religious event was truancy.
Acting head teacher Nicola Daley said: "Regrettably, a small number of pupils, who had attended school in the morning, opted to truant in the afternoon and miss the service.
"The pupils have been subject to school discipline as a consequence of their actions."
After the event the school tweeted: "Many thanks to @ToalJoseph for leading us in prayer today. It was a wonderful day for our school."
Stephen Evans, campaigns director of the National Secular Society, said: "It is really outrageous that students, particularly sixth form pupils, should be punished for not sharing the faith ethos of a school.
"Religious freedom includes the freedom to not have a religion and it's scandalous that faith schools can get away with showing such scant regard for young people's rights and freedoms. Schools are not homogeneous worshipping communities and it's time they stopped acting as if they were.
"Where schools do include acts of worship within the school day, pupils should always be able to opt themselves out."
In June this year the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the UK to repeal laws requiring the provision of 'broadly Christian' worship in schools and called for pupils to be given the independent right of withdrawal from any religious worship that is held in schools.
The Humanist Society Scotland recently launched a judicial review against the Scottish Government over its refusal to allow sixth form student to opt out of Religious Observance at school.
Protect the rights of the non-religious in education, says British Institute of Human Rights
Posted: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 07:12
The British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) has endorsed several recommendations made by the National Secular Society, in a submission to the United Nations.
The BIHR launched its Joint Civil Society Report, which is formed from evidence given by 175 civil society organisations across England, Scotland and Wales, including the NSS, and which has now been submitted to the United Nations for the UN's Universal Period Review of the UK.
The NSS also made a separate submission to the UN for the Universal Periodic Review.
The BIHR report reiterated a number concerns regarding state education raised by the NSS, including faith schools' ability to discriminate on religious grounds. The report said:
"There are concerns about the ability of state-funded religious schools to lawfully discriminate against non-religious families by selecting pupils based on religion, and the impact of plans to lift the current 50% selection limit which generally applies to new English schools.
"In England, the Government has opposed the equal inclusion of non-religious worldviews in statutory school religious education, despite a High Court case last year showing this is required."
The BIHR recommended that the state should ensure "non-religious worldviews form part of the statutory school religious education curriculum."
The NSS advocates for fundamental reform of the way religion and belief is taught in schools to ensure that non-religious worldviews are not side-lined.
The BIHR also highlighted secularist concerns over collective worship. The Joint Civil Society Report stated:
"All children in state schools are required to take part in collective worship (Christian in character); in England and Wales this is daily. There are concerns about the inadequacy of withdrawal rights, and that children with sufficient understanding are not able to withdraw themselves."
The Institute recommended that the Government should ensure "children are free to withdraw from religious observance".
On Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) the BIHR said that several submissions by civil society groups "raise concerns about the content and voluntary status of SRE. This echoes conclusions by a UK Parliamentary report that 'young people consistently report that the SRE they receive is inadequate' and by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education that SRE should cover sexual health."
The Institute said that the Government should "Provide adequate and compulsory Sex and Relationships Education to young people".
The National Secular Society said in its written evidence to the BIHR that the UK Government's failure to address the uneven provision of SRE in schools, after concerns were raised by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, was of great concern.
Aside from education, the NSS' evidence also included our concern over the disturbing rise in hate crime over recent years, of which 6% is related to religion, the BIHR noted.
The civil society submission said that the Government should ensure "robust data collection on hate crime, and take steps to ensure that groups most likely to be affected are better protected."
This is something the NSS called for in its written evidence, and has previously lobbied the Government to pursue. Last year the NSS met with a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government to call for more sophisticated tracking of hate crime statistics and trends, to try and better understand and reduce religiously-motivated hate crime.
A key theme across all of the evidence received by the BIHR was concerns regarding the proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act with many civil society organisations expressing worries that a new Bill of Rights would offer weaker human rights protections.
Speaking at the launch, David Isaac, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said "any changes to human rights law mustn't weaken the protections we currently enjoy".
The British Institute of Human Rights Joint Civil Society Report can be read here:
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)
