Getting Your Children Out Of Religious Indoctrination – The Practical Information

Here is the information you need if you are considering excluding your child from RE and/or collective worship in his or her school.

Community schools, that is, those state-supported schools not under the control of a “faith group” (mostly the Church of England), are required to include religious education in the curriculum, and to hold each day an act of worship which is mainly Christian, that is, more than half of assemblies must be Christian.

“Faith schools” are under similar requirements, but parents who send their children to these schools voluntarily are presumed to accept on behalf of their children acts of worship and RE, which is more likely to be sectarian in these schools. A new National Framework for RE came into force in late 2004, which recognises that non-religious world-views can be included when the pupils study the religions of the world, although it is not mandatory, and some education authorities have already rejected it. The emphasis is still overwhelmingly on religion, particularly Christianity.

Locally, RE syllabuses are the responsibility of SACREs (Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education), which commonly have not been sympathetic to the inclusion of non-religious world views, although some have co-opted non-believers as non-voting members. Mostly they are dominated by religious people with an agenda.

Parents are entitled under Section 71 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (as in earlier Education Acts) to withdraw their children from religious assemblies and RE lessons. Many parents are unaware of this right, and others are reluctant to use it, fearing that their children will be ostracised by other pupils or even victimised by some staff.

A practical consideration is what exempt children will do while the others are in assembly. And then exempt children may miss important notices. There is no reason why the school should not have a good system in place to take account of such withdrawals. Note that pupils, even those over 18 in the Sixth Form, are not entitled to withdraw themselves from RE or acts of worship. Contrast this position with the ready acceptance of twelve-year-olds in the church’s confirmation services.

Withdrawing pupils from RE lessons leaves the school with the problem of what to do with children who have been withdrawn. The law does not compel head teachers to make extra provision for exempt pupils, so a child not taking RE is likely to be sent to the library, or told to sit at the back of some other class. Head teachers who take seriously the National Framework for RE (mentioned above) should be willing to incorporate into the timetable appropriate classes for children opted out from religion. However, this is an ideal, and coping with children who don’t take RE costs the school more money.

Nevertheless, if enough disgruntled parents removed their children from RE and collective worship, then schools would be obliged to provide alternatives. This particularly applies in the case of those parents who have been forced to use a local faith school because the nearest community school is too far away.

We also have a sample letter that parents can send to schools requesting their child to be withdrawn from these activities. Just contact us at tas@secularism.org.uk. We also want to know about any problems people have or resistance they encounter.