21st Century RE for All
We want every pupil to have the same entitlement to high quality, non-partisan education about religion and belief. We want to see all schools preparing young people for life in modern Britain by teaching pupils about the diversity of religious and non-religious worldviews.
We're campaigning for an end to the arbitrariness and unfairness of local determination in Religious Education and for a national religion and belief education syllabus as part of the National Curriculum.
What’s the problem?
Religious education is out of date and in need of reform. Almost thirty years after the introduction of a national curricular entitlement for all pupils, one subject remains exempt – religious education. Unlike any other compulsory subject RE is determined at a local level.
In each local authority the local agreed syllabus for religious education (RE) is determined by 'Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education' (SACREs), largely made up of religious representatives, with non-religious representatives either excluded or barred from voting.
Even worse, many faith schools don't even need to follow the locally agreed syllabus, and can instead teach their own syllabus and teach religion from their own exclusive viewpoint.
If there is a body of knowledge called 'Religious Education', which is worthy of being taught at all, it should be offered to all children wherever they live. There are simply no grounds for discriminating on grounds of geographic location or school type. If a programme of study covering religion and belief deserves to be included in the school curriculum, it should be offered to all as a basic entitlement for every future citizen. This is simply a matter of fundamental justice and equality.
Importantly, the subject must be broad, balanced and inclusive. Religious interest groups should no longer determine what gets taught. As with other subjects, the syllabus should be nationally determined by independent educationalists without an agenda motivated by a specific religion or belief.
"The structures that underpin the local determination of the RE curriculum have failed to keep pace with changes in the wider educational world. As a result, many local authorities are struggling to fulfil their responsibility to promote high-quality religious education"
OFSTED report 'Religious Education: Realising the Potential'
Get involved
With the General Election coming up, as a nation we're thinking about our future. Please consider asking your candidate to support common sense secular reforms — such as reforming religion and belief education — that will make our society, education system, and laws fairer for all.
It’s time to take religious education in schools out of the hands of religious councils. Support a national entitlement to high quality, non-partisan education about religion and belief.
Sign the petition-
A selection of comments from the petition. Supporters on what this campaign means to them and the need to reform religion and belief education.
Find out more
NSS submission to the Commission on Religious Education
We’ve called on the Commission to support pupils’ basic entitlement to non-partisan education about religion and belief, and an end to RE controlled by religious groups or faith schools.
Religious Education and the law
RE is a statutory part of the basic curriculum in all schools, but is often shaped by local religious groups and faith schools.
Your rights: Withdrawal from RE and Collective Worship
We advocate comprehensive non-partisan reform of religion and belief education and an end to compulsory worship in schools, so no one has to withdraw from any part of the school day.
Why Religious Education must be reformed before ending parental opt-out
The right to withdraw from RE may sometimes be problematic, but is still necessary when until vestiges of confessionalism, proselytization and poor practice remain.
Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education
Dominated by religious representatives, SACREs determine the RE syllabus at a local level.
Related news and opinion
British public opposes religious influence in education, poll finds
Posted: Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:44
British adults are strongly opposed to religious influence in school admissions, assemblies and the teaching of Religious Education, a National Secular Society-commissioned poll has found.
The survey found that fewer than one in six British adults agree with religious selection in state schools generally. Fewer than one in three support it even when they are specifically asked about faith schools.
Just 17% of respondents said they agreed with the statement: "Publicly funded schools should be able to select pupils on the grounds of their religious beliefs". Even when the question said "faith schools should be able to select pupils on the grounds of their religious beliefs" just 29% agreed.
Support for religious selection in schools was not much higher than support for hypothetical political selection in schools. Thirteen per cent of respondents agreed that "publicly funded schools should be able to select pupils on the grounds of their parents' political beliefs".
A majority (52%) say school assemblies should be about moral issues, whereas just over a quarter (26%) agree that they should feature religious worship.
And just 14% of respondents disagreed with the statement: "State-funded faith schools should be obligated to teach RE in a way that is inclusive of all religious and non-religious belief systems".
The findings suggest education policy across Britain is out of step with the views of the public.
Last month the education secretary Damian Hinds announced that he would not lift the 50% faith-based admissions cap on new free schools in England, following NSS campaigning. But he announced a new wave of voluntary-aided schools, which will allow religious groups to open schools which can select 100% of their pupils on a religious basis.
In recent weeks the Scottish government has committed to the future of state-funded Catholic education, while the Welsh government has said religious schools will continue to be allowed to teach sex education according to their faith ethos.
In response to the poll campaigners including NSS chief executive Stephen Evans and honorary associate Peter Tatchell have called for a rollback of religion's role in state schools.
Mr Evans said the findings showed that "our current education system simply does not align with the views of the public when it comes to religion's role".
"Most people take a much more secular stance and don't want children to be exposed to overbearing religious influence in their schools. It is impossible to imagine a system in which state schools were allowed to select pupils on the basis of whether their parents shared the same political views. That should be the case for religion too – and very similar proportions of people agree with religious selection as political selection.
"We were pleased to see the education secretary decide against lifting the cap on faith school entry recently. However, this does not cover voluntary-aided faith schools and we would urge against any future attempt to increase selection by religion through the back door.
"The National Secular Society is proud to campaign for a fair and inclusive education system and it is pleasing to see that these values are reflected across the wider public. In particular, Religious Education and Sex & Relationships Education teaching must be consistent across all schools, ensuring all children gain a comprehensive and impartial grounding in religious and ethical issues."
Mr Tatchell told us: "To ensure a cohesive and harmonious society, it is more important than ever that our children can enjoy a diverse and fair education, with the opportunity to learn from each other's differences. Government policy should reflect the low level of public support for religious selection in state-funded schools. I am proud to support the National Secular Society's campaign for an inclusive education system."
The NSS campaigns to roll back religious influence in schools. We recently launched our No More Faith Schools campaign. We also champion an end to end compulsory worship in schools and call for all children to be entitled to an impartial curriculum about religion and belief issues.
The company Censuswide carried out the poll of 2,003 British adults.
New guidance on the right to withdraw from RE in Wales – response
Posted: Wed, 6 Jun 2018 15:38
New guidance on managing parents' right to withdraw their children from religious education in Wales is largely common sense, says Alastair Lichten. But it downplays the confessional nature of some RE teaching.
The right to withdraw from RE is a difficult area we deal with a lot in our casework. While it's obviously undesirable for pupils to be marked out in or withdrawn from any part of the school day, many parents concerned with poor practice and biased teaching feel it remains necessary. If the subject were always preparing young people for life in modern Britain, then we wouldn't want pupils missing out on that. But where the subject is confessional we don't want parents forced to accept it.
The largely common sense guide from the Wales Association of SACREs on managing this right addresses many of these issues. The guide starts with an aspirational statement most secularists would support, on the nature of religious education in the 21st century, which could be drawn from our own 21st Century Re for All campaign.
This continues in the useful "background and context" section which says: "Religious education is not about indoctrinating or nurturing children into a faith or promoting any particular belief system". The problem is that in many cases – not least faith schools – it is.
Aspirational statements are all well and good but don't always match reality. For supporters of RE to pretend it is always non-confessional, "balanced" and "objective" doesn't help improve the subject any more than opponents pretending it is never these things. All it leads to is people talking past each other.
One tactic often used to browbeat parents into not withdrawing from RE or collective worship is to insist they will have to then supervise the children. The guidance addresses this by reminding schools that they remain in loco parentis when a child is withdrawn.
When the guidance considers why parents may request their child be withdrawn from RE, little to no consideration is given to the idea that they might have a legitimate reason. Parents can apparently only "misunderstand the true nature of RE" – they can only believe that the "school is failing to deliver on this aim" – no acknowledgment that RE in many schools includes the aim of religious inculcation.
While there's plenty of sensible advice for schools to discuss withdrawal requests, everything is framed in terms of correcting parents' 'misunderstandings'. There's no suggestion that schools may need to honestly examine their approach to RE to address concerns. One can't help but feel this legitimises the sort of browbeating and obstruction it claims is unacceptable.
The guidance tackles the tricky issue of requests to withdraw from RE (apparently) based on prejudice, an area where many schools would appreciate guidance. It's encouraging that it makes clear anti-religious or anti-RE views are not in in themselves a form of prejudice.
We should all be concerned about parents seeking to shield children from objective learning about select religions. However the idea that parents might have a legitimate reason for objecting to how a specific religion is taught in RE is entirely absent. Also absent is a clear message that parents exercising the right to withdraw do so for ill-informed or prejudiced reasons doesn't affect the right.
Only one section carries the slightest implication that minimalising requests to withdraw might entail schools examining their practices rather than simply dismissing concerns. There's good advice, particularly around prayer. But again, there is no acknowledgment that faith schools (and others) do blend learning about religion with religious activities.
The guide's penultimate section deals with requests to withdraw from trips to places of worship, or visits from external speakers, and it is good that these are addressed as distinct issues. There's the same common sense advice about discussing concerns and seeking to address misconceptions. But again there's little to no acknowledgment that parents might have legitimate concerns, particularly where RE is not mediated by a professional RE teacher, but comes from someone with a religious agenda.
There's stuff on external visitors which could be taken straight from our own material on evangelism in schools, which acknowledges external visitors including religious groups can make a valuable contribution to schools. Again aspiration ("they will not try to persuade pupils that their views are necessarily the correct ones or denigrate the beliefs of others") is presented as uncontroversial reality. The guidance doesn't suggest a code of practice to ensure appropriate boundaries are maintained by external visitors – though helpfully it does so for visits to places of worship.
The guidance acknowledges that "sensitivities based on prior cultural experiences can influence a family's views on visiting others' places of worship", citing the example of Christians and Ahmadis from the Middle East who may have experience of religious persecution. But what about the homosexual (or non-religious, or minority religious) parents who don't want their child going to a building where hate and intolerance is preached against them, no matter how nice the man is who will point out the fascinating artistic/architectural features?
Many people have a wholly negative view or experience of religion and regard visiting places of worship as fundamentally different from objective learning about religion in the classroom. That may not always be entirely rational, but it's probably an area where the right to withdraw should be respected.
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.
Row over ‘discriminatory, unproductive’ SACRE members in south Wales
Posted: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:38
The National Secular Society has reiterated its call for the abolition of local religious education committees amid complaints about the conduct of a committee's members in south Wales.
This week councillors on Monmouthshire County Council accused some members of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) in Monmouthshire of discriminatory attitudes and a lack of productivity.
A meeting of the council's democratic services committee heard that recent SACRE meetings had been so unproductive that the election of a chair had been delayed for months. The SACRE sets the religious education curriculum in the county's schools.
Tony Easson, of Labour, said a meeting in June had seen a great deal of dissent over the chair's appointment, partly because committee members were calling for more Christian faith representation and less for other faiths.
Tudor Thomas, a Labour councillor who sits on the SACRE as a co-opted member, said its "whole ethos and atmosphere had changed". He added that some of those who had complained about the SACRE's conduct after a fractious meeting in October had yet to receive a reply from the council.
Jo Watkins, a Liberal Democrat, said the SACRE had become "argumentative" rather than "productive".
The chair of the NSS's Secular Education Forum, Keith Sharpe, said the episode "highlights once again the error of handing local SACREs the power to determine how religion and belief issues are taught".
"Children's right to an education which opens their minds should not be subject to the whims of faith leaders, appointed to local authority committees, pushing their agendas.
"But this episode doesn't just highlight the arbitrariness of local determination. It also shows that involving non-professional religious believers in the professional business of curriculum design doesn't work. We need fewer people chosen for their beliefs and more people chosen for their professional credentials.
"The government needs to abolish SACREs as part of a comprehensive effort to reform RE. That reform must give children a national entitlement to a broad, balanced curriculum in which they think critically about faith and belief."
The NSS is campaigning for the abolition of SACREs as part of its 21st Century RE for All campaign, which calls for all children to be entitled to an impartial religion and belief curriculum. Earlier this month the society hosted a conference on 21st Century RE for All, where experts called for reform of the way religion and belief are taught in schools.
Image: Monmouthshire County Council logo, via Logopedia, user AxG [CC BY-SA-3.0]
Lords committee: respect the law before “the values of others”
Posted: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:26
Public policy must put "respect for the law" before "respect for the values of others" and defend "the shared values of British citizenship", a House of Lords committee has said.
In a report published yesterday, the Lords select committee on citizenship and civic engagement said faith schools should not be exempt from requirements to promote "shared values of British citizenship". It suggested using this phrase to replace the current term 'fundamental British values'.
It also said rules on school admissions should only be changed if doing so does not increase social segregation. This is a blow to government plans to allow more faith-based discrimination in new faith schools.
The committee also backed efforts by education watchdog Ofsted to crack down on schools which promote discriminatory attitudes about sex and relationships.
Several of its recommendations closely resembled the suggestions the National Secular Society made in its submission to the committee (begins on p.1096).
The NSS said a multi-faithist approach to public policy had undermined common citizenship, eroded some common human rights and values and harmed the rights of women and "minorities within minorities".
"Accommodating the vast plethora of identities within Britain requires engagement to be based on equal citizenship, rather than any particular identity frame," the NSS's submission said.
It added that the UK should "develop notions of universal rights and responsibilities that transcend all faith and belief systems" and that "equality and human rights" should be "central to young people's education".
The committee's report was titled The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century. Its summary said "the creation of a country in which every one of its citizens feels secure, engaged and fulfilled must be a primary objective of a successful modern democratic nation".
"While a variety of faiths, beliefs and customs can enrich our society, and respect for the values of others is a high priority, respect for the law must come first. There is no place for rules or customs whose effect is to demean or marginalise people or groups – equality before the law is a cornerstone of our society.
"The rule of law, together with a commitment to democracy, individual liberty and respect for the inherent worth and autonomy of all people, are the shared values of British citizenship from which everything else proceeds. These are 'red lines' which have to be defended."
The committee added that these values should "be promoted in their own right rather than simply as an adjunct of counter-extremism policy". It said guidance to teachers should show that the promotion of "shared values of British citizenship" was intended "to encourage positive citizenship rather than solely aiming to counter extremism".
"Shared British values can present a positive vision of what people in Britain believe, and could help prevent the need for counter-extremism intervention," it added.
The committee said faith schools should have "no exception to the requirement to teach shared values of British citizenship, still less the requirement to abide by the rule of law". That recommendation also applied to non-faith schools which are mainly attended by children from a particular faith background.
It also said "any change in the rules governing admissions criteria to faith schools should ensure that they do not increase social segregation". The government is currently considering allowing new faith schools to admit all their pupils on the basis of their parents' faith, a move the NSS is lobbying against.
On Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), the report said it was "entirely right" for education watchdog Ofsted to sanction schools which "fail to teach about LGBT people". It said: "Although religious groups are not bound by anti-discrimination law in the practice of their faith, promoting discrimination has no place in schools."
In February the NSS told the government that young people's access to RSE should not be restricted on religious grounds.
The committee also questioned whether the Department for Education was "sufficiently considering" whether faith schools would "promote shared British values" before they are opened, rather than "relying on Ofsted to inspect these schools further down the line".
And it said the DfE should ensure unregistered schools are "not used by communities as a way of avoiding learning about shared British values".
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said there was "much to commend in this report".
"The committee has rightly stressed that public policy must not allow religious groups special exemptions to the laws and policies that affect the rest of us. It has also made the case for a positive vision of British society which tolerates difference while upholding the rule of law for all.
"Its recommendations on schools are also generally welcome. The government should pay particular attention to what this report says on faith-based admissions and sex education.
"But ultimately the government will need to go further than this committee is recommending. Promoting a free and fair society for all citizens relies on the rollback of religious influence in our public life – particularly in the education systems of the UK's constituent parts."
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