Transport to faith schools
Discrimination on grounds of religion and belief is prominent in the provision of both discretionary and statutory home to school transport. We seek equitable school transport policies, free from religious privilege, fair to all families and fair to taxpayers.
Faith Schools Transport Briefing Paper (PDF, 222 Kb)
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Three in 10 families have little choice but a faith school, NSS finds
Posted: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:00
Three in 10 families in England are left with little choice but a faith school while thousands are forced into faith schools against their wishes every year, the National Secular Society has found.
NSS research has shown that 30% of families live in areas where two or three of their three nearest primary schools are faith based. In some local authorities the figure is above 80%.
One in 10 families face the same problem at secondary level, and in some areas this figure is above 60%.
The NSS also found that this September, for the third year running, more than 20,000 pupils have been assigned faith schools despite their families expressing a preference for a non-faith option.
This means more than 153,000 pupils have been assigned faith schools despite a non-faith preference since 2014.
Since 2018, the society has published annual research showing the extent to which faith schools restrict school choice in England.
Government hasn't estimated relevant figures
The latest research comes shortly after the schools minister Nick Gibb was asked about similar issues in parliament.
Last month Gibb said the government had made no estimate of how many children are effectively forced into faith schools, or left unable to attend their local school because of religious discrimination.
The government also said it had no estimate of the number of pupils left with little option but a faith school in response to parliamentary questions in 2014 and 2018.
Local authority figures
This year the NSS's research also breaks the figures down by local authority, based on analysis of almost half a million postcodes and the latest admissions data, providing an unprecedented level of detail.
In one local authority – Kensington and Chelsea – more than 11% of applicants were assigned faith schools against their parents' preferences at primary level. In Kent, more than 1,000 pupils were affected between primary and secondary.
Meanwhile in Westminster, around nine in 10 families live in areas where they are likely to find it difficult to access secular schooling at both primary and secondary level.
Affected parents speak out
One affected parent in Liverpool told the NSS that her options for her four-year-old, who starts school shortly, were "drastically reduced because we refused to get him 'fake' christened".
"It's quite shocking that my son will not be considered for a school place because of a prejudice."
Another parent told the NSS of his anger at being forced to send all three of his children to a Catholic school.
Others described particular concerns over the lack of secular education in some rural areas, and said their children were not being given the opportunity to make informed choices on their beliefs at faith schools.
NSS comment
NSS head of education Alastair Lichten said: "Proponents of faith schools often argue that they are good for parental choice, but these figures show how flawed that argument is.
"Many families across England are pushed into faith schools against their wishes. And others are locked out of their local schools by religiously selective admissions.
"Amid a rapid and sustained decline in Christian affiliation, it's time policymakers seriously engaged with this issue. They should take steps to ensure every pupil's ability to access a secular education. And they should confront the narrative that parental choice justifies the segregation, discrimination and promotion of religion inherent in England's schools."
Notes
- The NSS also found that 37% of primary and 19% of secondary schools in England are faith schools.
- The NSS's findings are available in full on its page on the Choice Delusion research.
- Read more coverage: Three in 10 families have little choice but a religious school, study finds, by iNews.
Update, 9 September 2021:
Schools minister Nick Gibb has confirmed that the government still doesn't know how many pupils there are in England whose choice of school is limited to a faith school in response to a parliamentary question.
He was also asked what steps he would take to ensure pupils have access to a non-faith school. He didn't appear to answer that part of the question.
Image: Monkey Business images/Shutterstock.com.
Schools aren’t there to save the church - Opinion Out Loud Ep 012
Posted: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 08:00
The Church of England's new evangelical missional strategy should lead us to question its entitlement to proselytise in schools, argues Stephen Evans.
Faith schools routinely de-prioritise children in care, report finds
Posted: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:51
The admissions policies of faith-based state secondary schools in England routinely prioritise children on religious grounds ahead of children who are or have been in care, a report has revealed.
Seven in 10 support normalising integrated education in NI, poll finds
Posted: Wed, 4 Aug 2021 08:55
More than seven in 10 people in Northern Ireland support efforts to make integrated education the norm there, a poll has found.
Government doesn’t know how many children are forced into faith schools
Posted: Thu, 29 Jul 2021 16:53
The government has said it has no estimate of how many children are effectively forced into faith schools, or left unable to attend their local school because of religious discrimination, in England.
Schools minister Nick Gibb made the admission in response to questions from Conservative MP and National Secular Society supporter Crispin Blunt in parliament last week.
Blunt asked what estimate the education secretary had made of the number of pupils with "no reasonable choice other than to attend a faith school due to lack of secular provision in their area".
He also asked for an estimate of "the number of pupils unable to access their nearest school because of religiously selective admissions".
In response Gibb said the Department for Education hadn't made an estimate of either figure.
He said "the majority of parents are offered a place at a school of their choice".
He added that local authorities "have a duty to provide sufficient school places in their area" and faith schools are "popular with parents".
NSS research on school choice
Last year NSS research found that more than 130,000 children had been sent to faith schools in England despite their parents expressing a preference for a non-faith school since 2014.
And in 2018 a major NSS report, The Choice Delusion, found that almost three in 10 families in England lived in areas where most or all of the closest primary schools are faith schools.
The NSS also frequently works with families who are unable to attend local schools due to religious discrimination, and local campaigners who object to plans for discriminatory faith schools.
In recent months these have included proposals to open new schools in Peterborough and Kingston-upon-Thames.
Earlier this year the NSS also launched a collection of research on the impact of state-funded faith schools. The bank significantly undermines the claims commonly made in their favour.
NSS comment
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans called the government's response "inadequate".
"The government often tries to justify faith schools on the basis of parental choice – as it has in response to these questions. But ministers appear uninterested in the fact that faith schools restrict choice for thousands of families every year.
"A society which valued the rights of its citizens equally would end faith-based discrimination and roll back state-funded faith schools. The state should support inclusive secular schools which enable children to form their own views on religion and educate them together, regardless of their religious background."
Image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com.
Schools aren’t there to save the church
Posted: Thu, 22 Jul 2021 13:18
The Church of England's new evangelical missional strategy should lead us to question its entitlement to proselytise in schools, argues Stephen Evans.
This article is available in audio format, as part of our Opinion Out Loud series.
In a bid to reverse the precipitous decline in Anglican affiliation, archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell has come up with a plan to "revitalise" the ailing Church of England.
Cottrell's "Vision and Strategy" paper proposes setting up tens of thousands of 'worshipping communities', essentially led by the evangelical laity. The plans reflect the growing influence of evangelicalism within the church under Justin Welby's tenure as archbishop of Canterbury.
The plans have caused considerable consternation amongst the clergy. Much of this stems from the apparent desire to deprioritise the parish system in favour of 'groovy' house churches led by lay people rather than priests. Writing in Church Times, Andrew Brown called the plan a "suicide note", likening the proposals to the church "tearing off its buildings and its priests, and rushing stark naked into a world that couldn't care less".
But given the church's privileged and prominent public role, it isn't only the Anglican faithful that should be perturbed. The new evangelical surge will ring alarm bells for anyone concerned about religion's propensity to impose itself where it isn't wanted.
Speaking in the Synod, Prudence Dailey, a lay member for Oxford Diocese, said the church needed to "reach people where they are".
One place where impressionable people are, of course, is in school.
Unsurprisingly, the Church of England's vision is very much focused on children and young people. According to the archbishop of York, his strategy will involve a "bolder commitment to Christian education and ministry with children, young people and students". He says he want to "double the number of children and young active disciples in the Church of England by 2030". To achieve this there will be a "particular emphasis on work with children and young people" and full utilisation of "the resource and opportunity of our church schools."
But the church's ambitions extend beyond church schools. The C of E's 'Vision for Education' document from 2016 makes clear its intention to influence the education of children and young people in community schools, independent schools, sixth form colleges, FE colleges and universities.
Utilising state-funded education for evangelical purposes is educationally inappropriate and insensitive to the diversity of religion and belief in modern Britain. But a combination of desperation and missionary zeal within the church means it will stop at nothing in trying to save itself.
The church does of course have every right to "spread the good news" or "make Christ known", as Cottrell puts it, but it shouldn't have the right to do this via state-funded education. Unfortunately, politicians' bias towards the status quo and their seemingly unshakable deference to religious interests means they lack the backbone to stand up for this important principle.
Despite church attendance falling 40% in the last 30 years, the Church of England's role in state education has increased. In part thanks to Anglican bishops' unique ability to shape legislation, and parliament's and the government's unwillingness to challenge the church on anything, the legal framework that underpins England's schools is ill-equipped to stand up to inappropriate evangelism. In fact, it positively supports it.
For a start, the government continues to fund faith schools, which are run by religious groups to advance their own interests whilst providing state education. The Church of England controls over four and a half thousand state-funded schools in England. So many in fact that almost three in ten families have little or no option other than a church school. Academisation has also allowed churches to expand their reach beyond faith schools and increase their influence over all schools, including those with no religious character.
Religious education, once the only compulsory subject, remains mandatory for all pupils in state-funded schools, despite being unpopular and having an unclear educational purpose. Controlled by religious interest groups, the subject provides yet more space for the promotion of faith. Schools with a religious character still teach RE confessionally, with little pretence of it being objective, critical or pluralistic.
And, inexplicably, the law still requires schools to provide a daily act of broadly Christian collective worship, providing evangelicals with yet another platform to impose Christian faith and practice on pupils.
Despite all of the above, just one per cent of 18–24-year-olds say they identify with the C of E.
Nevertheless, undeterred, the Church of England is placing young people right at the centre of its new missionary offensive in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect itself. Cottrell insists his vision is not motivated by the "downward sloping graphs" but by a desire to share "the abundant life we have in Christ" with "everyone". Either way, he apparently sees easy access to children and young people through state-funded schools as a God-given right.
An institutionally homophobic organisation with a missionary zeal is hardly an ideal provider of state education in one of the world's most secular and religiously diverse nations.
Children, like adults, should be afforded freedom of religion or belief – a right protected by article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Allowing schools to be used as mission fields undermines young people's freedom of thought, conscience and religion. That's why the National Secular Society will continue to lobby for an inclusive, secular education system that protects pupils from evangelicals of all religious stripes.
And as an increasingly influential evangelical strand of Anglicanism takes hold, the time is right to rethink the Church of England's privileged role in state education, not to mention its established status as the national church.
Picture: Justin Welby (left) and Stephen Cottrell, fourthandfifteen, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Faith school slammed for book advocating death for gay people
Posted: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 16:25
An independent faith school has failed an inspection after a book calling for gay people to be killed was found in its library.
The book, entitled "Islam on Homosexuality", was discovered during an Ofsted inspection at Institute of Islamic Education, an independent Islamic school in Dewsbury, in May.
The book said "participants of the homosexual act should be slained [sic]" because "in filth and mischief of [sic] this act surpasses adultery", according to an Ofsted report published today.
It also said "the evil doers should be put to death".
The book had been stamped by the school as a library book.
A book with the same title (pictured) is described on Amazon UK as an "authentic book on the evils of Homosexuality containing discussion in the light of the Quran, Hadith, History and medicine".
While the headteacher said the book should not be in the school library, other leaders stated that the book was for 'research purposes', according to the report.
The report said: "By permitting this book to be freely accessible to pupils, leaders are failing to promote respect and tolerance for others, a fundamental British value."
NSS comment
NSS head of policy and research Megan Manson said the findings were "horrifying".
She said: "It is appalling that a book calling for gay people to be executed could be found in a school library.
"It is even more disturbing that some school leaders appeared to defend the school's decision to make this book available to children.
"Schools have a duty to promote equality for all. Giving a space for hateful and homophobic religious propaganda clearly runs contrary to that."
The NSS has been lobbying the Department for Education to ensure that consistently failing schools are not allowed to indefinitely undermine young people's fundamental right to a quality education.
The secretary of state said a "firmer approach" would be taken to enforce the standards when there was evidence of non-compliance when independent school standards were updated in 2015.
Other failings
Ofsted inspectors identified a number of other unmet standards at the school, including:
- Leaders had not addressed the safeguarding issues found at a previous inspection "with urgency".
- Staff recruitment checks are not consistently completed before staff start their employment at the school.
- Leaders are not consistently informing the local authority when a pupil is removed from the school's roll.
- Leaders have not ensured that the site is adequately maintained, and there is no suitable environment for pupils to play outdoors.
About the school
Institute of Islamic Education is an independent Islamic boarding school for boys and young men between the ages of 11 and 25 years, located in the grounds of a mosque. Pupils are only taught secular subjects in the afternoon, with the morning devoted to an Islamic curriculum.
The school has previously told parents their children faced expulsion if they socialised with non-Muslims.
It has also forbidden children from watching TV, listening to music or reading newspapers.
Ep 54: The Catholic Church and Canada’s residential schools
Posted: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 08:00
"Not one single residential school was ever built with a playground. But every single residential school had ample space for a cemetery."
Qu'Appelle Indian Residential School in Lebret, Saskatchewan, was one of the first such schools established by the Canadian government in the 19th century. From the beginning, it was run by the Catholic Church, which was actively involved in the forced removal of indigenous children from their families, in attempts to erase their links to their culture, and in training them up as cheap labour for colonial businesses.
In this episode, Emma Park is joined by the Canadian journalist Kerry Benjoe. Kerry was the first indigenous person to work for the Regina Leader-Post, her city's daily newspaper, and is now Indigenous Storyteller for CBC Saskatchewan. She attended Lebret from the age of 15 to 18, at a time when it had been taken over from the Church by the Star Blanket Cree Nation. She was in the fourth and final generation in her family to do so.
As a journalist, Kerry has spent years gathering stories, often harrowing, from the survivors of the residential schools. She shares some of these stories on the podcast, from humiliation and physical abuse to the loss of childhood. She explains why the recent discovery of graves at Kamloops residential school, also run by the Catholic Church, came as no surprise to the local indigenous community.
Please note that this episode contains distressing material.
Watch this episode on YouTube | Direct MP3 Link | Transcripts
Notes
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
- First Nation announces discovery of 751 unmarked graves near former residential school
- Amid shameful residential-school revelations, I cannot remain a Catholic
- Protest the Pope Campaign uses films to explore its objections to the Pope's visit
Support the podcast, share with a friend, and leave a positive review everywhere you can.
Podcast produced by Emma Park for the National Secular Society (2021). All rights reserved.
Will the government protect the ethos of secular schools?
Posted: Tue, 13 Jul 2021 15:51
The Department for Education's protections for the secular community ethos of non-faith academies are inadequate. This enables a consolidation of religious control and undermines accountability, argues Alastair Lichten.
Religious privilege is built into England's school system, with around a third of state schools having a formal religious designation. But as the National Secular Society's 2020 report Power grab: Academisation and the threat to secular education found, religious control of education is also extending beyond these faith schools into those which are nominally secular. As the government seeks to turn all schools into academies, the community ethos of non-faith schools risks being eroded.
Among our findings in Power grab, we revealed that more than 2,600 former community schools are now in multi-academy trusts (MATs) with religious ethos and governance. Across the country, schools which supposedly have no religious designation are facing pressure to promote religious groups' interests. And in April, the education secretary announced a new pilot scheme to increase the number of C of E and Catholic multi academy trusts. This will risk exacerbating these problems.
We have raised these issues with the Department for Education for the last decade, but ministers and officials have not been responsive. They point to clauses in the funding agreements of mixed-MATs (which contain faith and non-faith schools) requiring that a community ethos formally be protected through the local governing body. These may protect against the introduction of direct religious discrimination or an openly denominational curriculum, but time and again we have seen religious MATs impose an informal ethos on non-faith schools under their control. This can include changes to extra-curricular activities, worship policies, or the selection of resources or training from faith-based organisations.
Theoretically you can complain to the Education and Schools Funding Agency (ESFA), as a trust failing to protect a school's community ethos could be in breach of its funding agreement. But given the limited official interpretation of those clauses, this would be a difficult case to make. To our knowledge, the ESFA has not upheld any such complaints. Part of the problem is the perception – encouraged by the C of E, our laws on collective worship and the structure of RE – that a community ethos should mean a school is generically Christian by default.
So, this month I wrote to Baroness Berridge, minister for the school system, asking her to set out meaningful protections for the community ethos of secular schools entering MATs. We're calling on the DfE to take three tangible steps to genuinely protect non-faith academies.
Firstly, we've made specific suggestions for changes to guidance for mixed-MATs and the model funding agreements mentioned above, so that a community ethos is properly defined and protected. Internal guidance may go further. But it's difficult for civil society to hold schools or the DfE accountable to standards which aren't made public. Making the protection of a community ethos more explicit should preclude the imposition of a faith ethos in such schools. Local governing bodies should report on and act to ensure all policies are consistent with the community ethos, including raising concerns where trust-wide policies may impact this.
Secondly, a school's community ethos should be inspected as part of its overall assessment. Faith bodies receive public funding to inspect 'their' schools to ensure they are promoting a rigorous religious ethos. The C of E and Catholic Church even have special arrangements with the DfE meaning they can force a re-brokering if they are unhappy with the protection for the ethos. Earlier this year we published research into the costs and impacts of these inspections in our report Religiosity inspections: the case against faith-based reviews of state schools There is no sectoral body representing community-ethos schools in the same way as the C of E's National Society or the Catholic Education Service, but ministers could require Ofsted inspections to ensure schools are promoting an inclusive community ethos. In 2010 the government removed a duty on Ofsted to inspect schools' promotion of community cohesion; this could help to address the gap this has left.
Thirdly, the DfE should work with appropriate partners to ensure that teacher, governor and senior leadership training provides advice and support on maintaining and developing a community ethos. If you want to take on almost any position in a publicly funded faith school, you will be required to support the ethos. This is reinforced throughout ongoing professional development organised by faith groups. Teacher training covers the importance of an inclusive ethos, but we're not aware of any comparable focus specifically on a community ethos.
These comparatively simple changes could make an immediate difference. In Power grab, we also called for more wide-ranging changes to remove the special privileges given to faith groups, to the detriment of community schools, during academisation.
Ultimately, we need a cultural change to ensure a community ethos is valued by officials and developed in all non-faith schools. While schools have a faith ethos, we also need to ensure this is not used as a free pass to do whatever they like. It's not just about protecting secular schools today, it's about showing how community schools can educate children from all religious backgrounds together, without pushing religious worldviews on them. This could help provide a model for the positive transition we need away from faith-based schooling altogether.
If you have concerns about academisation introducing or strengthening religious control over your school, please get in touch
Image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com.
Faith school ‘breaching’ equality law over sex segregation, says report
Posted: Thu, 8 Jul 2021 16:50
The school inspectorate Ofsted has said an independent faith school "appears to be in breach" of equality law by segregating male and female pupils in lessons.
Boys at Leeds Menorah School are taught about Jewish criminal and civil law but girls are not, according to a report published Wednesday.
School leaders say boys need this subject for their higher education but it is "less relevant" to girls, the report said, adding that this separation by sex appeared to be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.
Staff also told Ofsted that boys and girls are expected to sit separately in lessons.
The school was rated 'inadequate' by Ofsted in 2019 and found to not meet the standards for independent schools in follow-up visits in February 2020 and May this year.
The latest report, from the May inspection, also criticised the school for a variety of other reasons. These included its lack of information regarding relationships and sex education, areas of the site that were unsafe, and safeguarding failings in its recruitment procedures.
Sex segregation in faith schools
Segregating pupils according to sex within mixed sex schools was found to amount to unlawful sex discrimination in a landmark ruling in 2017.
The Court of Appeal found Ofsted was correct to penalise Al-Hijrah school, a state-funded Islamic school in Birmingham, for segregating boys and girls for all lessons, break and lunchtimes, school trips and school clubs.
In 2017 National Secular Society research also found a number of state-funded Jewish schools teaching different religious studies curricula to male and female pupils.
In 2019, Ofsted criticised several independent faith schools after they were found to be segregating pupils by sex.
These included Gateshead Jewish Nursery School, Markazul Uloom in Blackburn, Al-Khair School in Croydon, Rochdale Islamic Academy and The Imam Muhammad Adam Institute School in Leicester.
NSS comment
Megan Manson, head of policy and research at the NSS, welcomed Ofsted's intervention.
"Schools shouldn't be allowed to discriminate in this manner by deeming certain subjects off-limits to pupils based on their sex, or encouraging boys and girls to sit separately.
"Schools certainly shouldn't be allowed to contravene the law – they should be held to account equally, regardless of religion.
"And where schools repeatedly fail, religious sensitivities shouldn't stand in the way of the action needed to protect children's rights."
Independent faith schools which keep failing
The NSS has previously raised concerns with the government over children's rights at independent faith schools which repeatedly fail inspections, including in a letter to the Department for Education last year.
The DfE has since taken action, or indicated a willingness to take action, in some cases which the NSS has raised.
