Supporter comments

I am currently in the process of researching primary schools for my daughter. We are an atheist household, though my daughter will be free to follow any religious she choses, or none, when she is old enough to make such a choice. As such, I would prefer for her to attend a secular primary. Additionally, I do not want to give her the message that access to education for any child should be affected by religious beliefs.

However, I find myself in the catchment of a catholic school and a CoE school in my London borough. In order to find a non religious school I am having to apply to schools in a different borough, which we are less likely to get into. Despite living in a place with plenty of local state funded schools, I find myself in the position of looking to move house, at great expense and emotional upheaval, in order to secure for my daughter a secular education, despite living in a largely secular community in all other respects. In no other area of life do my religious beliefs limit my daughters options.

"I work in a village VC school and have seen the pressure to evangelise to children rising. It's even worse in VA schools. I wouldn't want my child to attend a faith school but might have no choice if I lived in a village. They claim to be for children of all faiths but it's clear that their main concern is with propagating the faith. It's time to end the segregation of pupils by their parent's faith and build a more cohesive society."

"My daughter can't go to her local school because she hasn't been christened. This is discrimination, no matter how it is dressed up!"

"My son has to go to a local RC school because of SENS needs - his timetable includes five periods of RE every two weeks. This is more than any other subject and is straight up evangelising. Education should be secular, faith schools severely limit the choice of pupils especially in areas like mine which is a grammar area."

"My own (atheist) children were taught creationist beliefs in their village primary school (there was no non-faith school we could choose), and that other faiths were essentially primitive. At secondary level, in our nearest town, there are three non-selective schools, two of which are faith schools. These faith schools don't accept children from families with no faith unless the families lie about their lack of faith. Our 'choice' was restricted to one school, therefore, unless our children passed the selective tests for the non-faith grammar schools. The faith schools' admissions criteria therefore massively distort the secondary system here."

"I believe that it is harmful for children to be segregated by their parents' beliefs. As a person without a religion, who had not been to a religious school, I was surprised at and disturbed by the level of religious indoctrination in our local state C of E primary school when my children were young, and at the amount of time that was devoted to religious themes."

My daughter will start secondary school in 5 years. The school most of her friends will go to insist on going to church (and getting a stamp) every week for 2 years if you have a chance of getting in. I refuse to play this game and I strongly disagree that schools should be able to discriminate against non-religious people in this way. I'm going to try and use the next 5 years to do as much as I can to change this outdated practice.

It's not fair that my child has to be exposed to religious dogma if they want a local education, or that they have to travel miles to a non-faith school if the faith school around the corner is allowed to discriminate on the grounds of faith. All education should be secular as this is the most inclusive form of education.

"As an atheist, my children are automatically not eligible for a great number of local schools in my area because I refuse to attend church to get them in. I am paying for these schools as a taxpayer but am not allowed to benefit from them."