Supporter comments

"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."

I and my children had no choice but to attend church of England primary schools and, in my case, a grammar school with compulsory worship, compulsory church attendance and compulsory education in Christian mythology.

"As a teacher I see a lot of schools, often in areas where there is no educational choice, adding the weight of respected adult support to a set of beliefs they expect very young children to follow. This should not be done using public money!"

"People should have the right to send their children to a non-faith school. In many villages/areas this is not practically possible. Segregating children by religion cannot help society."

I can't get my children into a local school because we do not follow the schools faith. How is this fair or right that my children are being discriminated against in this way?

I was forced into putting all 3 of my children into a Catholic school. My choices were of three schools. One was a terribly performing C of E school, the other two. Catholic schools. Disgusting. Whilst the staff are generally nice, the air of eternal damnation hangs over those kids and the volume of hard work that's attributed to a god makes my blood boil.

We are a non-religious family, but I sent my son to our local village school because we could walk there. Like all in the area it was CofE. I told him to be respectful of other people's beliefs, but they were not the same back. He was forced into prayers. A couple of years after he started at this school, they changed the admissions criteria so that you had to go to church to get in and we would never have got him into our state funded village school. This is absolutely outrageous.

"Everyone should be entitled to have their children educated at the school that is nearest to them, regardless of whether or not they subscribe to a particular religion or other superstition. No one should be discriminated against on the grounds of "faith". I object to having to contribute to funding the local school to which my own child was denied access on religious grounds while also having to pay for him to be educated privately as a result."

"Certain parts of Cheltenham are in the catchment area for just one non-religious school, with four religious schools nearby who select children based on the parent's availability to attend church on Sundays. How is this fair on anyone?"