Tags: Collective Worship
Ep 63: Christian education challenged in court – a Northern Ireland case
Posted: Tue, 21st Dec 2021
A ground-breaking case on the right to a pluralistic education in Northern Ireland is currently being considered by the High Court.
A father of a seven-year-old girl at a primary school in Belfast has brought judicial review proceedings against the school and the Department of Education. He argues that the school's collective worship and Religious Education provisions are narrowly Christian, being effectively designed to indoctrinate children and denying their right to a pluralistic education, in which no one worldview is privileged over others. The case was heard by the High Court of Northern Ireland on 22-23 November.
In this episode, Darragh Mackin, solicitor for the applicants, discusses the case with Emma Park. Darragh is a partner at Phoenix Law, a firm of solicitors in Belfast that specialises in human rights. He describes how the girl's family, who are non-religious, discovered her praying late into the night. This led them to investigate the way that her school was imposing Christianity on young children through religious assemblies and RE lessons.
Darragh outlines the main issues in the case and the human rights principles involved. He explains how Christianity is embedded into the legal framework governing education in Northern Ireland. He also argues that proselytising religious instruction can reinforce the divisions at the heart of the region's historic troubles, and that it is therefore all the more important to ensure that children are brought up with open minds.
Follow-up
• Christianity being 'wrongly promoted and privileged in the classroom', court hears – Irish News
• Laws requiring exclusively Christian RE to face court challenge in NI
• Bill to replace worship with inclusive assemblies heads to Commons
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Podcast produced by Emma Park for the National Secular Society (2021). All rights reserved.
Schools should be liberated from the compulsion of worship - Opinion Out Loud Ep 013
Posted: Tue, 12th Oct 2021
As a bill to reform collective worship progresses in parliament, Stephen Evans argues that the time has come for lawmakers to recognise that laws mandating worship have no place in modern Britain.
Schools aren’t there to save the church - Opinion Out Loud Ep 012
Posted: Tue, 17th Aug 2021
The Church of England's new evangelical missional strategy should lead us to question its entitlement to proselytise in schools, argues Stephen Evans.
Ep 20: Lee and Lizanne Harris – compulsory worship
Posted: Mon, 16th Dec 2019
In this episode, Emma Park speaks with Lee and Lizanne Harris about their experience of the collective worship requirement in schools.
The Harrises recently initiated judicial review proceedings against the primary school attended by their children. They challenged its decision to provide no alternative to a proselytising Christian assembly once a week conducted by representatives of the local C of E church.
Lee and Lizanne discuss their children's experiences of these assemblies, what happened when they withdrew them, and the school's failure to provide a secular alternative until they were forced to by the threat of legal proceedings.
The Harrises' case has set a helpful precedent for other parents who may be torn between fearing that their children will be indoctrinated if they participate in religious assemblies, and that they will be excluded from school life if they do not.
Watch this episode on YouTube | Direct MP3 Link | Transcripts
Notes
Lee Harris's 2018 blog for the NSS
C of E trust to introduce alternative to worship after legal challenge
More information and guidance from the NSS on collective worship
The requirement to hold collective worship in schools is crumbling and not worth saving
Ep 14: End compulsory worship | Education update
Posted: Mon, 16th Sep 2019
In this episode, Emma Park speaks to the NSS's Head of Education, Alastair Lichten, about the Society's ongoing campaign against collective worship in schools. This is followed by a brief update on the NSS's other campaigns in education, and its new resource for schools, Exploring Secularism.
It is, surprisingly, still a legal requirement in England and Wales that state schools practise some form of collective religious worship every day. Emma and Alastair discuss what the law is, how it is put into practice by different schools, the impact which it has on parents and children who do not want to participate, and what the NSS is doing to change the situation.
Our apologies for some handling and background noise on this episode. We hope to have it sorted out by the next recording.
Follow Emma Park on Twitter: @DrEmmaPark
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Notes
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