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Campaign Locally

We want every faith school proposal to face robust opposition at every level and make every effort to support secular inclusive alternatives. We always seek to work with local supporters and build a broad positive coalition.

Here are some of the campaigns we and our supporters are currently working on. Please keep scrolling down for more information on how you can take action locally.

  • All local campaigns

    Working with local supporters to challenge new faith schools and support inclusive alternatives.

Other local campaigning

Scroll down for more information on how you can Help us show support for No More Faith Schools across the country.

  • Subscribing to our newsletter and sharing your postcode really helps us organise local campaigns.
  • In addition to your local MP, please ask your local representatives what they are doing to support inclusive education and oppose the expansion of faith schools in your area.
  • Look out for plans to open new faith schools in your area, or for religious groups taking over non-faith schools.

Education is a devolved issue, so we have template letters for MSs, MLAs and MSPs. It can still be worth writing to your MP, even on devolved issues, as the discrimination and segregation wrought by faith schools is still something they can take an interest in.

Challenge a new faith school

If a new faith school is opening in your area, or a faith group is taking over a non-faith school, we can help. Fill in the form below and someone will be in touch.

We want every faith school proposal to face robust opposition at every level and make every effort to support secular inclusive alternatives. We always seek to work with local supporters and build a broad positive coalition.

* Required Field

New faith school

We may already have a local campaign set, in which case we'll let you know. You may also be interested in the resources below and current campaigns.

  • Faith school briefing

    The National Secular Society have produced a concise and easily sharable briefing setting out the major issues with faith schools, and how you can support the campaign.

  • Current local campaigns

    Working with local supporters to challenge new faith schools and support inclusive alternatives.

  • Challenge a new faith school (PDF, 606 Kb)

    If a new faith based state school is opening in your area, this guide can help you plan your response.

  • Update on VA school proposals (PDF, 383 Kb)

    A guide to the new wave of voluntary aided faith school proposals.

Show your support

Our supporters are vital to the campaign. Signing the petition to actual voice is a great first step. But we want to show the range of support across the whole country.

Take a picture

We have printable posters and placards for you to, personalise it with your own message, and let us know: why are you saying, "No More Faith Schools!" Remember to send us a picture of you with your placard via: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Share a Tweet

We have template tweets all over the site where you can personalise and share a prewritten message with your followers.

Do you think our schools should be open and inclusive? Do you think pupils should be free to develop their own beliefs? Do you think schools should be free from religious control? Then please join me in saying #NoMoreFaithSchools!
Click to tweet

Share a video

Record a short video saying why you're saying "No More Faith Schools!". Make it as creative as you like and we might feature it on our YouTube channel.

Organise an event

It's great to show your support at one of our events around the country. But if you'd like to help us reaching even more people, why not organise an event yourself? Get in touch and we could help with resources and speakers.

In today’s society, it is more important than ever that our children can enjoy a diverse and fair education, and have the chance to learn from each other’s differences. The National Secular Society’s No More Faith Schools campaign is an important step in this direction and provides a platform for those who want an inclusive education to show their support for that.

dan-snow.jpg

Dan Snow, Historian, broadcaster and television presenter

Schools are for education not indoctrination. Faith is a personal matter and not one the state should fund. Forcing parents to follow a Faith that they may not agree with to get their children into their local school is not acceptable.

Julie, Yeovil

The deeply flawed assumption that children 'belong' to their parents' chosen belief system is an integral part of the problem that constrains and ultimately harms children. Schools should be a communal, civil space, a melting pot for all children to learn freely together and to have a shared understanding, development and appreciation of the human values that bind us together. Faith schools do precisely the opposite, in that they limit children's education and are a living, breathing example of the sectarianism that divides society. Faith schools by their very nature frustrate the implementation of the UN convention on the rights of the child to support every child to learn freely and ultimately to be free to hold their own personal beliefs and to live a life according to their own values. School may be the only environment where children from deeply religious households might start to learn about other forms of belief and other ways of living than those espoused by their parents. LGBTQIA children are particularly at risk of isolation, bullying and a deep sense of exclusion within a heteronormative religious school environment. Faith schools celebrate their own limited vision and are set up precisely so as to close off children's avenues. In doing so, they actively prevent children from discovering communities which may often be far more suited to the individual child and the adult they will become. When my children were younger, our family was initially welcomed and then bullied out of a (faith) school which was incredibly the only available local school claiming to be able to accommodate a child from a non-faith background. What should have been a simple degree of inclusivity in the 21st century proved incompatible with the faith school ethos which venerates belief in one particular religion above all else and requires school governors to promote the particular faith of the school often at the expense of simple human kindness. Their vision of accommodation was to leave a six-year-old child alone in a room whilst the rest of the school prayed, to exclude her from a (non-religious) school play and then to harass and blame the parents when we raised concerns. Faith schools and worship in a school environment are damaging to many children, including some of those who later feel that it did them no harm; faith schools normalise the harmful practice of public, enforced indoctrination. The only time that schoolchildren should encounter worship during the school day should be on a field trip to learn about the many and varied belief systems, none of which would be constrained by ending the damaging system of faith schools.

Antony, from SHREWSBURY

This campaign is coordinated by the National Secular Society. The NSS works for the separation of religion and state and equal respect for everyone's human rights so that no one is either advantaged or disadvantaged on account of their beliefs.