What's happening?
Parents have voted for Glengormley High School (a controlled school) to become an integrated school.
Rather than being organised around a specific religious community, integrated schools are designed to bring together pupils, families and teachers of all backgrounds.
Update 27 April 2021: Glengormley High School's conversion to integrated status has been approved by the Department of Education. It is scheduled to take place at the start of the 2022/23 academic year.
What's our view?
There is extremely broad support across all communities in Northern Ireland for children to be educated together in good inclusive schools. Sadly institutions have not kept pace with the public's wishes and the vast majority of schools remain segregated along religious lines. Catholic schools are run by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools. Controlled schools cater largely to children from Protestant backgrounds - and have religious representatives on their governing bodies. This fragmented education system exacerbates community tensions, wastes taxpayers' money and undermines children's religious freedom.
Where (as here) there is strong democratic support for a largely single faith school to become integrated (transformation), the Department of Education must give the proposal serious consideration.
Who are we?
No More Faith Schools is a national campaign coordinated by the National Secular Society and with supporters from a broad social, political and religious spectrum. We're dedicated to an end to state funded faith schools. We would like all schools to have an inclusive community ethos, free from any religious discrimination, privilege or control.
We help people challenge new faith schools, particularly where they have discriminatory admissions rules and where there are proposals for inclusive alternatives.
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