Faith School Myth Buster

Faith schools are often defended in terms of parental choice. However, the proliferation of faith schools serves to restrict choice for parents who do not want a faith-based education for their children, or who do not share the religion of their local school. In some parts of the country, parents are left with little other option but to send their child to a school with a religious ethos. In 2017 18,000 families were sent to faith schools against their preference.

According to research in a 2018 report by the National Secular Society (The Choice Delusion)

• Almost three in ten families across England live in areas where most or all of the closest primary schools are faith schools. There is significant regional variation and the problem is more prevalent in rural areas. However, even in urban areas around one in four families live in areas with high or extreme restrictions.
• In 43.4% of rural areas restrictions on non-faith school choice are categorised as "high" or "extreme". In fact, 53% of rural primary schools are faith-based.
• 20.6% (7,727) of those who missed out on their first choice of a non-faith primary school in September 2018 were assigned a faith school. This includes 1,398 people who had made all their preferences (typically five) for a non-faith school.

Consider this: according to data from the 2017 British Social Attitudes survey, only 15% of British people identify as Anglican (including just 3% of people aged 18-24). Yet over 20% of state schools in England are Church of England. The disproportionately high percentage of Church of England schools, combined with the increasingly competitive nature of school places, invariably means that many families who are not Anglican will have little choice but to send their child to an Anglican school, even if that is not what the family wishes.

This problem isn't limited to Church of England schools. In recent years the shortage of school places has seen local authorities attempting to place children of atheist and Christian parents in Sikh schools and in one case a child from a Muslim family was allocated a place in an Orthodox Jewish school.

Though religious organisations want more faith schools, most parents and the general public just want good local schools. Research shows that most parents choose schools based on their locality and academic standards – very few choose faith schools for their religious characteristic.

But if a family who are not of the faith still wish to send their child to a faith school (perhaps because it is the closest to their home, or for some other reason not related to religion), they can still be turned away. Desperate families sometimes lie about their faith, attend church, or even have their child baptised into the faith of the school, in order to increase their chances of getting in. In this way, religious selection in faith schools unfairly limits parental choice.

Schools and academies with a religious designation are exempt from equality law when it comes to admissions. When Voluntary Aided faith schools and religious academies are oversubscribed, they are permitted to use religious criteria to give priority in admissions to children, or children of parents, who practice a particular religion. In many cases schools will require evidence of baptism or religious practice from a minister of religion.

Quite simply, families of no religion, or of the "wrong" religion, are discriminated against.

This is in spite of the fact that the vast majority of voters, including those from every religion surveyed, disagree with religious selection in school admissions!

A move towards an inclusive and secular education system would mean no child would be discriminated against on account of their parents' religion or belief, and that all schools would be equally appropriate for parents of all faith backgrounds.

Research published in 2016 by the Education Policy Institute found that after adjusting for "disadvantage, prior attainment and ethnicity," pupils in primary schools with a faith ethos "seem to do little or no better than in non-faith schools".

Pupils in secondary schools with a faith ethos record only "small average gains" over non-faith schools or "just one-seventh of a grade higher" in GCSE results. The Education Policy Institute study concluded that such minute gains came with a risk "of increased social segregation". It also noted that "the average faith school admits fewer pupils from poor backgrounds than the average non faith school." Faith schools can operate extremely convoluted admissions procedures and many are able to select their pupils from more affluent backgrounds than non-faith schools."

More recently in 2017, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that there is "no evidence" to suggest denominational schools in Scotland achieve better results than their non-denominational counterparts.

The influence of religion on education may even be detrimental to some results. In 2017, academics at Leeds Beckett and Missouri universities published a paper arguing that excess time spent on religion in schools harmed progression in other subjects including maths and science.

All maintained schools in the UK have to promote basic human values in education. Under section 78 of the Education Act (2002) schools in England are required to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of their pupils.

Within this, all schools must actively promote the values of "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs".

These and basic human and civic values, such as compassion, truthfulness, tolerance, respect, responsibility, forgiveness, generosity and justice are often promoted as uniquely religious in faith schools. E.g. as 'Christian values', but this is untrue and biases children's religious outlook, painting non-Christians as morally inferior. SIAMS reports (inspections of CofE faith schools by the Church) often criticise schools when they promote values such as compassion without presenting them as being uniquely Christian.

Education about ethics and morality in schools should be based around the universal principles of reason, empathy and the concept of fundamental human rights, rather than forced through the lenses of religious teachings.

You certainly don't need faith schools to cater for families of different religions in the UK. Schools that are open, inclusive and equally welcoming to all children whatever their religion and belief backgrounds, do that by default.

While it is understandable that there are parents who wish for their child to be raised according to their religious tradition, they don't have the right to that via the state, and the general taxpayer should not be the one to foot the bill. Religion and belief communities exist to promote their worldviews, schools don't. Faith schools undermine many parents' ability to raise their children in accordance with their religion/belief.

"Human rights treaties give parents and legal guardians the right to educate their children in accordance with their religion and philosophical convictions, and children should not suffer discrimination because of this. The state is not obliged to actively participate or provide resources to assist parents in such religious education; parents do not have a right to state funding for confessional religious teaching or religious schools that are in line with their own beliefs." - UK Government, Freedom of Religion or Belief Toolkit

It's also a mistake to assume that religious people necessarily want faith schools. Many people of faith are opposed to religious discrimination, don't see faith inculcation as the state's role, or have other reasons for supporting inclusive schools.

People live out their religion or belief in many ways, we don't need faith-hospitals, or faith-job centres or any other faith based/divided public service to enable people to exercise their religion. The UK is unusual in having state funded faith schools, many countries with higher levels of religiosity don't have them.

An inclusive school would be secular – that is it would neither be specifically religious or atheist; it would fulfil the educational requirements of all children as individuals. There's nothing anti-religious about schools that are open, inclusive and equally welcoming to all children, whatever their religion and belief backgrounds.

A secular education system is perfectly consistent with protecting individuals' religious freedom.

Our news stories, testimonials and supporter comments are full of examples of real people harmed by faith schools.

Faith schools have a negative impact on social cohesion, foster the segregation of children on social, ethnic and religious lines and are antithetical to freedom and equality. In Northern Ireland, faith schools have been an unmitigated public policy disaster. As Britain becomes increasingly religiously diverse it needs to avoid heading in that direction.

Organising children and young people's education around religious identities is the worst possible response to Britain's growing religious diversity. Schools are our golden opportunity to foster understanding and tolerance amongst tomorrow's generation. It is utterly misguided to squander this opportunity by continuing to fund and promote faith-based education.

Of course there is a range and some faith schools are more harmful than others. Some faith schools push their religious ethos very aggressively. It's particularly sinister that some of them seek to shield children from secular knowledge and actively turn pupils against the society in which they will grow up. And even faith schools which do not do this legitimise the idea that inculcating religion is a valid purpose of education – meaning they validate the promotion of intolerant attitudes elsewhere.

Traditionally CofE faith schools were seen as more 'light touch' but parents, and staff at these schools report an increasing pressure to promote a more rigorous religious ethos throughout all aspects of school life. Legitimise the idea of organising state education around religious identity/inculcation, opens the doors for the worst aspects of faith schools.

Faith schools of one type lead to other religious leaders demanding state schools of their own. It's inconsistent to argue for Christian faith schools, but against Muslim, Sikh, Scientologist, Pastafarian etc. schools.

Department for Education guidance on 'promoting fundamental British values' calls it "unacceptable" for schools to "promote discrimination against people or groups on the basis of their belief, opinion or background". Yet faith schools do exactly that. The Government's own data shows that faith schools are directly responsible for creating a ghettoised education system, where Britain's Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Muslim schools are mono-cultural zones that do nothing to foster greater social cohesion. Schools from various religious traditions exclude and isolate pupils whose parents don't share their religion, encouraging children to see each other's differences rather than what they have in common.

Faith schools also have the means to deny children the right to a thorough education on relationships and sex. RSE is now mandatory in all English schools, but the Government permits faith schools to "teach in accordance with the tenets of their faith", excluding vital information about LGBT issues or contraceptives. In addition, parents will still be able to opt their children out of RSE classes. This will leave children from conservative religious backgrounds without the impartial, appropriate education they need in this area.

According to the 2017 British Social Attitudes survey, only around 40% of people in Britain identify as Christian. In fact, over half of Britons have no religion at all, including an astonishing 71% of people aged 18-24. Christians, and indeed people of any religion, are now a minority group in the UK.

But all of that's a distraction. Many countries with much higher Christian populations (like the USA) don't have state funded faith schools.

It's hard to argue that Christian churches should have state funded schools, but Islamic, Jewish, Jedi or Scientologists shouldn't.

The UK is the only Western democracy to legally impose worship in publicly funded schools. The law in England and Wales provides that children at all maintained schools "shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship". Northern Ireland and Scotland have similar laws. Even in schools with no religious designation, the worship must be "wholly or mainly of a Christian character".

Parents have the right to withdraw children from collective worship, but many parents regard this as an unreasonable imposition on both themselves and their children. And even though parents have withdrawal rights, this is often far more difficult to exercise than you might imagine. In fact, it's sometimes even difficult for children to opt out of religious activities in non-religious schools! Within faith schools, the practical difficulties in exercising the right of withdrawal become insurmountable when worship encroaches into the classroom and religion permeates the whole school experience.

It should be noted that the children themselves do not have the right to opt out of collective worship before the age of 16.

Church schools are increasingly under pressure from the CofE to assert a robust 'Christian ethos' – even in schools with a religiously diverse and largely religiously indifferent school community. Doing so is disrespectful to both pupils and parents. Many parents don't want somebody else's religion imposed on their children whilst at school.

In addition to Ofsted inspections, 'church schools' have religiosity inspections by their local dioceses to ensure that they are "distinctively and recognisably Christian institutions". Pressure to receive a favourable diocesan inspection may well explain why we're now seeing some church schools increasing their religiosity by worshipping at the beginning and end of each day and before and after lunch; introducing prayer corners in classrooms; having regular visits from priests, and even employing them as 'school chaplains'.

This proselytism and evangelism in church schools undermines parental rights and children's religious freedoms. Senior staff in church schools are usually practising Christians (a job requirement for many headteachers) and many parents feel uncomfortable raising concerns about the way in which religion is being promoted in their child's school, fearing their perfectly reasonable stance will be regarded as 'anti-religious' by the religious authorities running the school – and indeed they are often given a frosty and defensive response.

And as previously mentioned, many faith schools including CofE schools actively discriminate against those who are not of the faith.

See also: Church schools are faith schools. Pretending otherwise is dishonest

In the case of Voluntary Aided schools, all of their running costs and 90% of their building costs are funded by their state. The remaining 10% of building costs are supposedly payed for by the religious body. This is typically met by fundraising among the parents, or by further government grants.

All other types of faith school in England & Wales are funded 100% by the state.

Politicians often recognise the problems with faith schools, but feel we're stuck with them or consistently overestimate their popularity – our national campaign is designed to give a voice to the people of all faiths and none who oppose faith schools. Few other European nations fund faith schools, and where they do this is being questioned. For example, the governing party in Sweden has recently proposed ending the role of publicly-funded religious 'free' schools. If we take action together, change is possible!