Guest post: "Religion is an inescapable part of school life - is this right in modern Britain?"

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Religion is woven into the fabric of our lives. Each family has its own attitude to it, whether through attending regular acts of worship, participating in religious rites of passage, rejecting organised religion altogether or following a completely different system of belief.

Likewise, religion is an inescapable part of the school day, from morning assembly to R.E. classes and school trips to local places of worship.
Is this right in twenty-first century Britain?

Our current system was established in 1944, when the Christian churches dominated national life far more than they do today. The agreement between Church and state established a structure of church schools, stated that religious instruction would be a legally required part of the curriculum – and decreed that there should be a daily act of collective worship which should be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character".

It's not just changes in the social and cultural make-up of Britain that mean this 70-year-old system no longer makes sense. Over that time, the way we use schools has changed, too. The school leaving age has risen steadily, the role of local education authorities has declined and schools have become the venues of an enormous range of ‘pre-school’ and ‘after school’ activity.

For well over a decade Ofsted has chronicled the generally unsatisfactory nature of religious education, with increased confusion on the part of many teachers about its purpose and ambition, and reduced commitment by government to include R.E. as a central part of the school curriculum.

At the same time religion has become more significant amongst young people themselves. This has partly been stimulated by the enormous range of controversies around religion which dominate the news, whether about IS in Syria or the Church's attitude to women bishops and gay marriage. Young people are now more likely to have an opinion on a particular faith or practice, and this is reflected in their GCSE choices – examination entries for R.E. have increased year on year since 2006.

Clearly, the system needs to be updated – which is why I have co-authored a pamphlet with Linda Woodhead urging the government to renew the legal framework regarding religion in schools.

Assemblies are really valuable and important. However it is not necessary for them to be tied into a legal straitjacket, flouted by many schools, with an act of Christian worship at its core. Teachers and school governors – within clear Ofsted guidelines - should be able to decide the best form of assembly for that school and its community.

The R.E. system should be changed to respect and honour all belief systems, including those, like humanism, which are not religious in any way. It should ensure that every child leaves school understanding clearly what each religion is, and is not.

R.E. lessons should also provide time in which young people can work out their own resilient beliefs, in a safe space which allows values to be interrogated and well understood.

Some people argue for the abolition of faith schools. However such an approach would eliminate an important right of school choice and in practice would be horribly disruptive and impossible to deliver. So we concluded that the right should remain but that admissions procedures have to be tightened to eliminate abuse and ensure that the right is properly exercised.

The greatest gift of education is to give children and young people the equipment to fully understand the world in which they are growing up, the self-confidence to form their own attitudes and beliefs and the ability to use their knowledge and understanding to change the world for the better. That is why we must bring the legal framework for religion in schools up-to-date, and make it fit for modern times.

I think state funding of religious schools should be abolished, why should the taxpayer fund a system which clearly states it's intention is to discriminate on religious grounds? No workplace would get away with hiring and firing on that basis.

If the only good school in the area is Catholic, I have the choice of pretending to convert to that woman-hating bullshit, hoping a miracle occurs which means they'll prioritise local children over genuine or pretend woman haters or sending my children to a worse school. Surprisingly, none of these options look good to me.

That reminds me - discrimination of staff on religious grounds. The report seemed to say, it's not a good thing but since we've decided we have to keep faith schools we'll have to let them discriminate for some posts but keep this under review.

Is it right for the state to fund discriminatory positions? Perhaps if a school really wants to insist on doing this they (or their religious institution) should fully fund such a post themselves - the example cited was 'where a priest is needed to conduct worship'. Surely the norm for that particular function is for the local church to supply one?

When you say "Britain" you mean England and Wales. Education is a devolved issue.

Charles Clarke is my hero. When he was in charge, RE actually got some attention and some funding.

I think the report is specifically in relation to England (forgotten if also Wales) - afaik NI and Scotland have always been different. However many of the issues are relevant to all parts of the UK - not just Britain, NI in particular as someone mentioned up thread.

I agree all state schools should be secular. My husband is atheist, I am agnostic, we want religion to be introduced to our children as 'this is what some people believe.' It offends me when I hear it explained as fact and we do not want our children indoctrinated via assemblies etc when they should be being taught how to have a free, inquisitive mind.
It is one of the reasons we home educate.

I think state funding of religious schools should be abolished

Hear hear. Let the churches fund the schools themselves. And I'm speaking as a (sporadic) churchgoer.

I cannot understand why a state funded education, in a democracy, is required by law to give time to religious worship and especially of one specified religion.

Teach 'ethics philosophy and beliefs' rather than RE?

Neither can I understand why state resources (such as school places) can be given or refused based on religious activity. Keep faith schools if we must but admissions should be on the same criteria as any other community school.

Are you sure the increase in GCSE RE passes is due to young people's interest in religion rather than it being pushed by schools as an easy notch in the stats? It is in any case a compulsory GCSE in many schools, for that very reason! Or because they have to study it so may as well rack up the GCSE.

Faith schools make me quite cross but more so since it became easier to set them up.
When ofsted showed concerns about some of the Islamic schools and their quality of education it started to feel very unequal. I want every kid in my to be entitled to and be able to access, by law, the same standard of curriculum, teaching and socialisation without segregation, in a safe environment. I think we are letting kids from some communities down at present and it's such a backwards step.

I strongly agree that state schools ought to be secular.

I hate the fact that religion has to come into it at all.

I was withdrawn from RS in secondary school for a year I think, after realising how much the personal nature of what was being asked (by a male teacher who was a total wanker and a big show off) was upsetting me.
I didn't want to share my feelings only to have them shot down.
So I sat outside the office once a week reading some novels the HT set me, who then asked me questions about them.

Difficult for me, as I hated reading, but far preferable to being in those lessons.

I don't think RS should be a space to think about our own spirituality. I think it is strictly for learning about how religion works and so on. The other stuff is personal.

But yes if the obligatory worship thing is abolished in state schools I will be 100% behind that. I am agnostic, I hate having it forced on my children.

Plus the Christians seem to nick all the good songs - drunken sailor anyone? Is now an Easter song. GREAT.

"Don't RE lessons teach about a variety of religions already?"

This is not about the teaching of RE. Nobody is questioning the study of religion as an academic subject. This is about worship and treating Christianity as fact i schools.

Currently, all ordinary state schools, which many assume are secular already, are in fact required to provide an act of worship that is Christian in nature.

How schools interpret this requirement varies widely in practice.

But Wiggly, the blog specifically mentions RE lessons, and changing them. I don't think that is helpful to the issue of worship.

Religion should not be compulsory for anyone, anywhere.

3yr old ds starts school September and one of the questions that really got me thinking on the admission form was "do you want your child to be removed from religious education" of all the questions I deliberated on this one the most because I am an atheist but was forced to endure re lessons in school and absolutely hated it. so in the end I did ask them not teach him re because I want him to discover it when he is old enough to properly grasp that different people have different beliefs and nobody should be judged based on belief.

I chose a secular school for dd1 on purpose. I have friends who chose a c of e school 'because it's the best local school' though they are atheist. I am not a hypocrite and I do not want my children indoctrinated.

Dd1 briefly mentioned baby Jesus at Xmas and Easter - no problems with that. Her little friend at a c of e school described all the nails being hammered in to Jesus and showed me how he was crucified. I was horrified. That child is 4!!! And from an atheist family.

I didn't actually realise that this still happened in the UK (left 30 years ago). In Belgium we have maybe 50-50 state and Catholic schools. In neither state nor Catholic schools is there an assembly of any sort, not even in maternelle or primary. The only difference is that whereas in state schools you get a choice of a variety of religions or ethics for a two hour compulsory lesson, in the Catholic schools you obviously have two hours of Catholicism. This is compulsory until the age of 18 (but then most lessons are compulsory until the age of 18 as there are very few options given).

But there are no secular schools. All schools are supposed to have Christian based assemblies and the level of indoctrination is set by the HT. Secular schools could be more religious than faith schools, you just don't know until you've been there a while! Ridiculous

"But there are no secular schools"

This is a scare tactic and based on taking the part for the whole (the fallacy of composition).

The fact of a daily Christian assembly (even if it happens, and as we know the law is widely ignored) does not mean that the school as a whole is religious. All state schools have to teach the National Curriculum which is wholly secular in character. Church and other faith schools are able to teach their faith within limits, but they must also teach the secular national curriculum.

To say that there are no secular schools is a gross misrepresentation - and does a disservice to the very convincing secularist case for abolishing the requirement to have a daily Christian act of worship (a case that I, as a Christian, agree with).

There is currently no state school which, despite it being non-faith, you can be certain that in the assembly your children won't be presented with God as being factually true. You may have looked around it when your child was 3 and been happy with the assemblies, but by the time they enter reception, a change of staff/governors may have altered the situation. Whereas the 'ethos' of a faith school is quite hard to change, the same does not currently apply to non-faith. I'm sure you can see that while the 'no secular schools' line may be somewhat overstated, it's not really an acceptable situation. So, it's great to see a change being recommended!

Faith schools don't have to teach the secular national curriculum on RE, which seems like the only subject where 'secularity' should even be an issue, because there isn't one (and they don't even have to follow the SACRE). This is of course one of the issues which is quite rightly addressed in the pamphlet.

If the right of school choice and therefore religious schools should be kept then I do believe these religious schools should either be self funded or open to everyone. What is massively unfair at the moment is that parents who live near a religious school but do not attend the place of worship can be excluded from the schools. If schools are funded from budgets to which we all pay taxes then we should be able to attend them on equal footing as anyone else. Those choosing religious schools in theory have much wider chice as they can choose the religious or non religious schools in their area while the same choice is not open to the non religious parents. This to me is highly unfair if I contribute via my taxes to a school I cannot attend. This would equate to some NHS services only being available to groups that fulfil certain criteria.

If we are going to keep faith schools (I'd prefer not to), then every pupil who wants one should be guaranteed a place in a secular school. That word mean that in areas that can only support one school, that school would need to be secular. Secular education should effectively be the default.

Long overdue. I'd also get rid of faith schools too - why should some families get better education in some areas based on an unproven belief system?

We absolutely need to take religion out of school. If I am uncomfortable with what my son learns about in RE as someone brought up in the same system, what must it feel like if you are from a different cultural or religious background? They do not appear to be teaching 'some people think this, but others think that', they appear to be teaching in such a way that children don't know and can't judge what is fact and what is belief. Collective worship would fill me with dread even if I were religious too! Let people 'worship' whatever they want in their own time in whatever way they want. My husband is American - where religion is a much hotter topic than here - but even over there, it is kept out of school. My husband is constantly alarmed by what happens here. It seems absurd that such a secular country continues to allow religion such a role in school.

We are not a secular country that's the trouble. We are one of a minority of countries that has a state religion and that is why it permeates into areas that it has no business to e.g. Prayers in schools, council meetings, House of Commons etc. Once taken out of the Establishment it would be easier for those in charge to see reason!