Tag: british humanist association

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Government made an ‘error in law’ over exclusion of humanism from GCSE

Fantastic news from the British Humanist Association (BHA) – a High Court judge has ruled that the Government made an ‘error in law’ when it left out non-religious worldviews such as humanism from the content of GCSE Religious Studies (in the curriculum in England). The BHA supported three non-religious families who wanted to challenge the Government’s moves to relegate non-religious beliefs in the curriculum and helped the parents and their children to bring the case to court. This is a landmark judgement and a real victory for inclusive and balanced education. A huge congratulations to those families and to the BHA. More news on this story below and on their website.

 

BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson said, ‘We have made the case for many decades that the school curriculum on religions should include major non-religious worldviews such as humanism. It is great news that the Court has now said the law is with us. This is a stunning victory for the three humanist families who stood up to the Government on this issue. It is also a victory for the vast majority of people who believe in the importance of a religious education curriculum that is inclusive, balanced, and pluralistic, and which contributes to mutual understanding between people of all religions and none.

‘We look forward to working with the Government to ensure that the changes required by the judgement are implemented and hope they will use this as an opportunity to improve the GCSE for the benefit of all children. Continuing to exclude the views of a huge number of Britons, in the face of majority public opinion and all expert advice, would only be to the detriment of education in this country and a shameful path to follow.’

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Support BHA’s faith schools & education campaigns

The British Humanist Association (BHA) employs the country’s only dedicated campaigner against the discriminatory and divisive faith schools system. The BHA is asking for donations so they can continue to have this post. In just the past year, the successes of the Faith Schools and Education Campaigner include:

  • Publishing a landmark report revealing that thousands of children may have been unlawfully denied a place at their chosen school as a result of a near-universal failure by ‘faith’ schools to comply with the School Admissions Code.
  • Exposing the widespread practice of state-funded ‘faith’ schools demanding financial contributions from parents or pressuring them into making payments that are supposed to be voluntary.
  • Seeing evolution taught as part of the primary national curriculum for the first time, following years of campaigning through our ‘Teach evolution, not creationism!’ campaign.
  • Welcoming the Welsh Government’s plans to transform Religious Education in Wales into a new ‘Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics’ syllabus, along very similar lines to those we recommended in our response to a consultation on the Welsh curriculum.
  • Seeing the Office of the Schools Adjudicator rule once again that the London Oratory School’s faith-based admissions criteria were unlawful and must be removed. This came over two years after we made our initial objection about the school’s discriminatory and divisive admissions arrangements. And it’s not over yet. The Oratory has already stated that it intends to appeal.
  • Securing recommendations in the UK Civil Society report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in RE, compulsory sex education in all schools, and a reduction in the degree to which schools can religiously select. We were part of the education working group responsible for steering the report.
  • Successfully campaigning on a change to regulations requiring school inspectors to be independent not only from the school they’re inspecting, but also from any organisation representing the school. This led to the closure of the Bridge Schools Inspectorate, some of whose inspectors were revealed to have extensive links to the ‘faith’ schools they were inspecting, and also to hold very conservative religious views in relation to homosexuality and women.
  • Revealing that despite a ban introduced last year, taxpayers’ money is still going to creationist and potentially extremist private nurseries through the Government’s early years funding programme.
  • Exposing significant inconsistencies in the outcomes of Ofsted’s inspections of Charedi Jewish private schools, finding that the schools were far more likely to be rated favourably by a Charedi Jewish inspector than by a non-Charedi inspector. The two Charedi inspectors involved have since been dropped by Ofsted.
  • Working alongside the Humanist and Secularist Liberal Democrats to pass a policy motion at the Lib Dem Conference backing an end to collective worship and employment discrimination in faith schools.

Please do consider helping the BHA raise money to support this vital post.

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Fight back against faith schools

Please show your support for inclusive schools by donating whatever you can in support of the British Humanist Association’s (BHA) Faith Schools Campaigner. Each year the BHA, which is a charity reliant on donations and membership fees, fundraises to retain its fantastic Faith Schools Campaigner, who is the only campaigner working full time in opposition to the state funding of faith schools and against religious discrimination in admissions, employment and the curriculum.

Richy Thompson works tirelessly to end the unfair discrimination embedded in the state-funded faith schools system and has helped to make the issue of faith schools a matter of national level debate, as well as providing direct support and advice to parents, teachers, school governors and pupils in local areas. On top of all this, Richy also leads the BHA’s policy work on evolution and creationism, religious education, PSHE and sex and relationships education and collective worship – with a number of notable successes in the past few years.

There is still so much more to be done to have a truly fair, equal and high quality school and education system with no religious discrimination or prejudice. Please donate through the special JustGiving site.

Read more about the BHA’s work on schools and education.

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Faith schools: discriminatory admissions policies under the spotlight

This summer the spotlight has been on religious discrimination in admissions to state-funded faith schools. We have argued that selection by faith schools is often, in practice, discrimination against children and families along class and ethnicity lines, as well as particularly against the non-religious. See, comment on and vote for our submission to Labour’s policy review.

The Fair Admissions Campaign published high level data which paints a concerning picture of the extent to which state-funded faith schools are engaging in socio-economic selection through their discriminatory admissions policies. It has revealed the 50 segregated schools most unrepresentative of their local areas: the list is overwhelmingly dominated by religiously selective schools, exposing sharply the segregating effects of faith-based admissions criteria.

Following a complaint by the British Humanist Association (BHA), the state-funded, Catholic, London Oratory School has been forced to overhaul its admissions policy after being found to be in breach of the school admissions code in a number of ways including on socio-economic grounds. Read the BHA’s statement.

The Accord Coalition for inclusive schools has been updating its report of testimonies and media reports of discriminatory and exclusive practices by faith schools. Read how religious selection can divide families as well as communities.

Our position

We are affiliated to the BHA and we support the Fair Admissions Campaign and the Accord Coalition. We seek to influence Labour Party policy on key secular and humanist issues.

We believe that discrimination in admissions by state-funded faith schools is unnecessary, unjust, disastrous for social cohesion, and completely against Labour values. We have therefore asked for a commitment to inclusivity and opposing discrimination in admissions by faith schools to be included in Labour’s manifesto for the 2015 general election.

Labour should guarantee that children will not be turned away from their local school on the basis of their parents’ beliefs. We firmly believe this would be a popular policy and likely vote winner.

Policy options

We would like Labour to consider the following policy options which we believe would be broadly supported and, if adopted, would be a significant step forward:

A. No new faith school allowed to discriminate in its admissions

B. No existing faith school allowed to discriminate in admissions in the future

We think it is vital that a commitment to inclusive admissions with no religious discrimination by faith schools permitted is in Labour’s 2015 manifesto.