The Liberal Democrats have passed new party policy to support an end to religious selection in state-funded schools in England. The policy also calls for all state schools to teach impartial education about religious and non-religious worldviews that is inspected by Ofsted, for much stricter limits on religious discrimination in ‘faith’ school employment, and for the current legal requirement for schools to hold daily acts of collective worship to be repealed. The Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC) has welcomed the result.

The party was presented with three different options on the policy on faith-based admissions. One option was phasing out religious discrimination entirely. Another was reducing it to 50% of places across the board. And the third was for unlimited religious selection. The party opted for both the first of these three options, and the policy motion as a whole.

The Conservatives previously supported existing rules to limit religious selection to 50% of places amongst new state-funded religious schools, but since Theresa May became Prime Minister, has been consulting on scrapping those rules and introducing 100% selection. The Green Party also has policy opposing all religious selection amongst state-funded schools, whereas Labour has been campaigning for keeping the 50% cap.

Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Asssociation – a founding member of the FAC – commented, ‘We are delighted to see the Liberal Democrats adopt such a fair and comprehensive policy on religious schools, especially on school admissions, given current Government policy proposing to expand such selection.

‘In a recent OECD survey, only four countries were identified as allowing their taxpayer-funded schools to religiously discriminate in admissions: Ireland, Israel, Estonia, and the UK. Such an approach is highly unusual internationally and it is hugely unpopular across all religious and non-religious groups in our country. Children as young as four are segregated on the basis of their parents’ ability to attend a place of worship on a weekly basis and this is no basis for a healthy and integrated future society.

‘We urge the Government to take notice and think again about its plans to expand religious selection.’

New Lib Dem policy

Precisely, Lib Dem policy now calls for:

[A] new approach to state-funded faith schools which:

1. Ensures that religious education in all state-funded schools:
2. Is kept separate from any religious instruction.
3. Covers all the major religious and non-religious viewpoints.
4. Is part of the party’s proposed slimmed-down national curriculum, appropriate to local circumstances.
5. Is included in inspections by Ofsted.
6. Ensures that staff in faith schools are employed only on the basis of merit, with exemptions to allow candidates’ beliefs to be a factor in recruitment only for those staff who are mainly or exclusively responsible for providing religious instruction.
   c. Allows state-funded schools to hold acts of worship and provide religious instruction, but repeals the existing legal requirement for all state-funded schools to hold acts of collective worship, and for non-religious schools to hold acts of worship of a broadly Christian character.
   d. Requires schools to ensure that any act of worship and any religious instruction is optional for members of staff directly employed by the school, and for pupils who are mature enough to decide for themselves and otherwise for parents, and that suitable alternative activities are provided for these pupils.
   e. Ensures that selection in admissions on the basis of religion or belief to state-funded schools is phased out over up to six years.

Notes

For further comment or information please contact the FAC on info@fairadmissions.org.uk or 0207 324 3078.

Read the new Liberal Democrats policy on ‘the role of faith in state-funded schools’: http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference-spring-17-f16-faith-schools

The FAC wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Campaign is supported by a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations. We hold diverse views on whether or not the state should fund faith schools. But we all believe that faith-based discrimination in access to schools that are funded by the taxpayer is wrong in principle and a cause of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation, all of which are harmful to community cohesion. It is time it stopped.

Supporters of the campaign include the British Humanist Association, Professor Ted Cantle and the iCoCo Foundation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Campaign for State Education, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, the Christian think tank Ekklesia, the Hindu Academy, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrat Education Association, Liberal Youth, the Local Schools Network, Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, the Runnymede Trust, the Socialist Educational Association, and the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

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‘Faith’ schools are the most socially selective category of comprehensive school, and more than three times more socially selective than schools with no religious character, a new report from the Sutton Trust has found. The Sutton Trust has also come out against the Government’s proposals to expand religious selection in new state-run religious schools.

Despite the fact that ‘faith’ schools have been traditionally associated with stronger academic performance and are ‘substantially overrepresented’ in the list of top 500 schools, the report notes that they are ‘among the most socially selective category of top school’. ‘Faith’ schools are more than three times as socially selective compared to their catchment area than a non-faith school’, the research reveals.

The findings call into question once again the Government’s proposals to drastically increase the amount of religious selection in the education system by allowing new and existing religious free schools to select 100% of their places on the basis of faith. Currently, and since 2007, all new ‘faith’ schools have been subject to a 50% cap on religious selection, which requires that they keep at least half of their places open to local children irrespective of religion or belief. The Government now plans to drop the cap, ostensibly in part to boost social mobility.

However, the Sutton Trust recommends that ‘faith schools need to look at their recruitment of disadvantaged pupils’, stating that:

‘The Government has mooted lifting the restrictions on the proportion of pupils new faith schools can select on the basis of religious faith (currently 50%). As our report demonstrates, faith schools are already among the most socially selective of schools, and lifting the restriction is likely to make them even more unrepresentative of their local areas, reducing the number of good school places available to pupils across the socio-economic spectrum. The admissions process for faith schools should instead be opened up so that their admissions are fairer and begin to reflect their local population…’

The report is the latest in a long line of similar research pointing to the negative impact of faith-based admissions on children from poorer backgrounds. In November the Education Policy Institute published a report finding that there is no academic difference between state religious schools in England and others once pupils’ backgrounds are taken into account, noting that ‘faith’ schools take significantly fewer pupils eligible for FSM than live in their local areas.

And a similar piece of research conducted by the Fair Admissions Campaign in 2014 found that while 47 of the top 100 comprehensive schools in England were religious schools, compared to only a fifth of the total number of secondary schools, those 47 schools took an average of 44% fewer children from poorer backgrounds than would have been representative of their local areas. Indeed, the 10 top performing ‘faith’ schools took an average of 56% fewer FSM eligible children, and the top 5 an average of 68% fewer. The findings supported previous research suggesting that the relatively high performance of some ‘faith’ schools was attributable almost entirely to social selection.

An FAC spokesperson commented, ‘Yet again, the evidence has made clear that “faith” schools are not better than other schools, as is so often claimed. Rather, where these schools religiously select their pupils, they are simply less charitable and less willing to risk their undeservedly glowing reputations by serving the children in their communities from poorer backgrounds. Religious selection stunts social mobility, discriminates against children on the basis of their assumed religion, and segregates them along religious and ethnic lines too. It is a stain on our education system and the sooner both the Government and the schools themselves realise this, the better.’

Notes

For further comment or information please contact the Fair Admissions Campaign on info@fairadmissions.org.uk or 0207 324 3078.

Read the Sutton Trust’s story: http://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/85-of-top-comprehensives-with-best-gcses-are-socially-selective-but-schools-where-pupils-make-most-progress-are-much-less-so/

The FAC wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Campaign is supported by a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations. We hold diverse views on whether or not the state should fund faith schools. But we all believe that faith-based discrimination in access to schools that are funded by the taxpayer is wrong in principle and a cause of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation, all of which are harmful to community cohesion. It is time it stopped.

Supporters of the campaign include the Accord Coalition, the British Humanist Association, Professor Ted Cantle and the iCoCo Foundation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Campaign for State Education, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, the Christian think tank Ekklesia, the Hindu Academy, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrat Education Association, Liberal Youth, the Local Schools Network, Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, the Runnymede Trust, the Socialist Educational Association, and the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

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