Religion and schools

2011 'faith' Schools officer fundraising appeal
Donate today to fund and resource Britain's only dedicated 'faith' schools officer - a fundamental part of the BHA's campaigns team and all our work on religion and schools.
Take Action now!

Sign our e-petitions
The government has recently launched an e-petition website. So far the  BHA has created two e-petitions, both relating to religion in schools. We need over 100,000 signatures on each for the chance of them being discussed in parliament. Take Action Now!

Anti-choice groups are entering our schools
Anti-choice groups such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and LIFE are entering our schools and giving talks, in which they oppose Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), oppose abortion, promote abstinence education, and blame gay people for breaking up traditional family life. We want to gather more information on their activities. Take Action now!

The BHA has always been heavily involved in education, and in addition to our education policy work and our work in providing education resources, our education campaigns - from the school curriculum to school governance - are a major part of our campaigning work as a whole.

Schools are where many people – parents, children and teachers – first encounter religion and religious privilege and school-related requests for help advice and guidance constitute the largest single category of requests for help that the BHA receives from the public. We have campaigned and lobbied for over a century for the rights and interests of humanists and other non-religious people in education, for non-religious beliefs to be respected in schools, and for a genuinely inclusive school system where all pupils are educated together, not separately according to the beliefs of their parents, and will receive a rounded and broad education.

As part of our work, we work closely with parliamentarians and other key decision makers. At the moment, we are working on the Government's review of the National Curriculum. We are urging the Government to include RE and PSHE as part of the review and to ensure that pupils can gain a solid grasp of evolutionary theory through recommending that it is on the national Curriculum to be taught in primary school and throughout secondary school. Our submission to the consultation is here

We need our supporters to get involved with this work. Find out how you can make a real difference here

We are also working hard on the Education Bill. We have a number of serious concerns about increasing religious discrimination in new state-funded Academies and "Free Schools". Please see our briefings, or contact us, for more information.

We have a dedicated campaigns officer for our education and 'faith' schools campaigns. You can donate to the restricted fund to support this work at any time. Visit www.humanism.org.uk/donate and select the 'No Faith Schools' appeal when you donate online.

What are we doing?

The BHA’s 2002 policy paper A Better Way Forward (updated in 2006 and soon to be revised again to reflect further changes in education) brought together our policies on religion and schools, basing them on respect for human rights and proposing positive and workable alternatives to current Government policies. Our education campaigns consist mainly of promoting these policies via correspondence and meetings with Government departments and ministers, briefings to MPs, peers and the media, responses to relevant Government consultations, and advice to groups and individuals wishing to help us campaign.

In September 2008 we became a founding member of Accord  – a new campaigning coalition for reform of faith schools,  bringing together religious and non-religious supporters of change as well as teachers unions and high profile supporters.

Read more about what we're doing for each topic in this section using the navigation on the left.

What can you do?

There are a range of specific campaigns in this section:

• 'Faith' Schools
• Religious Education
• Worship in Schools
• Countering Creationism
• Sex and Relationships Education

You could research and take up one of these issues with your MP and/or local authority, or write to a newspaper. See our overall What you can do to help page for advice on writing letters like this, and refer to the Education section of this website for background and supporting arguments, in our summary of BHA education policy.

There is also an action that you can take on each of the above pages.

If there is anything in these pages that you need more information or advice on, please contact our Faith Schools Campaigner on 020 7462 4993.

You can support the BHA by becoming a member. That helps in itself, and you can help even more by supporting our campaigns  in the ways suggested above.  But campaigns also cost money – quite a lot of money – and we also need financial support. You can make a donation to the BHA.