Worship in schools

Sign our e-petitions
The government has recently launched an e-petition website. So far the BHA has created two e-petitions, one of which calls for abolishing collective worship. We need over 100,000 signatures on each for the chance of them being discussed in parliament. Take Action Now!

The BHA campaigns for inclusive school assemblies and against ‘collective worship’ in school, which excludes and offends many and is a matter of concern to teachers and head teachers, parents and pupils, and many religious people and organisations as well as humanists.

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from collective worship in all state schools and since 2007 sixth form pupils and those over compulsory school age at state maintained schools have also been able to withdraw them selves from worship (the BHA lobbied in favour of this change, which was introduced by Section 55 of the 2006 Education Act). However, these are not proper or satisfactory solutions.

We want to see the immediate withdrawal of current DfE guidance (Circular 1/94), and Welsh guidance (Circular 10/94) which gives a narrow interpretation of the legal requirement for ‘broadly Christian’ worship, and its replacement with new guidance encouraging inclusive assemblies and making it simpler for schools to seek ‘determinations’ in order to hold assemblies suitable for all their pupils. This would be followed by repeal of the legislation requiring acts of worship in schools, and changes in legislation to give schools much more flexibility about how they conduct assemblies, with schools offering space for optional worship for those who want it. See our policy statement A Better Way Forward (updated in 2006 and soon to be revised again to reflect further changes in education).

What are we doing?

The government’s statutory guidance on collective worship is contained in the notorious document ‘Circular 1/94’ in England and ‘Circular 10/94’ in Wales. The documents also contain statutory guidance on the teaching of RE in maintained schools. After a long process of work by a steering group of RE experts (which the BHA sat on) and a public consultation the part of ‘Circular 1/94’ relating to RE was superseded with new guidance in January 2010. Now that the RE guidance has been replaced we believe that the pressure to update the guidance on collective worship in England (and update ‘Circular 10/94’ altogether in Wales) only continually grows.

You can see one of our parliamentary briefings from March 2010 on the issue as an example of how we continue to raise awareness about the ongoing problems over the legal requirements for maintained schools to provide daily religious worship and press for government guidance and the law to be changed. The BHA also provides advice to teachers and parents on the law on collective worship, and Ideas for Inclusive Assemblies.

What can you do?

Tell the BHA if you are concerned about compulsory worship in your local school, or, if you are a teacher or governor, would like ideas for inclusive assemblies to replace worship in your school.

You can email your MP and urge them to support the introduction of inclusive assemblies in place of collective worship.

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.