Last week LDV ran an article from Sara Bedford asking whether prayers should be a part of council meetings. The issue of compelling people to engage in religious worship is not just confined to Parliament or some of our more old fashioned council chambers, but affects a significant proportion of our population.
Unbeknown to many, all state maintained schools in England and Wales are legally required to provide their pupils with daily Collective Worship. In faith schools the worship is supposed to be provided in accordance with the school’s designated religion or religious denomination, while in all other schools the worship should be ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’.
Parents are able to withdraw their children from Collective Worship in state schools, while sixth form pupils and those over compulsory school age can withdraw themselves. However, this is an unsatisfactory solution.
By custom schools provide Collective Worship as part of school assembly, and children that are withdrawn miss out on other aspects of assembly, such as the communication of school information or the ethical or moral teaching that is so often entwined with the worship. Children that are withdrawn are not always provided with an alternative activity, while many parents fear that their child may be singled out if they are withdrawn. In practice a great many parents who object to their child receiving Collective Worship do not exercise their right to have them withdrawn, while the views of children of compulsory schools age can be ignored altogether.
The laws around Collective Worship are so unpopular and unworkable that a great many schools simply do not provide it and break the law. This is also a highly unsatisfactory outcome, as it is very unhealthy in a democracy for the law to be widely flouted by so many government maintained institutions.
What can be done? Interestingly, repealing the laws that demand worship in schools has become one of the most popular suggestions on the Your Freedom website, launched by the Deputy Prime Minster, Nick Clegg, last month.
In July, our very own Julian Huppert MP also tabled an Early Day Motion calling for the Government to ‘… repeal the requirement for compulsory worship in schools and to encourage schools to hold educational assemblies that will include all children’. If the Government is genuinely committed to giving schools more freedom then it should do exactly that.
Paul Pettinger is a Liberal Democrat member in the Cities of London and Westminster local party. He was formerly a Party SAO employee and District Councillor.
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33 Comments
I suspect most people couldn’t care less. Only a minority of militant atheists get worked up over these things and I suspect most of the anger is synthetic.
Totally agree. It’s amazing and depressing that anyone even needs to ask this question in this day and age. In my view kids shouldn’t be being directed to pray in any state-funded school under any circumstance, but given the recent regrettable proliferation of explicitly sectarian schools it’s even sillier to maintain the requirement on those that aren’t.
I agree wholeheartedly. And while we’re about it, let’s get rid of religious institutions’ excessive influence in education altogether. Every single one of the Governors of my child’s C of E VC school are members of the local Parish Church Council, or the regional Diocesan Board of Education, except for the two elected by parents. It is an anachronistic scandal to have education influenced, let alone run, by those who worship imaginary gods, when only 7% of people in this country consider themselves ‘very religious’ (British Social Attitudes Survey, Jan 2010).
Well thanks for that Richard,
So according to you it’s fine for an ever-increasing proportion of our schoolkids to be taught that God created the world in 7 days, that scientists who believe in evolution are evil, that people with different belief systems are legitimate targets for violence, that women are second-class beings and can be beaten whenever a man has the urge, etc., etc, etc…. because I can tell you, all the above is being taught at an increasing number of schools in Britain today. Watch Faith School Menace on More4 on 18 August and weep.
Perhaps when it’s not just militant atheists, but also rank and file Liberals with a minimal attachment to enlightenment values who oppose this return to the Dark Ages, Britain might become a happier place.
@Richard I don’t know what most people think, but personally I’m very much in favour of a separation between church and state. But the issue is not something I get particularly worked up about, let alone angry about. I suspect thar there is unlikely to be a change from the status quo, as any change would upset a very vocal (religious) minority without significant political benefit..
As an agnostic (or perhaps just religiously apathetic) and a secularist (Yes Paul!) I don’t object to religion being included in the diet schools offer, so long as there is balance, but compelling schools to lay on Christian worship is farcical. Done right, a morning “Thought for the Day” type assembly can be uplifting and inspiring – bringing god into it only serves to insult and devalue the faith of the minority who hold it and make everyone else cynical about the entire enterprise.
Mind you, I don’t know how my primary school would have managed without the compulsory act of worship. There was no budget for music in the main curriculum, so a weekly extended assembly comprising solely of singing hymns (modern, not even proper hymns) covered all bases.
Religious belief is a personal matter and should be left to the individual. As a Christian myself I think it is wrong to force people to participate in religious service. It should be an opt-in not an opt-out activity. It is time to remove the requirement of schools to have collective worship. I am, however, happy enough for schools to offer services on an opt-in basis, to accommodate Muslim prayer requirements as an example. Removing the compulsion is not the same as banning it.
I’m not a militant atheist, but I do disagree with an act of worship being a legal requirement.
I don’t think it should be banned, as long as it’s not compulsory, but the potential for wasting school time on it, not to mention the potential for offence; which region (and branch) should it be and what if if contradicts another one…
I agree entirely, Paul. Good religious education in schools, covering the basics of all the major faiths as well as Christianity, is vital; but that the legal requirement for daily collective worship is completely wrong and should be scrapped.
No, there’s no place in schools for religion
it’s 2010
we have worked out the mechanisms of evolution, we know our place in the universe etc. It’s time to leave the quaint superstitions behind and moved ourselves forward.
I’m not a militant atheist, but I definitely think that it shouldn’t be.
I honestly don’t think that religious worship should form any part of school life. If individuals want time to practice a personal faith prayer or devotion than that should be accounted for but when a school openly practices and encourages one faith it clearly shows a bias towards that one, a bias which I feel damages it’s ability to teach children about the various faiths and their part in history, their relation to each other and their importance in world politics in an impartial way.
I think it’s a more interesting discussion if you set aside the secular vs. religious aspect and think about the children themselves.
My experience of both secular school assemblies and compulsory worship at different schools home and abroad puts me firmly in favour of removing compulsory worship. It does nothing but teach you, every single morning, that religious people are to be avoided like the plague if you have a sense of humour, or like different kinds of music, or read more than the one book, or like to hear different points of view. I hasten to add that this is not my personal view, just the practical lesson they seemed to be giving me at the time.
I’m hardly a militant atheist, but is it really in any religion’s best interest to inflict tortuous boredom on children every school morning? I’m sure some schools do a better job of not making the kids feel like their brains are melting out of their ears, but why make things difficult for them on a compulsory basis?
You are correct Paul. And I am not a militant atheist.
I’d have thought Liberals would think it right to allow people to worship if they want to, but not to make people worship, which is in effect what collective worship in schools does. You don’t have to be an atheist, militant or not, to think that compelling the unwilling to worship every morning is counter-productive, encouraging grudging compliance and boredom rather than genuine worship, in fact making a nonsense of worship.
The intention of prayer or meditation, at least in part, is behavioural change. In a developing child, promoting change towards our common concept of ‘good behaviour’ is a good thing. Many modern and successful adult self-improvement courses capitalise on the same concept – that a short period of quiet reflection, properly directed, can be made to lead to a more productive day and a better life.
The problem is that neither those administering the prayer nor those participating in it understand what it is for. It fails in the execution, not the concept.
Forced Worship no, religious education yes.
I’m just curious… if children in these collective worships don’t pray… or say amen… are they punished?
Religion and other dogmas have been a very significant part of our history and that of almost the entire world. It should be taught in schools; it shaped so much of our history… especially most of the bad bits. But it should not be taught as truth, nor should children be compelled to participate in worship.
I doubt schools would be able to afford or be able to manage dozens of different morning “reflection” sessions at once, one for each interest group, so best choice would be a secular period of reflection. Discussing morality and ethics without recourse to god(s). In any case, the best morality is one you follow because you believe it to be valid, because you’re convinced by the arguments, not because you’ve been compelled or coerced by force or threat of punishment.
I am under the impression that lots of schools don’t actually have an “act of worship” anyway, ignoring the law – that’s what mine did. I don’t see the problem with scrapping it and allowing the teachers and governors to decide for themselves.
“The intention of prayer or meditation, at least in part, is behavioural change. In a developing child, promoting change towards our common concept of ‘good behaviour’ is a good thing. Many modern and successful adult self-improvement courses capitalise on the same concept – that a short period of quiet reflection, properly directed, can be made to lead to a more productive day and a better life.
The problem is that neither those administering the prayer nor those participating in it understand what it is for. It fails in the execution, not the concept.”
I’d say this failure starts with calling it prayer or worship, neither of which necessarily have anything to do with quiet contemplation and self-reflection. I agree these are good things for children to learn, and tools that many adults find beneficial, but why wrap it up with religious dogma?
I have worked in 5 schools since I went into teaching 14 years ago, and have led more assemblies than I can count, as a Head of Year and Assistant Headteacher and I have yet to hear a single prayer said. No one has arrested me for breaking the law…. yet.
Abolishing this would bring the law into line with reality.
A more significant question is should Religious Education be compulsory up to age 16, as it is at present?
I am not a militant atheist, I am not even an atheist. Nonetheless, I strongly object to the coercive indoctrination of children and young people with religion at the state’s expense.
A couple of points:
(1) Brown was in the process of extending educational conscription to the age of 18. Does this mean that 16-18 year-olds will now be subject to coercive indoctrination too?
(2) What is this “ethical and moral teaching” that schools impart to their pupils? In my case, it was (i) total subservience to authority, (ii) pupils are trash, and (iii) teachers are always right.
Parents are allowed to opt out their children if they wish.
I remember some Catholic parents exercised this right at the state school I attended.
Because of expanded pupil numbers this school has long ceased holding assemblies,
it doesn’t have a large enough hall.
I am a practicing Christian and I strongly object to foising prayers on pupils in State schools (I also intensely dislike the idea of state-funded faith schools).
There should be a clear separation between Church and State, and I think that’s good for the state as well as for religious groups.
I would say that all pupils in State Schools should be taught about religion – to make up for the wide range of religious variety that their parents (or potentially their own faith group) won’t tell them about. This should of course include information about Christianity, not least because without a knowledge of the basic ideas and traditions involved, people are increasingly incabable of understanding the history of this country or literature and art produced in past centuries. But this, too, should not include making the children actually engage in religious activities of any colour, or trying to convert them to any particular view.
The increasing incursion of faith into government is a huge political issue. The lib dems could do a lot to secure the liberal vote by actively fighting separation between church and state and freedom of religious conscious for all.
@Richard, If protecting children from authoritarian cultists is militant, then I’m proud to be one.
What ‘militant atheists’? I don’t see any atheist flying aircraft into buildings, imposing an inquisition or burning believers at the stake… Most atheist people are indifferent to gods, although we find the phenomenon of belief in the unbelievable fascinating, as a puxxle if nothing else.
People have a right to believe whatever it suits them to believe… but let them please keep it at home or in their church, shul, mosque or temple – not in school, where it degrades into a dreary morning chore to be got through, anyway.
No I don’t know what a ‘puxxle’ is – ‘puzzle’ of course… ‘Thou whoreson zed’ – not so unnecessary!
There is absolutely no good reason why children, most of whom are unlikely to come from homes where any religion is practiced, should be forced to pray to the invisible man in the sky. Children can easily be engaged with moral issues without involving absurd ancient books.
From daily experience I think it is clear that most of the electorate no longer consider the Organised Religions to hold the moral and ethical high ground.This is not to say that less people believe in a divinity, just that I think that terrorism has been a wake up call to the compliant but not convinced and continues to be a huge driving force in turning people away from any support for the Organised Religions all over the world. This, combined with child abuse, has made people take a long look at the doctrines and question the provenance of the claims. E.G.There is no proof of the Apostolic succession, only a few words of supposition by Irenaeus(About 180BC.)who was an early sort of spin doctor, so no proof of authority for any Papal declaration or ordination.. The prophecy of Isaiah proves to have been originally written in the present tense about the birth of a child to the daughter of the king, so never a prophecy. Genesis is clearly derived from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish, much earlier Mesopotamian tales of multiple Gods.There is no evidence that the Hadiths are valid sayings or that any historical figure was divinely influenced. Some tenets and practises of some Organised Religions are so bad that they are against EU and UK law yet the Govt. continues to give equal credence and status to all religions, even those that brand children as witches. There is no evidence that the religious have higher standards than the non religious but there is quite a lot of evidence that the religious use doctrine just as much for evil as for good. If Children are to be acquainted with religion then they need to be told the facts regarding provenance of the doctrines. The other problem I have is that the Organised Religions, by their doctrines, appear to be the most discriminatory Organisations in the world, against each other and against the non religious and I think no Political Party should be supportive of such extreme discrimination. But I do not say there is no Supreme entity because this cannot be proved either way.
Mogens
So according to you it’s fine for an ever-increasing proportion of our schoolkids to be taught that God created the world in 7 days, that scientists who believe in evolution are evil, that people with different belief systems are legitimate targets for violence, that women are second-class beings and can be beaten whenever a man has the urge, etc., etc, etc…. because I can tell you, all the above is being taught at an increasing number of schools in Britain today.
Part of the reason for this is that lack of knowledge of religion allows extremist interpretations of it to flourish. Mainstream Christianity does not hold to those views at all, one can find rejections of simplistic “creationism” from the earliest Christian writers – from the very people who actually decided what books would become the Bible. Proper teaching of religion in schools would make such things more clear, and make it more difficult for those who pick and choose little quotes from scripture to invent their own religion be able to get away with that approach. A big part of the problem in Islam seems to be that kids in Muslim families get little in the way of teaching in their religion, and so when they grow up are very susceptible to those who are using the “Islamic” tag to promote what actually appears to be an anti-American political movement with very little spirituality.
Let’s start using the phrase ‘militant rationalist’ and let the paranoid religious establishment use militant atheist. That should expose their agenda without having to waste time arguing the toss with them.
BTW very disappointed in the Lib Dems cosying up to the tories. See how they punish the poorest and most vulnerable in our country to line the pockets of the very people that got us into this mess. You have to act to stop this or your party is finished.
At the age of 14, at Chester City Grammar School, I told my form-master ‘Floggit’ Buyatt that I had decided that I was an atheist, and that I no longer wished to take part in the morning assembly.
Without any fuss or bother I was immediately allowed to join the ‘other denominations’ in the balcony. Other pupils followed suit.
My parents were not consulted. I told them myself.
That was 1955. Nowadays one has to be a sixth-former to do what I did.
Clearly 1955 was a more enlightened era.
Obviously we were blessed with a rational headmaster, Charles Race MA, and some free-thinking teachers.
Our poor RE teacher, Mr Bean (yes honest) was on a hiding to nothing. Whenever we questioned his teachings his only response was, “It is in the Bible, therefore it is so.”
That ‘faith’ schools are allowed to exist in 2010, still peddling Medieval beliefs, is, at best, an anachronism, at worst, a national disgrace.
.
@Oliver
“I am under the impression that lots of schools don’t actually have an “act of worship” anyway, ignoring the law – that’s what mine did.”
My school did likewise and I’d assumed that was the norm, but perhaps it depends on the size of the school. Quite simply, the school hall was only big enough to hold two years of the school at a time anyway and so they simply had fortnightly assemblies. I don’t remember these being religious at all, although I’m sure we occasionally had the local vicar or minister in.
I went to a state grammar school in the 60s. We had an act of collective worship every day as part of morning assembly. Our RE teacher brought up the legal requirement for the “worship” in one of his lessons, and I remember him saying that it was pretty obvious who was being worshipped (the headmaster).
Can’t say the “worshipping” did me any harm — looking back on it now it seems a bit of a waste of time. The RE lessons, however, were interesting. We studied comparative religion, situational ethics and other stuff. And by the age of fifteen I knew I was an atheist.
@ james jones
‘Deva, Deva gaudeamus, vocibus et mentibus, dulce flumen te canamus, fave tu canentibus…’
I attended Chester City Grammar School in 1966 and things were pretty much the same. I didn’t see any particular harm in the morning Assembly – it was all rather C of E (small ‘c’, small ‘e) and boys could drop Religious Studies after the 3rd year – much like French.
On a minor point of order, your form master would have been Mr. Byatt (who was still adept with the gym shoe in 1966) and the R.E. master was actually called Mr. Harris. His nickname was ‘Bean’ (a la Mexican Bean) because of his facial tic – (rumoured to have been caused by torture by the Japanese in a WWII POW camp). I also recently discovered that Charles Race M.A. worked at Station ‘X’ in Bletchley Park during the war.