RELIGION IN ENGLISH SCHOOLS
Although there is a long tradition of respecting other faiths and belief systems, and a guarantee of freedom of conscience are enshrined in law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Church of England still holds both privileges and burdens as a result of its special status. One consequence of this is that Christianity more widely still has a recognised place in the cultural life of the State, and we shall see that this is reflected in the provisions on religion in schools.
My beloved second home, the United Kingdom, and within it, particularly England, has a reputation for being a somewhat idiosyncratic nation. There are, undoubtedly, a number of cultural eccentricities taken for granted by the general population, but understandably perplexing to anyone encountering them for the first time. The railway system is a good example of this: in addition to frequent delays and cancellations, train companies are permitted to effectively sell infinite tickets for any given train. Once they run out of seats, all that really happens is that the price goes up. A vast number of passengers who failed to reserve in advance are squashed into corridors and vestibules like unlucky baked beans in a tin, cursing their smug brethren who booked early, paid about fifty percent less for their fare and now have the luxury of actually sitting down from London to Manchester. Similarly, when fresh food products were in short supply during the First World War, someone had the bright idea of putting sugar into mayonnaise to make it go further. Although this conflict ended in 1918, the resulting concoction, known as salad cream, is still being consumed, and the taste, is “interesting”.
The position with religion in English schools is much the same. The framework of law and practice gradually evolved, and many aspects of it appear to make limited sense if examined objectively, but are accepted as part and parcel of the educational landscape. Some elements of the regime are functional, whilst others may be irksome, loathed or treasured, depending to whom you are talking. In the course of this discussion, I shall attempt to shed led some light on the current reality.
The first point to note is that we are talking consciously about England, rather than the United Kingdom. The patchwork quilt of provisions in respect of religion in schools are intimately related to wider questions of Church/State relations, and these are distinct for each of the component nations within the jurisdiction. For our present purposes we shall focus on England, purely for the sake of keeping things manageable. Since the Reformation triggered by Henry VIII’s matrimonial intrigue, England has had an established faith, and the Church of England has occupied a unique place in this legal framework.
Although there is a long tradition of respecting other faiths and belief systems, and a guarantee of freedom of conscience are enshrined in law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Church of England still holds both privileges and burdens as a result of its special status. One consequence of this is that Christianity more widely still has a recognised place in the cultural life of the State, and we shall see that this is reflected in the provisions on religion in schools. However, before it is possible to talk about faith in relation to schools, it is necessary to explain a little bit about the various types of school in operation in England, as different rules apply depending on the category of institution.
Firstly, there is a distinction between state supported schools and fee-paying schools. Just to add further confusion and spice, in British English, the term “public schools” refers a subcategory of private, fee-paying schools. This means that the labels “public” and “private” can be misleading, because both words can be used to refer to either a fee-paying or a state supported school, depending entirely on the context and intention of the speaker. For obvious reasons, we shall, therefore, avoid this terminology, and instead refer to fee-paying and state supported institutions. Approximately 6.5% of pupils attend fee paying schools, so state supported institutions make up the lion’s share of the educational sector.
As well as this division based on whether education is funded by families or the tax payer, there is a split between schools with a designated religious character (“DRC”) and those without, and both fee paying and state supported institutions may be with or without a DRC. Around 31% of state supported schools have a DRC, so a significant proportion of young people attend these institutions. Schools with a DRC enjoy certain defined exceptions from equality law, and are permitted to discriminate on religious grounds when it comes to admitting pupils and recruiting staff. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that schools without a DRC cannot be categorised as non-religious, because state funded schools without a DRC effectively have a Chrisian ethos, manifested mainly in relation to collective worship, although they do not enjoy any privileges or scope to discriminate with regard to religion.
All state funded schools without a DRC have a legal obligation to hold an act of collectively worship every day. This must be of a wholly or mainly Christian character, but this can be, and is, interpreted very broadly. It tends to take the form of a gathering of the entire school, or at least year groups in the main hall, known as “assembly”. Teachers take the opportunity to share any news or reminders and impart a brief reflection, usually in the form of a thought for the day. This may be overtly religious or Christian, or it may simply be in harmony with Christian values (more or less any message about kindness, respect etc can be construed as promoting Christian ideals). It is common for pupils to be invited to either pray, or sit quietly and reflect, depending on their personal beliefs. Songs frequently also feature, and these may have a Christian, or at least theistic flavour, or may just be intended to impart positive vibes in a more abstract sense.
Parents do have a legal right to withdraw their children from this gathering, and some avail themselves of the opportunity, but most pupils attend, regardless of family beliefs. Schools are ordinarily sensitive to the demographics of the student body: the rules are broad and flexible enough for the majority of staff to find little difficulty in planning an assembly that would be accessible and non-offensive to Christians, atheists, Muslims or Wiccans. The truth is that messages about caring for the environment or showing kindness to your peers are compatible with most worldviews.
Assembly is an integral part of English school life, and tends to be viewed with a mixture of nostalgia and amusement by adults. The institution is not imbued with an intensely religious feel, and is certainly not a vehicle for indoctrination. In all probability, it is likely that it would continue even if the legal requirement for an act of collective worship were ever to be repealed. Schools value the habit of a regular community meeting, and the need to remind children and teenagers about keeping balls away from windows, etc, would remain.
Historically, assemblies as a manifestation of collective worship might have begun with a Victorian desire to ensure that children of the lower classes were being brought up in a suitably Christian environment, but they have evolved into part of the rhythm of school life. Practice varies to a certain extent, but the nineteenth century missionary zeal for genuine expressions of faith faded in the course of the twentieth century, leaving the residual, background trace of religion now experienced. Assembly tends to be far more about community than faith.
Most adults have fond memories of a long ago assembly when they were presented with a certificate or badge in front of everyone, for some achievement like swimming a whole length of the pool, or completing a set of reading books. That was, indeed, a source of immense pride to their seven year old self. In this context, the line between religion and culture is so porous that it has dissolved altogether. Collective worship in practice means assembly, and assembly is now a deeply rooted component of the experience of going to school in England. Therefore, what might appear strange or troubling in terms of the letter of the law, is actually relatively benign in its practical manifestation.
The position is somewhat different where schools with a DRC are concerned. In that case, collective worship is permitted, but not mandatory, and if offered, it will conform to the character of the institution. The faith based dimension may well be taken more seriously, but it should be noted that the majority of such schools are Church of England, and a welcoming and inclusive approach towards other faiths is a facet of the denominational culture. In other contexts, for example, Jewish or Islamic schools, there may be a more strongly defined religious character, but families are unlikely to opt for such institutions unless they are on board with this, especially in the fee-paying sector.
All things considered, religious worship within English schools does not provoke dramatic social conflict or political debate. There are some campaigning organisations who object on ideological grounds, promoting secularism or a version of humanism that is de facto hostile towards religion in public settings, but these are not issues high on the mainstream agenda. For instance, the topic has not featured in election campaigns, recently, or even really within living memory, which may in part be because religion is not a politicised issue in England. There is no association between religious faith and right or left wing politics, and faith has not been a political battleground since the nineteenth, or very early, twentieth century.
Even in that era, the skirmishes were mild, and very definitely non-violent. There were pockets of Catholic/Protestant strife in cities like Liverpool, but this was very much the exception rather than the rule, and in any event, this phenomenon is different from a battle between religious and secularism. Neither was there a popular versus elite angle to the tensions. It is true that Roman Catholicism has longstanding associations with marginalised and economically deprived migrant populations, historically the Irish community, but it has also always had its share of aristocratic representatives.
This is key to understanding the place of religion within schools, because it explains why an apparently Christian hegemony, with a distinctly Anglican tinge, has been tolerated, or perhaps even embraced by the wider population. Gathering ostensibly for Christian worship has been rendered palatable, or at any rate normalised, by a series of haphazard accidents of history. Religious identity has not been coupled other identities or causes in conflict, and faith has, consequently, not been perceived as either a threat, or a tool to weaponise. As a result, there has been no impetus for non-Anglican, non-Christian and non-religious constituencies to mobilise against the collective worship rule on the one hand, nor on the other for Christians or Anglicans to attempt to exploit this platform for their one ends. As stated above, collective worship organically became synonymous with assembly, a gathering aimed at meeting practical needs, whilst promoting community cohesion and pupil wellbeing.
The same forces also explain why the teaching of religious education in schools has avoided becoming a lightening rod or a talisman in a never ending culture war. Religious education is taught as an academic subject, it is not a devotional exercise. For state supported schools without a DRC, the curriculum for this subject is set by a local committee, the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education or SACRE. A Church of England representative has a guaranteed place on this body, but in practice takes on a coordinating role, and voices from other perspectives are incorporated, depending on the population in the area in question. This is a pragmatic solution to the changing nature of the social landscape. The arrangements date from a time when the presence of the established Church still appeared axiomatic, but have adapted into the twenty-first century, and in many ways they are better equipped to meet grass roots needs than a more rigid system.
For instance, if there was a blanket requirement that all districts had a Muslim representative, this would be challenging in rural communities with few if any practising Muslims, and might even be generate unnecessary resentment and artificial tensions. It is easy to imagine how malicious actors might spin this in the press and social media as Islam being forced on English communities. Equally, if a place on the SACRE depended on a particular percentage of the population identifying with a given faith, it might be harder for people on the ground to respond to the needs of small, but significant representation. For example, if an area happened to have several families with young children from the same region of Nepal, it would be beneficial to have someone to provide insight into their particular spiritual and cultural traditions. In this hypothetical scenario, denying this on the basis that the community in question did not meet a certain numerical threshold would be a missed opportunity to further social cohesion and understanding, as well as giving all children a chance to understand about different experiences and worldviews. Consequently, it is highly positive that the present system allows this fluidity.
For primary school children in particular, religious education is often about introducing pupils to different ideas and traditions, an important preparation for adult life in a rich and multicultural society. Older students are helped to engage with more abstract and philosophical questions, but at every level, religious education is scholarly, rather than devotional. Claims of spiritual truth are avoided, and moral judgements are kept to a minimum (parameters around hate speech, discrimination and other criminal activity, of course, need to be maintained, even for debates in classes of older teenagers). Parents are nevertheless given the option to withdraw their children, an indication of the regard in which religious freedom is placed within the English constitutional system. Nonetheless, families availing themselves of this option are doing so because they deem that it is undesirable for their children to learn about what other people believe and practice. It cannot be regarded as a refusal of religious instruction, because this is not the purpose of the classes.
Fortunately, the majority of parents see the value in religious education as it is offered, and rates of the withdrawal are not high enough to undermine the system or cause schools practical problems (pupils not participating in religious education must be supervised and given alternative work to occupy their time and energy). As a general rule, enabling students to understand the perspective and needs of their neighbours is seen as positive within English society.
In terms of schools with a DRC, however they are funded, religious education may take a form that aligns with the community’s ethos, but must not be delivered in a way that interferes with the overriding duty to provide all children between five and sixteen with an effective and efficient full-time education. There is also a legal requirement for all schools to promote “British Values” of the rule of law, democracy and individual liberty. As might be expected, schools of every type are regularly inspected to ensure that this is complied with. Regrettably, and ironically, the difficulty that the authorities have had in eradicating illegal, unregistered schools, suggests that the inspection regime has some effect. It is estimated that around 6000 children are still attending unlawful, unregulated institutions, and the parents and teachers involved clearly consider that it worth risking criminal sanction in order to avoid the requirements needed to satisfy inspectors.
As noted at the outset, the system is not one that would be designed by a rational committee starting with a blank sheet of paper in the 2020s. Yet for all of its quirks, the approach to religion in schools is agile enough to accommodate the needs not only of a multicultural society at a national level, but also of a diverse picture in the local sphere. It is significant that whilst there have been high profile and bitter clashes over teaching about sex, sexuality and gender identity, this has not been the case religious education or collective worship within state schools with no DRC. The system is untidy, eccentric even, but it is also flexible and inclusive, and it has stood the test of time.
