Amidst the ongoing political wrangling in Westminster, the Government has quietly announced the latest set of Free Schools to be given approval to open from September 2018 and beyond. The list includes three new religious schools. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has again criticised the Government for continuing to approve divisive and discriminatory ‘faith’ schools at the expense of fully inclusive schools.
31 new Free Schools have been approved in total, three of which are religious. They are Alconbury Weald Church Academy, a Church of England secondary in Cambridgeshire, Clearwater Church of England Primary Academy in Gloucestershire, and St Andrew’s Primary Free School, a joint Church of England and Methodist school in Kent.
All three of the religious Free Schools that have been approved to open have been proposed by the Church of England, a worrying sign given the Church’s announcement this week that it would seek to open more than a hundred new schools in the next four years. This accounts for a quarter of the 500 Free Schools promised by the Government by 2020, a move which the BHA described as ‘counter-intuitive’ given the steady decline in the number of people identifying as Anglican. In fact, earlier this year the BHA revealed that there were now more children being educated in state-funded CofE schools, attending compulsory worship each day, than there are people attending a CofE church each week.
BHA Faith Schools Campaigner Jay Harman commented, ‘Time and time again the Government stresses its commitment to boosting integration and to promoting mutual understanding between those of different religions and beliefs, and yet time and time again they lay waste to that ambition by approving more religious schools. If the Government doesn’t change its position and the Church of England pushes ahead with its plans for a huge increase in the number of its schools, we will find ourselves with an unbelievably segregated and discriminatory education system in just a few years’ time. This is entirely the wrong direction and the consequences of it could be disastrous not just for parents and children, but for society as a whole. We will continue to urge the Government to change its course and work instead towards a more inclusive system.’
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For further comment or information please contact the BHA’s Faith Schools Campaigner Jay Harman on jay@humanists.uk or 020 7324 3078.
See the full list of approved Free Schools: https://humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016-02-09-List-of-proposed-Free-Schools.xlsx
See the BHA’s previous news item ‘Church of England in bid to open more than one hundred new schools’: https://humanists.uk/2016/07/11/church-of-england-in-bid-to-open-more-than-one-hundred-new-schools/
See the BHA’s previous news item ‘Government approves yet more religious Free Schools’: https://humanists.uk/2016/02/09/government-approves-yet-more-religious-free-schools/
Read more about the BHA’s work on faith schools: https://humanists.uk/campaigns/schools-and-education/faith-schools/
The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. It promotes a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.