Major warning to Scotland about Supreme Court ruling on school worship

Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) has warned that Scottish schools risk ‘sleepwalking into legal cases’ if the Scottish Government fails to introduce an independent right for pupils to opt out of religious observance (RO) in its Religious Observance (RO) Bill. 

Writing to Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Jenny Gilruth, ahead of the Bill’s final vote on 17 February, HSS is urging the Scottish Government to support an amendment giving pupils who are capable of forming a view an independent right to withdraw from religious observance, describing this as the only ‘clear, equitable, and legally resilient settlement’. In September 2025, HSS released a report on religious observance in schools that catalogued children being forced to pray, and parents and children being denied their rights to opt out. 

In November 2025, the Supreme Court ruled on a case known as JR87 that an exclusively Christian religious education and collective worship were ‘indoctrination’. It also found that withdrawal arrangements were not only insufficient to deal with the issue, but also placed an undue burden on families and risked stigmatising children. While the case concerned Northern Ireland, the judgment has profound implications for collective worship in England, Wales, and Scotland. 

During the Report Stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the House of Lords on 3 February, ministers told peers that, while the UK Government was ‘committed’ to collective worship, it was reviewing the guidance for England. Humanists UK have responded arguing that updated guidance does not address the wider issue that compulsory Christian collective worship cannot really be pluralistic, objective, and critical, and have called for a full repeal of collective worship requirements.

Humanists UK’s Policy and Campaigns Manager, Lewis Young, said:

‘Humanist Society Scotland is right to issue this warning. The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear that collective worship in schools can breach children’s rights even where a parental opt-out exists, especially when withdrawal is difficult in practice or risks stigmatisation. Scotland should act now by guaranteeing an independent right for pupils to withdraw. 

‘Governments across the UK must urgently review collective worship laws in light of JR87 – not just simply update guidance – and move to replace them with inclusive assemblies and teaching that respect every child’s freedom of belief.’