Ask your MLAs to call on the Education Minister to reform Religious Education (RE) and collective worship in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling.
On 19 November, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that exclusively Christian RE and collective worship in Northern Ireland amount to ‘indoctrination’. The ruling requires that RE should not proselytise, and that parental right of withdrawal alone from RE and collective worship is not a good enough justification for having a non-objective, uncritical, or non-pluralistic syllabus.
Write to your MLAs
The ruling has clear, huge implications for how RE is provided in Northern Ireland and on its requirement for collective worship. The Minister of Education must now urgently review both.
Please ask your MLAs to support the call for a reformed RE and for a replacement to collective worship that are both inclusive of all religions and humanism.
Personalise your impact
If you are a teacher, parent, or guardian it would be great if you could personalise your response with reflections on your or your child’s own experience of RE and collective worship, and how they could be improved.