THE law that obliges schools to hold daily acts of worship in England ought to be scrapped.
Teachers and pressure groups, according to the Guardian yesterday, are urging Education Secretary Michael Gove to ditch the law, which, they argue, infringes children’s human rights and discriminates against pupils of no faith and non-Christians.
The National Secular Society (NSS) has written to Gove, insisting that the legislation, dating from the 1944 Education Act, be abolished.
The law states that all pupils in primary and secondary schools must participate in a daily act of worship that is “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”. Parents can write to a school to withdraw their children, but the NSS said many did not out of fear it could single out their children as different and expose them to bullying.
Headteachers say the law is unworkable because few schools can hold an assembly for all pupils. Paul Kelley, the head of Monkseaton high school, Tyne and Wear, said most schools were ignoring the law. In 2005, Kelley asked the Labour government if the law could be abolished, but said he was told the change “would never get through the House of Lords”.
In his letter to Gove, Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the NSS, wrote:
We believe that the mandatory daily acts of mainly Christian worship and in particular, the imposition on children to take part in such acts, represent an … infringement of rights. We recognise that assemblies with an ethical framework have a vital contribution to make to school life. We do, however, object to collective worship in principle, as not being a legitimate activity of a state-funded institution.
He added:
We are confident that you would not wish to perpetuate a law that is routinely disregarded. We hope that, under your leadership, the law will be changed so that it is brought out of disrepute.
The NSS suggests that changes are included in an education bill to be published next year.
The British Humanist Association has also written to Gove on the matter, while the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has backed calls for the law to be dropped.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of ASCL said:
Many schools aren’t doing [the daily act of worship] and theoretically they are breaking the law.
But a Department for Education spokesperson said the government had no plans to amend the law.
The government believes that the requirement for collective worship in schools encourages pupils to reflect on the concept of belief and the role it plays in the traditions and values of this country.
Schools have the flexibility to design provision that is appropriate to the age and background of their pupils. If the headteacher feels it is inappropriate to have Christian collective worship, the school can apply to have this changed.
The Church of England said daily worship gave pupils an opportunity to develop an understanding of those “with whom they share society”. A spokeswoman said:
To deny children the entitlement to take part in worship at school is to deny them a learning experience that is increasingly important in the modern world.
Hat tip: BarrieJohn
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
December 28th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
‘To force children to take part in worship at school is to force them to learn nonsense that is increasingly irrelevant in the modern world.’
Fixed.
December 28th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Funny that I hadn’t picked up on the word ‘daily’ in the wording of the act. Even when I was at school in the seventies the assembly wasn’t every day. I seem to recall that the fact that many schools were flouting this law came to the attention of the CofE a year or two ago and someone suggested that the law should be enforced. Needless to say, this spokesperson received a verbal kicking from all sides.
The statements that attempt do defend this stuff are risible, especially the idea of worship being “increasingly important” in the modern world. Increasingly important to the CofE perhaps as they think that it might slow down their slide into total irrelevance. If the government really think this stuff matters to people, how about resetting the default position to none participation and ask parents and students to opt in?
December 28th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Excuse me! Did they really say this:
##To deny children the entitlement to take part in worship at school is to deny them a learning experience that is increasingly important in the modern world.##
I wonder what “learning experience” that would be? Some comments about a fantasy figure based on selective aspects of ancient myth. I wonder how that connects with the “modern world.”
Their comment that they don’t propose to change is the desperate pretence that what exists has some value and substance whereas the reality is they don’t know what do do. They hope that the problem disappears. It wont. It will be a running sore. It will fester around the putrid farce of a nonsensical system of belief.
December 28th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
There is a campaign being waged at the moment – eagerly supported by the Daily Mail – to “turn back the tide of secularism” in this country. The following non-story was “front-page news” yesterday, beieve it or not:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....judge.html
Today’s editorial on the subject beggars belief!
December 28th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
This is how The Mail covers the above story (“the end of civilization as we know it”):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ights.html
Just take a look at some of the comments!
December 28th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
My 9 year old’s take on collective worship was:
“Can I just sleep when they make us say the Lord’s Prayer? The teachers do.”
December 28th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
The mad Mullahs at the Daily Mail will go apoplectic. Messers Hitchens (the evil one) Littlejohn and Leslie will no doubt keep the going for months.
December 28th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Forcing children in schools to take part in acts of collective worship will probably be a good way of turning them off religion for life. It certainly worked for me.
December 28th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Woggler: That’s not how it works for all of us, though!
December 28th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Relidion used to bore the tits out of me in school though it was mostly in primary school we were force fed all that shit when I got to secondary school we only had the god stuff shoved in our faces at end of term assemblies or when some scripture union group came in to do a talk. the worse part was when they brung in the ones who tried to act “cool” and theought that singing oasis songs would make us want to turn to Jesus, it didn’t work
December 28th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I’m no native speaker but doesn’t ‘entitlement’ imply certain rights? Having someone’s loony tunes rammed down your throat seems like an infringement of human rights, as you are not allowed to figure out some stuff by yourself. I’m sure that the Nazis and Communists were convinced they were doing their kids a favour by forcing them into HJ or Komsomol.
Make philosophy mandatory and teach the kids to think!
December 28th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Right on Har Davids !!!
Make philosophy mandatory and teach the kids to think!
Oh what a novel thought that school would be for thinking and learning real useful information ……..as opposed to indoctrination.
December 28th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Look at how much good faith schools do.
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid.....m-sch_news
December 28th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
At my school we have a weekly assembly and every week or so there might be a hymn. Which is annoying but even with a pretty churchy management there is no way we would have a daily act of broadly christian worship. You just look for a hook for a vaguely ethical presentation.
We all have to take turns delivering. My last one co-incided with International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Result.
December 28th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Ever since I was a student myself I’ve thought that logic should be taught in schools!
I watched that programme, Alan, but I thought you were going to show the madrassahs where the syllabus is, quite literally, Koran and Bomb Making. (Remembering how fiendishly difficult the task is, compiling the timetable in those schools must be a doddle!!)
December 28th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
This is what passes for “education” in the opinion of modern-day Muslims in Australia!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPbILj5lTJ8
December 28th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
When I was in senior school, two of the more confident and liberal girls in my class used to, without making any fuss, refuse to bow their heads for a prayer during assembly. I never saw any of the teachers challenge them either, and I’d wished then that I had their guts. At the same time though, everybody in my year had to do compulsory RE. The reason? Nobody except for one person (who only picked it as the lesser of six evils) chose the subject as part of their ‘options’. So, because nobody wanted to learn about religion we ALL had to.
You can also bet your bottom dollar (or just your bottom) that some of the same people who think prayers should be mandatory will be the ones who slam sexuality issues being discussed in a sensible way in schools as a form of indoctrination.
December 28th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
I went to a Catholic school, and even there we did not have a daily act of broadly Christian worship. We had mass on days of obligation (when someone in management remembered), and a weekly assembly where there was sometimes a prayer, though it was often bumped in favour of the teachers screaming about girls wearing trousers (or skirts that were too short). That was about it, other than RE class twice a week, which was always a complete waste of time. I think 17 and 18 year olds colouring in pictures of Jesus and doing word searches was probably pushing the ‘broadly Christian’ thing a little far.
Still, this was Scotland so I am not sure if the same law applied; we have rather different education regulations there (we abolished Section 28 from our rules a year or two before England managed it, if I remember right). Not that the law particularly mattered; the school would lock fire exits and had no staff trained in first aid for a time, among other issues. Getting us to reflect on faith was, surprisingly, not a daily priority.
It is pretty clear this law is outdated and irrelevant, not even the particularly religious schools give a toss, and naturally it is very much against the concept of a modern, secular democracy to force children to reflect on a particular religion. What irritates me is the special pleading from the likes of the Church of England, pretending out of one side of their mouth that this is all about ‘faith’ and a nice, inclusive little exercise that is welcome to all (except people of no faith, who don’t exist). Meanwhile, what they are actually saying is they simply wish to remain in the position to which they have become accustomed: supreme and the default faith to be peddled to any child trying to have an education in the United Kingdom. Basically they wish for Christianity to be allowed to get its clutches on every child, while pretending the plan is to play nice with anyone else who believes in some form of god. They cannot see any problem with this, because they are so pumped up with their own pomposity they firmly believe that nothing could be more beneficial to children than themselves.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:20 am
BJohn,
Occasionally, I am still blow away by things happening in western society. During the establishment of the United States, several freemasons played a primary role in insuring that the US didn’t become another Europe where the pope or the fuckhole of Canterbury or Martin Luther never manipulated the government again, by freedom of religion. That there would never be a state religion.
In my admitted ignorance, I blissfully thought that Europe had awakened as well. There is still a crossection of society here that campaigns for prayer in public school, but, in recent decades, they have never come close to success. If they want to teach your children religion in school, they pay private school tuitions, and few middleclass citizens can afford it.
In the past, I have ragged on the freemasons for leaving a huge loophole for religion, which has led to the Jim Jones massacre, Marshall Applewhite, millions duped by television evangelists, and just general free reign for organized religion to peddle their congame. Maybe, I have a new perspective, that the freemasons took us another baby step toward sanity. At the same time, it depresses me that it appears western culture is still so far removed from it.
NeoWolfe
December 29th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Religion – especially Catholicism – still has a tremendous hold in mainland Europe, and the ex-Communist states embraced it again with gusto! Hoever, the founding fathers of America were right to give their people the constitutional freedoms which they enjoy – including the freedom to believe nonsense!
December 29th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I used to refuse to pray when I was 5 and got a lot of trouble over it from teachers. It embarrassed my mother, but bowing one’s head is a sign of respect, and even though I didn’t know the words for it, I had already picked up on the sexism in religion and wasn’t best pleased. As far as I was concerned, respect has to be earnt. Glad that it will be impossible for teachers to hassle children with similar ideas in future.
Props to Alan for officially declaring Peter Hitchens to be the evil brother. That did make me grin.
December 29th, 2010 at 10:07 am
If religious fundies are still running our government (Blair and Brown now gone but because of his attitude to faith schools, I suspect Cameron is up there with the “best” of them), perhaps when the new bill which allows petitions to be debated might be an avenue to force the matter. In passing, how do state schools whose majority of pupils do not have a xtian background manage with the daily prayer rule?
December 29th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Newspaniard: They’ve been ignoring it for years – ie breaking the law! And as for this stupid idea about online petitions – who the hell do you think are going to be doing all the agitating to get the laws that they want onto the statute book? Another stupid, populist idea from people with absolutely no sense at all.
December 29th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Here is what happens when Christians get hold of someone’s mind
http://www.youtube.com/user/gorilla199
December 29th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Alan: I managed to keep watching (mainly because he was so funny) until he got to the bit of “proof” that “witches are depicted as green”!
December 29th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
@barriejohn. Hadn’t thought of them. 2 million death cultists petitioning for sharia law… a bit worrying.
December 29th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Gorilla199 is the craziest guy on youtube. I would personally recommend his videos “exposing†fellow loon David Icke as a Freemason. Pure comedy gold
December 29th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
One word, Alan: Illuminati!
December 29th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
When I was at school, forced prayer gave me my first opportunity to show a bit of dissent… But hey, I’ll be more that glad to see the back of them. My only concern is that the nuttier folk will replace them with something a bit worse.
December 29th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
“Free Schools” will be able to do virtually what they like. Anyone else thought of that?
December 29th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
All this talk of school assemblies has reminded me of a totally brilliant incident that happened during one of ours. The headmistress would often stand up and interrupt the hymn if the singing was in some way unsatisfactory. It is so long ago that I cannot actually remember how this hymn goes, all I remember is that the last line of every verse was the phrase ‘Let there be light’. As you can imagine, a thousand strong congregation with East-Yorkshire accents are singing ‘Let there be ligh’. So the HM stops the singing and insists that everyone pronounce the ‘T’ on the end of the word light. So of course the hymn is started from the beginning and all six or so verses are sung, each ending with ‘Let there be lighTUH. Absolutely hilarious and not a single thing that the silly cow could do about it.
December 30th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Bjohn said,
“Hoever, the founding fathers of America were right to give their people the constitutional freedoms which they enjoy – including the freedom to believe nonsense!”
Well, yes, and no. Thomas Jefferson wrote the “Declaration of Independence” originally, an edited draft was adopted by the Continental Congress. The original made black Americans free, and condemned slavery. That rough draft was voted down.
Yet the words were by compromise allowed to remain:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Government then was wealthy landowners and turncoat political appointees of England. The need to unite the colonies in an impending war against England put the issue of black slavery on the back burner for later debate. Debate they did, with rifles and cannons. Hundreds of thousands of people died over the question of whether African Americans were humans or farm animals. Now, American politicians want to say our system is the greatest on the planet, for our freedom.
Shit!! In Mississippi or Alabama, forty years ago, a black American was afraid to vote on pain of death, of himself and his family.
The American experiment was an enormous failure, and only recently has it’s own bi-laws forced it to live up to it’s own standards. Meanwhile the rich take over government, and working families drift into poverty as their jobs move to China.
But, maybe if we give all that’s left of our wealth to some television evangelist, god will bless us with spiritual prosperity. And we can forget about whether or not America is the absolute embarrassment of the Western World.
NeoWolfe