Free school in row over plans to scrap religious education

One of the Government’s flagship free schools has become the first in England to try to abolish religious education lessons.

The school was one of a number of new free schools announced by Michael Gove.
The school was one of a number of new free schools announced by Michael Gove. Credit: Photo: REUTERS

The Bristol Primary School decided to drop RE from the curriculum because parents it consulted thought it would be a “waste of time”, according to its headteacher.

The school, which will open next year in the St Paul’s area of Bristol, has marketed itself to families on the basis that RE and sex education have been scrapped.

A statement by the school explains: “No religion will be taught in the school. The governors feel and parents have told us that places of worship or parents themselves do a much better job than any school and we agree.”

Despite free school rules which state that RE must be taught, the primary’s application – which the head teacher said included its decision to drop the subject – was approved by the Department for Education.

The school was one of a number of new free schools announced by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, in July.

The move has been criticised by local clergy, who questioned how ministers came to approve the school with its controversial plans.

A spokesman for the Department said that the school's application said it would address religion in an “appropriate fashion” – which had been taken by Whitehall officials as an assurance that the subject would be taught.

The spokesman insisted that the primary would still be required to teach RE, in line with the law.

Questions over how the school’s plans were approved may raise further tensions between Mr Gove and his civil servants.

The Education Secretary has shown his impatience with Whitehall by replacing most of the top officials in his department and threatening to axe 1,000 jobs and move to a smaller headquarters.

Lessons at the Bristol school, which is expected to have a high ethnic minority intake, will focus on English, maths, science and IT. Compulsory Saturday morning sessions will feature competitive sports, music, drama and catch-up classes.

Steve Spokes, the head teacher, said the decision not to teach RE had been taken after conversations with almost 600 parents.

“Parents have said their particular religion is best dealt with by their own places of worship or inside the family,” he told The Telegraph.

“The Muslim community here feel that with recent events, such as the situation in Afghanistan, they are under siege. They didn’t want the school to teach religion – their own religion let alone any other religion.”

Mr Spokes, a former assistant head at Bridge Learning Campus in Bristol, added: “It is not just the Muslim community saying this. I have all sorts of people saying 'Why teach it? How much time would you be wasting with it?’”

However, the Reverend Barrie Green, the priest in charge of St Paul’s Parish, Bristol, raised doubts.

He said: “I am very concerned about a school setting up which suggests that it will not be teaching RE.

"Apart from being a legal requirement, especially in a multicultural area such as ours, it is important that children learn how to understand and respect the beliefs and practices of those they live among.

“I am surprised that their application was apparently supported by the Department of Education when it was their stated intention not to teach RE or sex education.”

While primary schools are entitled not to teach sex education, RE is a statutory requirement of the national curriculum. All pupils are entitled to receive it as part of lessons which promote their “spiritual, moral, social and cultural development”.

Syllabuses are set locally but must reflect that the religious traditions of the UK are in the main Christian, while taking into account other main religions such as Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.

Schools are also supposed to carry out a daily act of collective worship of a mainly Christian character, although a recent BBC survey showed that two-thirds ignore the legal requirement.

About 100,000 pupils are taught in schools which have been granted an exemption to the rule because of the ethnic make-up of their intake.

While free schools and academies do not have to follow the national curriculum, the rules state that they must still teach English, maths, science and RE.

Bristol Primary School will be run by the Bristol Inner-City Schools Trust, free from local authority control. The trust’s chairman is Andy Burkitt, a retired youth worker and chairman of a housing association.

Other directors include Ali Fuad Mahamed and Kalif Noor of the Amana Education Trust, which supports the Somali community, and Suad Abdullahi, a Dutch education adviser.

When alerted by The Telegraph to the school’s plans, officials from the Department for Education contacted the school about the rules regarding free schools and religious education.

Later, a Department spokesman said: “The proposed Bristol Primary Free School is clear that it will be teaching religious education.

"It is a compulsory part of the curriculum and it is written into the funding agreements of all Free Schools that they must teach religious education. We will not sign a funding agreement if a proposer is refusing to do so.

“In its application form, the school stated that it would address religion in an appropriate fashion.”

Neither the Department nor the school would disclose the wording on the application form.

Lat Blaylock, the editor of RE Today magazine and and RE adviser, said: “I think it’s bizarre that a school would want to have no RE because the subject is open minded about all beliefs, and parents want their children to learn that.

"It makes me wonder how carefully applications to be an Academy are being scrutinised at the DfE.”