The role and performance of Ofsted - Education Committee Contents


Memorandum submitted by the British Humanist Association

ABOUT THE BRITISH HUMANIST ASSOCIATION

The British Humanist Association (BHA) is the national charity representing and supporting the non-religious and campaigning for an end to religious privilege and discrimination based on religion or belief. Committed to human rights, democracy, equality and mutual respect, the BHA works for an open and inclusive society with freedom of belief and speech.

Our education policies arise out of humanist principles and our concern for the common good and community cohesion, as well as our awareness of the needs of non-religious people and experience of working with members of religious groups.

The BHA is a respected and active member of many organisations working in the area of education and always responds to every relevant Government consultation on education. The BHA also provides resources lists and materials to help teachers and advisers, and advice to a wide range of individual enquirers, including parents, governors, students, teachers, teacher trainers, and academics.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.  The BHA has particular concerns about "faith schools" and believes that Ofsted should address these much more directly in its Section 5 and subject inspections.

2.  Research demonstrates that community cohesion and equality of opportunity are frequently hampered by the discriminatory policies of "faith schools". We therefore strongly support inspection judgements in these areas and would urge a review to ensure that the criteria used are sufficient. The BHA also believes that "faith schools" frequently struggle to provide objective religious education (RE) and personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education and would support more rigorous inspection processes for these subjects.

COMMUNITY COHESION

3.  The BHA strongly supports Ofsted's duty to report on the contribution made by schools to community cohesion, which commenced in September 2008, and would vigorously oppose any attempt to remove it. This inspection judgement is particularly important in relation to "faith schools", whose populations tend to be far from representative of their local communities.

4.  Many "faith schools" can discriminate against all pupils and staff on religious grounds, in numerous cases excluding the majority of people who live or work in that area. These "faith schools" are also free to teach their own syllabus of Religious Education (RE), which is not required to cover other religions and beliefs.

5.  As the Ofsted guidance says, "where the pupil population is less diverse or predominantly of one socioeconomic, ethnic, faith or non-faith background, more will need to be done to provide opportunities for interaction between children and young people from different backgrounds."[16]This interaction is vital for building strong communities with shared values, yet it is often undermined by highly discriminatory admissions and employment policies and narrow RE.

6.  The Runnymede Trust's Right to Divide Report? found that "faith schools are much more effective at educating for a single vision than they are at opening dialogue about a shared vision".[17] Research by other academics has supported the view that "faith schools" may have a negative impact on community cohesion. Professor Ted Cantle, author of a report into community relations in Blackburn, described religious schools as "automatically a source of division" in the town.[18]

7.  Schools have a vital role in building strong, dynamic communities. It is therefore of the utmost importance the Ofsted continues to evaluate how well "faith schools" contribute to community cohesion. Indeed, we would urge a review of whether the criteria used by Ofsted in judging schools' contributions to community cohesion are sufficient. While school linking projects and classroom discussions of diversity are commendable, inspectors should also consider the impact on cohesion of discriminatory admissions and biased RE lessons.

8.  We would also support proposals, made by organisations such as the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), to link criteria related to the promotion of community cohesion to the level of autonomy granted to schools.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

9.  The BHA also strongly supports Ofsted's duty to report on how effectively schools promote equality of opportunity and eliminate discrimination. Again, this inspection judgement is particularly important in relation to "faith schools", who face particular challenges in relation to equality and discrimination.

10.  A survey by Stonewall found that 75% of young gay people in "faith schools" experience homophobic bullying - compared with 65% in community schools - and are significantly less likely than pupils in other schools to tell someone about it. Only 4% of gay pupils felt able to tell their local religious leaders about bullying.[19] The same report found 47% of young gay people who attended "faith schools" disagreed that their school is an "accepting, tolerant place where they feel welcome". This compares with 35% of young gay people in community schools.

11.  Other concerns have been raised about the promotion of gender equality in "faith schools". The Right to Divide? report found that "there are some particular challenges that exist for faith schools in confronting gender inequalities that exist within faith traditions." Those "faith schools" whose religious views strongly advocate traditional gender roles and family structures may particularly struggle in this regard.

12.  A further obstacle to eliminating discrimination is the experience of religious minorities within "faith schools". Many VA "faith schools", while admitting the vast majority of pupils on the basis of their parents' adherence to its religion, admit a small number of children from other religious and non-religious backgrounds. Little is known about the experiences of these pupils, such as how their own beliefs are presented in RE lessons and whether real efforts are made by the school to include them.

13.  For these reasons, it is the BHA's view that the evaluation of schools' effectiveness in promoting equality of opportunity and eliminating discrimination should be an integral part of the inspection process.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

14.  It has long been the BHA's view that RE in VA "faith schools" should be subject to the same Ofsted inspection arrangements as in other schools.

15.  VA schools with a religious character are not obliged to follow the locally agreed syllabus and instead can teach RE in accordance with the religion of the school. It is for the governing body of the schools, rather than Ofsted, to ensure that their RE is inspected under Section 48 of the Education Act 2005. The governing body may choose any person to conduct the inspection, although in practice this is usually the education department of the school's diocesan authority.

16.  The BHA has particular concerns about these arrangements. RE in such schools is often confessional in nature, with the aim of instructing children in the teachings of the school's religion rather than empowering them to critically engage with a range of beliefs. The Right to Divide? report found that "By not engaging with locally agreed [RE] syllabuses or agreeing to teach from a non-statutory framework, faith schools have missed an opportunity to share their expertise more widely, and to capitalize on their capacity to support learning about faith, faith diversity and the role of faith in society."[20]

17.  RE in these schools rarely explores other religions in any academically rigorous way and will almost certainly not include exploring non-religious views. Ethical issues such as abortion or euthanasia are usually approached explicitly from a religious perspective, which may not give pupils a balanced view. It is unlikely that these schools will ever be made aware of these problems while the provision of RE is inspected only by the diocesan authority.

18.  RE is viewed by most VA "faith schools" as fundamental to the education they provide. Many Roman Catholic schools, for example, describe the subject as the "core of the core curriculum". The BHA believes it to be an unacceptable anomaly that the teaching of a subject regarded as so essential by the schools themselves is not evaluated impartially by independent inspectors.

19.  Subject inspections are used to feed into Ofsted's judgements about particular subjects and form the basis, in part, for Ofsted's long reports on the curriculum. However, Oftsed's current picture of the teaching of RE is necessarily incomplete since it automatically excludes the 22% of primary schools and 16% of secondary schools which are VA "faith schools".

20.  As Ofsted notes, schools and colleges which have had subject inspections in the past have generally been very positive about them. The BHA believes that "faith schools" and their pupils can only benefit from being subject to the same inspection arrangements as other maintained schools.

INSPECTION OF ACADEMIES

21.  The Secretary of State for Education has announced that schools previously judged outstanding will no longer be subject to routine school inspection. It is the BHA's view that all Academies and free schools should be inspected at least every three years, as other schools are.

22.  Unlike maintained "faith schools" religious Academies do not have to follow the national curriculum, are not covered by general education law and are outside local authority control. They are therefore removed from the moderating influence of the state and local community. There is still great uncertainty as to how religious Academies and free schools will use these freedoms.

23.  There is a real risk that religious Academies and free schools will choose to teach a narrow, religiously restrictive curriculum. There are particular concerns about the teaching of creationism, for example.

24.  Speaking to the Education Committee shortly after the Bill had received royal assent, the Secretary of State Michael Gove said that "extremist groups" would not be allowed to run schools and that creationism would not be allowed to be taught in Academies and free schools. However, there is nothing in the Academies Act or the model funding agreement to prevent this.

25.  These serious concerns make it all the more important that Academies are subject to the same, if not more stringent, inspection regimes as maintained schools.

PERSONAL, SOCIAL, HEALTH AND ECONOMIC EDUCATION

26.  Because PSHE is not a statutory subject, "faith schools" are free to teach it from an overtly religious perspective. The BHA is particularly concerned that the SRE components - if they are covered at all - may be taught in ways that are homophobic and gender discriminatory or that otherwise violate principles of human rights.

27.  The SRE programmes of study in "faith schools" are usually chosen by the diocesan authority and vary widely in quality. Some programmes are published by third party organisations, such as the "This is My Body" programme for primary schools in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lancaster, which is produced by the Society for the Protection Unborn Child (SPUC).

28.  Other examples include the "Evaluate: Informing Choice" programme, published by anti-abortion group CARE (who claim it has been studied by 64,000 students so far), and the Right to Life Educational Trust's teaching packs which have been sent to every "faith school" in the country.

29.  The BHA also has concerns about the kinds of external visitors which are invited to give presentation to pupils as part of SRE lessons. Anti-abortion groups such as SPUC and Life regularly visit schools (both religious and non-religious) to deliver presentations on abortion, for example.

30.  The BHA believes it is right that pupils should have the opportunity to explore a range of religious and non-religious perspectives on sex and relationships. However, such views should never be allowed to interfere with pupils' entitlement to objective and impartial information. As the recently published draft guidance on PSHE from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) states, "Teaching should help pupils and students to distinguish between facts and opinions."[21]

31.  The draft government guidance on SRE issued in January 2010 explicitly acknowledged the tension involved in taking account of "the religious character of the school while maintaining children and young people's need for and entitlement to a comprehensive SRE programme"[22]. In light of the concerns described above, it is the BHA's view that Ofsted guidance should require inspectors to judge how effectively "faith schools" resolve this tension.

October 2010


16   Inspecting maintained schools' duty to promote community cohesion: guidance for inspectors, Ofsted, February 2009 Back

17   Right to Divide?: Faith schools and community cohesion, Rob Berkley, Runnymede Trust, 2008 http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/RightToDivide-2008.pdf  Back

18  Comment reported in "Cantle report: Blackburn a divided town", Lancashire Telegraph, May 8 2009
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/blackburn/4351852.Cantle_report__Blackburn_a_divided_town  
Back

19   School Report: The experiences of young gay people in Britain's schools, Stonewall, 2007
http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/school_report.pdf 
Back

20   Right to Divide?: Faith schools and community cohesion, Rob Berkley, Runnymede Trust, 2008 http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/RightToDivide-2008.pdf  Back

21   Public health draft guidance: School, college and community-based personal, social, health and economic education focusing on sex and relationships and alcohol education, NICE, 2010
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/11673/49240/49240.pdf  
Back

22   Sex and relationships guidance to schools, DCSF, issued for consultation January 2010 Back


 
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Prepared 17 April 2011