Former Education Secretary calls for an end to compulsory daily worship in schools

The pamphlet, co-written by Lancaster University professor Linda Woodhead, will recommend that daily worship should be abolished in schools and that religious education (RE) should include teaching about morality as well as religion, with the subject name being changed to ‘religious and moral education’.

Under the 1944 Education Act, all state schools are required to hold daily worship, although the law is ignored by most non-faith schools. Clarke’s call to abolish the law mimics the sentiments of the Bishop of Oxford, Rt Rev John Pritchard, who last year argued the requirement should be changed due to the decline of Christianity in the UK.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Clarke said: “We call for a new settlement in the relationship between religion and schools.

“Seven decades after the 1944 Education Act, we believe that the time is overdue for reform as the old settlement no longer works as well as it needs to for the benefit of schools, religion and society.”

He added: “The current requirement in statute for an act of collective worship should be abolished, and the decision about the form and character of school assemblies should be left to the governors of individual schools.

“Schools should be required to set out their statement and strategy promoting spiritual, moral, social and cultural education, with school community assemblies as an important part of that strategy, upon which they would be inspected by Ofsted.”

In response to the policy pamphlet, the Church of England’s chief education officer Reverend Nigel Genders said: "The Church of England continues to be committed to the provision of high quality RE in schools, which is vital for a balanced understanding of the world today where more than 80 per cent of the population are people of faith.

"The church strongly supports the statutory requirement for collective worship in all schools and there is plenty of flexibility in the provision to enable all pupils to benefit without compromising their faith or lack of it.

"Where there are real objections, it is a parent's right to withdraw their child from worship, and the very few who take up that right demonstrates that schools have found exciting and creative ways of using collective worship to further children's spiritual and moral development.”

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