Say No to ‘Faith’ Schools!

14 October, 2011

Please donate today to support our campaign against ‘faith’ schools

At the start of September, we launched our annual fundraising drive to enable us to continue to support the post of ‘faith’ schools campaigner for another year. We’re now 40% of the way towards the target of £40,000 – but there’s still a long way to go, and we urgently need to raise the money.

If you are yet to donate, please do so today at http://justgiving.com/nofaithschools – and please encourage everyone you know to do likewise. Whatever amount, however small, you can afford to donate really can make a difference.

Since the drive launched, our campaigner, Richy Thompson has been working hard:

  • Supporting local campaigns in opposition to ‘faith’ schools, and in favour of inclusive education
  • Supporting parents contacting him on a daily basis about unfair admissions criteria, proselytising in Collective Worship and biased Religious Education
  • Coordinating the new campaign, ‘Teach evolution, not creationism’, supported by thirty leading scientists and science educators including Sir David AttenboroughProfessor Richard Dawkins and Professor Colin Blakemore, and five national organisations, and signed by over 12,000 of you
  • Working to bring about amendments to the Education Bill, focussing on religious admissions, teacher employment criteria, Collective Worship and PSHE
  • Working with other groups on the PSHE Review, to ensure that every child receives good, age-appropriate Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), and challenging anti-SRE organisations
  • Working in opposition to religious Free Schools, including the now-rejected creationist Everyday Champions Academy. The ‘second wave’ of Academies includes just 12 ‘faith’ schools, and he’ll be looking to oppose each and every one of them
  • Working to ensure a place for humanists on Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education, bodies that set the RE syllabus for each local authority

And that’s just over the last month.

We’ve raised 40% in six weeks, but we need to raise the rest too. Please donate to this important campaign at http://justgiving.com/nofaithschools.

There is much work to be done, tackling the single largest area of discrimination against the non-religious in the UK today. And we need to keep our dedicated campaigner – the only dedicated campaigner against ‘faith’ schools worldwide – to do so.

If you donate and you’re a UK taxpayer, please indicate that the BHA can reclaim Gift Aid on your donation so that we can reclaim 25p tax from HMRC for every £1 you donate.

Thank you.

Notes

For further comment or information, please contact Andrew Copson on 020 7079 3583.

Make a donation to the BHA’s campaign against ‘faith’ schools on the fundraising page at http://justgiving.com/nofaithschools

Donations will be used to ensure we can employ our dedicated campaigns officer for another year and fund his campaigning activities. Any money donated beyond our target will be spent on BHA education campaigns.

Read more about the BHA’s campaigns work on religion and schools.

The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of ethically concerned, non-religious people in the UK. It is the largest organisation in the UK campaigning for an end to religious privilege and to discrimination based on religion or belief, and for a secular state.