Faith schools criticised over discrimination towards unreligious staff

The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 currently allows faith schools in England and Wales to take into account an applicant's religious beliefs when considering them for a teaching post.    

The National Secular Society is arguing at its conference that the current legislation discriminates against highly qualified, non-religious teachers. Although the intention may be to ensure that staff support the school’s particular religious ethos, faith schools can currently refuse jobs or promotion to staff with different or no spiritual beliefs.

Catholic schools in Scotland are allowed to request that applicants provide a suitable referee who can testify to their personal religious beliefs and character, often requiring a testament from a parish priest.

Teachers are then, in some cases, forced to attend services or even befriend a local spiritual community just to ensure that they have ‘evidence’ they can provide when being considered for a post or to even keep their present position.

Faith schools are therefore being challenged as to why faith has any impact on the staff’s teaching ability. Executive Director of the National Secular Society Keith Porteous Wood plans to tell the Windsor Castle conference that the legislation is appalling and asks “how religious do you have to be to teach maths?"

Earlier this year head teacher Michael Cassidy at a Catholic primary school in Sheffield resigned over his plans to remarry for a second time. He told parents "... my position as head teacher is no longer compatible with the conditions and services of my contract. Therefore I have no option but to leave.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Children, Schools and Families told the BBC that any school wishing to discriminate on the grounds of faith had to demonstrate, if challenged, that there was a 'genuine occupational need'.

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