I think I may just be woefully unqualified to comment on that; the national curriculum (http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/Subjects/RE/Subject.htm) seems to be quite broad and descriptive, rather than prescriptive. To which schools applies the material you linked?
Are “secular” state schools still required to have a daily act of worship that’s broadly Christian in character?
Like it says on the tin. All State Schools. Only privately financed schools aren’t covered.
I went to your link and searched all years of the Religious ed curriculum on athiesm and athiest and got no hits. As my earlier quote showed - it is explicitly intended to be a Christian curriculum.
In some cases, CofE schools have a catchment area and a requirement to provide for a geographic area. One of the high schools I teach in is in this position, and it’s the least “CofE-ish” church school I’ve known.
Yes, in 99.9% of cases it’s completely ignored. And even CofE schools can struggle, particularly high schools.
Since when are faith schools divisive? They’re open to anyone of their faith, regardless of race. And the greater effort must be made by the minority trying to integrate, not the majority.
One of my favourite one-liners from newspaper letters pages, a few years back:
“If religious schools are now ‘faith-based’, can we expect some consistency, and refer to others as ‘reason-based’?”
Huh. Just looked through a recent Ofsted report for another school I work in (not CofE), and they’ve stopped even reporting whether the statutory obligation of a ‘daily act of collective worship’ is observed.
I had the choice of going to a Catholic sixth form (uhm, I think that’s anagolous to senior years of high school) which I would have been accepted at despite my athiesm. That said, I would be expected to go to assemblies and other meetings that have a Catholic focus; I believe the idea is less “All are Welcome” and more “All are Welcome; now let’s get to converting!”.
Speaking from my own experience (as a student who left a Catholic secondary school ~6 years ago), it certainly wasn’t all Jesus all the time. We studied Judaism (visited a Synagogue, had a mock Sedder (sp?) meal etc.) and Buddism in depth, for instance, and then studied pretty much every major Christian denomination in quite some depth.
Not IME: it was more a case of, “All are welcome; we hope you’ll see the light.” Not coercion, but leading by example. Of course, that was some time ago.
I wasn’t suggesting coercion. That said, I don’t think you could call it leading by example, either, since it’s not just the staff acting in a christian way, but also assemblies, prayer meetings and so on which are used solely to bring up Christianity. There’s definite intent to convert there, I think.
That said, I see nothing wrong with that; they’re perfectly within their rights to try and convert, and students are perfectly within their rights to choose not to go there, as I did. 
Atheism isn’t a religion though, is it? I think you’d have to admit that the RE curriculum as described in the site I linked seems to be more about the study of world religions and their effects, than it is about You Must Believe In Jesus.
I was talking about this thread to some of the other governors at a meeting tonight and one of them said (yeah, anecdote) that at the grant-maintained ‘faith schools’ she knew, some kind of religious observance was an entry criterion, but that it didn’t necessarily have to be the Christian faith (even if the school is a Christian one). certainly in the case of C of E controlled schools (not the same as grant-maintained) like the one at which I am a governor, there is no such requirement anyway.
I also wanted to pick up on what appears to be an absurdity; if religious schools are achieving apparently better results by exercising a selection policy on admissions, why would that encourage parents to make false declarations of faith in order to get their children in?
There is at least one resource available on atheism, but none on athiesm, because there’s no such thing.
I confess that all I know about UK Church of England Schools I learned from the “Miss Read” books (twee little novels about English village schools in the 50’s through 90’s), but the author is a former teacher and church school board member, so I presume they’re reasonably factual in their references to school practices, at least of yesteryear.
Is it true, as is alluded to in the books, that teachers who are not C of E members are not allowed to teach in the church schools?
And do the children still have Christian hymns and/or prayers at the start and end of the school day?
Church schools certainly used to be exempt from discrimination legislation, and were able to choose teachers on this basis (should this wish to, nobody was saying they “weren’t allowed”). Not sure if this is still the case.
Depends. Some do. There’s others, as I mentioned above, which are the only school serving the locality, and you’d be hard-pushed to spot any difference from a regular comprehensive.
Of course they are divisive. By definition. Do you really think this is the time for Muslims to huddle in their own faith schools and not mix with others?
Is this a whoosh? You are seriously asking why parents would lie to get into a better school? Are you seriously unable to see that willingness to go to lengths to get your child into a good school is itself an indicator of parental involvement, encouragement to achieve and all the other good midlle class things that indicate potentially better performing students?
Let’s be realistic about this.
In the UK ‘Faith schools’ seem to work rather well, they seem to be better than many normal state schools. Also I’ve a suspicion that shoving religion down peoples’ throats tends to make them rather irreligious.
What we are really concerned about is Moslems opening up Maddrassas.
I think that the problem could be worked round by insisting that no more than half an hour per day could be devoted to religious activities.
Alternatively we could just leave them to it - a bit tough on the kids, but life ain’t fair.