Efforts to reform special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) education should include a review of the discriminatory effects of faith schools, the National Secular Society has said.
Responding to a Government consultation, the NSS highlighted the “significant and growing body of evidence” that faith schools, particularly those which use religiously selective admissions, perpetuate unfairness against those most disadvantaged in our society, including children with SEND.
Around a third of publicly funded schools in England are faith schools, with the vast majority being either Church of England or Catholic. Legal exemptions allow these schools to select pupils based on religion in their admissions and prioritise children from families who share the school’s faith.
In its response, the NSS pointed to research published by the London School of Economics and Political Science demonstrating that faith-based primary schools admit fewer children with SEND than nonreligious community primaries.
Dr Tammy Campbell, who authored the research, concluded many Church of England and Catholic primary schools “serve as hubs of relative advantage, seeming disproportionately to serve children from more affluent families and children less likely to have SEND”.
Faith schools also consistently discriminate against less well-off families, with multiple studies finding the difference between the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) at a school and the proportion of those eligible in its catchment area to be higher at faith schools than at nonreligious schools.
These FSM ‘gaps’ cause socio-economic segregation, which is higher in areas with greater numbers of faith schools. In local authorities with high levels of segregation, attainment gaps between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils are also larger.
Pupils from less well-off backgrounds have higher rates of SEND. In the academic year 2024/25, 43.8% of pupils with an ‘Education and Health’ plan and 39.3% of pupils with SEND support were eligible for FSM, compared to 22.2% of pupils without SEND.
Local authorities have also reported that faith schools disadvantage looked after children, with one describing it as the “main difficulty” it faces in ensuring admissions serve the needs of children in care.
Consultation documents published by the Government consistently emphasise the importance of children’s rights, with approaches to inclusion “guided by the definition set out by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), focussed on breaking down barriers”.
The NSS highlighted that the general principles of this Convention include non-discrimination; full and effective participation and inclusion in society; and equality of opportunity. It further called on the Government to accept the recommendation of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to prevent the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions in England.
NSS: Best interests of children should come first, not religious institutions
National Secular Society spokesperson Jack Rivington said: “According to the Government, our SEND education system is failing children, failing parents, failing schools and failing local authorities.
“Ending religiously selective admissions and phasing out faith schools would significantly benefit children with SEND and those from less well-off backgrounds, improving attainment, community cohesion, and social mobility. It would also cost very little.
“To fail to tackle faith school discrimination is to prioritise the interests of religious institutions above the best of interests of children with SEND. This would contradict every principle the Government says it holds and undermine one of its key policy objectives.
“The best interests of children should come first. The Government has said its reforms will be “grounded in evidence” and have a “strong focus on children’s rights”. If it is to live up to those commitments, it must address the discriminatory effects of faith schools against children with SEND and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”