Education Reform Act 1988

84 Religious education in former county schools

(1) This section applies to a grant-maintained school which was a county school immediately before it became a grant-maintained school; but the provisions of this section are subject to section 87 of this Act.

(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section, in the case of a school to which this section applies the collective worship required in the school by section 6 of this Act shall be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) above, collective worship is of a broadly Christian character if it reflects the broad traditions of Christian belief without being distinctive of any particular Christian denomination.

(4) Every act of collective worship required by section 6 of this Act in the case of a school to which this section applies need not comply with subsection (2) above provided that, taking any school term as a whole, most such acts which take place in the school do comply with that subsection.

(5) Subject to subsections (2) and (4) above—

(a) the extent to which (if at all) any acts of collective worship required by section 6 of this Act which do not comply with subsection (2) above take place in such a school;

(b) the extent to which any act of collective worship in such a school which complies with subsection (2) above reflects the broad traditions of Christian belief; and

(c) the ways in which those traditions are reflected in any such act of collective worship;

shall be such as may be appropriate having regard to any relevant considerations relating to the pupils concerned which fall to be taken into account in accordance with subsection (6) below.

(6) Those considerations are—

(a) any circumstances relating to the family backgrounds of the pupils concerned which are relevant for determining the character of the collective worship which is appropriate in their case; and

(b) their ages and aptitudes.

(7) In the case of a school to which this section applies the provision for religious education for pupils at the school which is required by section 2(1)(a) of this Act to be included in the school’s basic curriculum shall be provision for religious education in accordance with the appropriate agreed syllabus.

(8) That syllabus shall not provide for religious education to be given to pupils at such a school by means of any catechism or formulary which is distinctive of any particular religious denomination; but this provision is not to be taken as prohibiting provision in that syllabus for the study of such catechisms or formularies.

(9) Subject to section 88(3) of this Act, for the purposes of subsection (7) above “the appropriate agreed syllabus” is, in relation to a school to which this section applies or to any pupils at the school, the agreed syllabus which immediately before the school became a grant-maintained school was adopted under Schedule 5 to the 1944 Act for use in the school or for those pupils.

(10) The arrangements for the collective worship in a school to which this section applies required by section 6 of this Act shall be made by the head teacher after consultation with the governing body.

(11) Subsection (12) below applies where a secondary school to which this section applies is so situated that arrangements cannot conveniently be made for the withdrawal of pupils from the school in accordance with section 9 of this Act to receive religious education elsewhere.

(12) If in any such case the governing body are satisfied—

(a) that the parents of pupils in attendance at the school desire them to receive religious education in the school in accordance with the tenets of a particular religious denomination; and

(b) that satisfactory arrangements have been made for the provision of such education to those pupils in the school and for securing that the cost of providing such education to those pupils in the school will not fall upon the governing body;

the governing body shall, unless they are satisfied that owing to any special circumstances it would be unreasonable to do so, provide facilities for the carrying out of those arrangements.

(13) No person shall be disqualified by reason of his religious opinions, or of his attending or omitting to attend religious worship, from being a teacher in, or from being otherwise employed for the purposes of, a school to which this section applies.

(14) No teacher in a school to which this section applies shall be required to give religious education or receive any less emolument or be deprived of, or disqualified for, any promotion or other advantage by reason of the fact that he does or does not give religious education or by reason of his religious opinions or of his attending or omitting to attend religious worship.

(15) References in this section to acts of collective worship in a school to which this section applies include references to any such act which under section 6 of this Act takes place otherwise than on the school premises.