Reading Time: 3 minutes From the British Humanist Association: The Department for Education (DfE) has been forced to amend its education green paper by the UK Statistics Authority, following a complaint made by the British Humanist Association (BHA) over the ‘misleading’ figures it presents on the impact of religious selection at ‘faith’ schools. The Government is currently consulting on […]
education
Posted inEducation, The Secular
Schools in the UK Are Teaching That Same-Sex Relationships Are Sinful, and Ofsted Are Praising Them
Reading Time: 3 minutes This damning and disturbing article featured on Vice recently, but it came out at the same time as Trump’s election, so didn’t get enough traction. Jonny Scaramanga, also of Patheos Atheist, has been involved in campaigning about this issue for years. Help spread the word. [OFSTED are the inspection and regulatory organisation for schools and […]
Posted inEducation, Evolution
Judge criticises Jewish father for crime of telling his children about evolution
Reading Time: 3 minutes From the British Humanist Association: December 3rd, 2016 In a shocking judgement handed down by a family court in west London last year, but only just published now, a judge has denounced a father simply for exposing his children to basic information about the theory of evolution. The judgment, which concerns a family from the […]
Posted inEducation, The Secular
Education Policy Institute: ‘faith schools’ academically no better; increasing them bad for social mobility
Reading Time: 3 minutes The British Humanist Association: December 2nd, 2016 In a new report published today, the Education Policy Institute has found that there is no academic difference between state religious schools (‘faith schools’) in England and others once pupils’ backgrounds are taken into account. It also found that faith schools take significantly fewer pupils eligible for free […]
Posted inEducation, Philosophy
Teach philosophy to heal our ‘post-truth’ society, says Irish President
Reading Time: 2 minutes This is exactly what i was talking about the other day to one of my colleagues. In British education, there is a movement called P4C – Philosophy 4 Children – and it is fab. I think it should be statutory in every school. In order to combat the post-fact reality that we seem to live […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, Psychology
Duval on Moral Epistemology, pt. 3.3: Conservatives and Education
Reading Time: 8 minutes Following on from the previous post, where the focus was corporal punishment, here we look at corporal punishment in school, as well as authoritarian teaching styles Talwar, Carlson and Lee (2011[1]) found that children educated in highly punitive environments performed as well as children in non-punitive environments whilst in kindergarten but, from about the age […]
Posted inEducation, The Secular
Pupils punished after not going to Mass and leaving school
Reading Time: 2 minutes The BBC reports: A Catholic school near Motherwell has handed out detentions to about 50 pupils who failed to go to a Mass. The service at Taylor High School on Friday 30 September was attended by the Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Toal. Some pupils did not take part and left the school. North Lanarkshire Council […]
Posted inEducation, The Secular
Government approves yet more religious free schools just days after faith school admissions announcement
Reading Time: 3 minutes From the BHA: Take action! The principle of integrated education is under attack like never before in this country following the Government’s announcement that it will introduce a new generation of state schools that can religiously discriminate against children for all of their places. We are encouraging everyone to write to their MPs to speak out, and we’ve provided […]
Posted inEducation, The Secular
Government publishes plans to allow full religious discrimination in school admissions
Reading Time: 3 minutes From the BHA: Take action! The principle of integrated education is under attack like never before in this country following the Government’s announcement that it will introduce a new generation of state schools that can religiously discriminate against children for all of their places. We are encouraging everyone to write to their MPs to speak out, and we’ve provided […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Secular
UK Govt Looking to Give Faith Schools 100% Selection on Faith
Reading Time: 4 minutes Theresa May is turning out to be a really bad PM, regressively appealing to the fringe right in the party, some of whom she has put into leadership positions in her cabinet (Liam Fox and David Davis, anybody?). She has decided that social mobility is just something for liberal lefties, and is, against expert judgement, […]