"Secular School Barred by Whitehall"

[cj.23]

I rather suspect that the point of the proposal to have a secular school was entirely to have it blocked on the grounds that it would be illegal, thereby hopefully prompting some debate on why this should be the case, rather than any real desire to have a separate secular education system.

Yes: and I think the block was because to overcome the legislation would require a new Education act, and that would take up a huge amount of government time, and open a vast can of worms. While I dislike faith-based teaching (and am a passionate advocate of proper objective Religious Education) I suspect that is the actual issue. Also as I recall in 1944 the Butler (or was it Temple?) Act gave the State control to a large extent of the huge numbers of CofE schools, in exchange for the corporate act of worship provision, so legally there may be no room for manouvre. Dunno, not had time to check my facts!

I still think the headmaster did a brave and worthy thing, and I wish there would be more public discussion - and I'm Church of England!

cj x

 

[geni]

Running a secular school in the UK is fairly trivial. You just do it. Unlikely anyone will notice or care.