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Hello,

2019 has been a busy year for the No More Faith Schools campaign, with encouraging signs. But there is still a long way to go before we can stop new faith schools and begin to transition to a fully inclusive community ethos system.

Thank you to those thousands who have signed the national petition or local petitions and written to your MP <[link removed]> (or MSP, AM, MLA <[link removed]> or councillors) with our template letters. With 140 new MPs joining today, now might be a good time to write again or if you haven't already.

Over this year the national campaign has continued to grow thanks to supporters like you. To succeed we also need to galvanise diverse local campaigns and activists across the country. Our website has information on how you can get involved, as well as current local campaigns <[link removed]>. Please contact us <mailto:[email protected]> if you would like resources or advice.

In 2019 I visited six groups across the country and already have eight local No More Faith Schools talks planned next year; in Oxford (17 April), Guildford (12 May), Chichester (26 May), Peterborough (11 June), Swindon (2 July), Kent (19 July), Cornwall (21 July) and Dorset (12 September). If your local group would like a NMFS speaker for an event, or you would like to organise a standalone event, then please get in touch <mailto:[email protected]>. I won't be available to do talks in the first three months of the year, but another member of the team may be able to come along. I am particularly keen to organise talks in September, October and November.

Best wishes,

Alastair Lichten
Campaign coordinator – NMFS

** News & opinion highlights

* A secular education system would mean community schools for all <[link removed]>

An end to faith schools would not impose conformity or be without compromise, as our system of community schools shows, argues Alastair Lichten.

* Teachers increasingly oppose faith schools and the discrimination they cause <[link removed]>

Research shows a majority of teachers supporting an end to new faith schools and a huge majority favouring an end to religious selection, Alastair Lichten finds.

* If we want a tolerant Scotland, let’s educate children together <[link removed]>

As academic research shows some intolerant attitudes are widespread among Catholic school pupils in Scotland, Alastair Lichten says rolling back denominational education is essential to promoting cohesion and equality.

* Why the blind spot when it comes to faith schools? <[link removed]>

Politicians need to end their fetishisation of faith schools and face the fact that a religiously divided education system is unfit for the future, argues Stephen Evans.

* Segregating schools in NI causes gross inefficiencies, says report <[link removed]>

Taxpayers in Northern Ireland are wasting millions of pounds every year because of religious segregation in schools, a report has found.

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