Take action to end compulsory religious worship in schools! Contact your MSPs, donate to our campaign fundraiser

September 30, 2025

The Scottish Parliament will soon vote on a new Bill to reform opt-out rights for religious observance in schools. With our new letter template, you can tell your MSPs why school pupils deserve the right to opt themselves out.

Support our campaign to end compulsory worship in schools

Schools in Scotland are legally required to provide acts of religious observance (RO). This practice has been in place since 1872. A new Bill that would change who has the right to opt in or out of RO is currently going through the Scottish Parliament.

The Religious Observance Bill gives school pupils the independent right to opt in to religious worship against their parent’s wishes. But non-religious pupils who don’t feel comfortable taking part will still need parental permission to opt out. Our new report, Preaching is not Teaching, found that school pupils are being forced to pray and sing hymns against their own beliefs.

The government’s plans will create one set of rights for children who believe in a god and another for the majority of school pupils who don’t. The proposal also ignores calls from the United Nations and the Scottish Children’s Commissioner. Both organisations have stated that withholding the right to withdraw from worship amounts to a breach of pupils’ human rights.

Competent school pupils deserve the final say on religious observance, no matter their beliefs.

Write to your MSP

The first vote on the Religious Observance Bill is less than two months away. Now is the time to convince your MSPs that school pupils should have the right to opt out of religious worship. To help, we’ve produced a short template email. Simply type in your postcode, add your own thoughts if you wish, and it’ll be sent straight to your MSPs’ inboxes.

We also know that personal experiences from pupils, parents and teachers can be extremely effective in changing minds. That’s why we’re asking anyone with recent experience of religious observance in schools to add their own personal input.

USE OUR TEMPLATE TO CONTACT YOUR MSP

Donate to our campaign fundraiser

Church lobby groups are working hard behind the scenes to ensure pupils continue to have no real choice about attending religious worship. We are the only organisation consistently challenging that position – and we don’t have their institutional backing or resources.

We rely on small donations from people like you to keep up the fight. So far our kind donors have helped us raise over half of our £5,000 target to campaign on this issue this year. Your support so far has allowed us to produce our landmark report, Preaching is not Teaching, on the realities of religious worship in Scottish schools.

A donation today – of any amount – will help us to continue our advocacy work ahead of the first vote at Holyrood. Will you help us meet our campaign target?

DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR CAMPAIGN FOR A PUPIL OPT-OUT