Cartoon showing a child with a speech bubble above their head containing a question mark.

My Beliefs, My Choice

We call on the Scottish Government to end compulsory religious worship in schools.

In Scotland children and young people have no right to opt themselves out of acts of religious observance at school. This does not respect children and young people’s freedom of expression or right to their own beliefs, and fails to meet the standards set under the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child. We believe that pupils, when they reach sufficient maturity, should have the final say on taking part in religious worship.

The problem

All state-funded schools in Scotland are legally required to provide religious observance to pupils. Children and young people cannot choose to opt themselves out of religious observance. This is at odds with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), including Article 14, which specifies children’s right to hold no faith. The UNCRC was incorporated into Scots Law in July 2024. Public authorities are now required to embed children’s rights into their policies and children have new powers to challenge the law when their rights are breached.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has twice recommended that compulsory collective worship in state-funded schools in Scotland be repealed, and that children be allowed to independently exercise their right to opt out of religious observance at school. Polling from November 2025 also found that 66% of Scots support an independent pupil opt-out from religious observance.

The solution

We want the Scottish government to give all school pupils the option of whether or not to participate in religious observance at school. Compulsory attendance should be repealed and replaced by an opt-in model.

Our campaign

We have campaigned for an end to compulsory religious observance for many years and work in partnership with Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) to hold the Scottish government to account in its commitment to incorporating the UNCRC and addressing this incompatibility. We also meet and correspond directly with the Scottish government to protect the right of Scotland’s children and young people to freedom of belief at school.

I don’t like to go to the church with my school because it feels like I’m being forced to paint my room a colour I don’t like.
School pupil, aged 10

In 2025 we launched our landmark report Preaching is Not Teaching. This examined the state of religious observance in schools around Scotland. We found evidence of RO being delivered in a confessional manner by Christian clergy. This made some non-religious pupils feel isolated and uncomfortable. We called for children and young people to have the right to withdraw themselves from religious observance, in line with UN recommendations.

The Scottish Parliament is currently scrutinising a new bill that seeks to reform withdrawal rights for religious education and religious observance in schools. religious observance bill. The bill falls short of allowing pupils to opt themselves out of RO and discriminates against non-religious parents and young people. We continue to urge MSPs to amend the bill so Scotland meets its human rights obligations in this area.

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