Scrap worship in school, say teachers

Children should no longer be required to attend Christian prayers when other faiths are present in classrooms, a union conference will be told today.

Secular schools in particular should be exempt, members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers say, as faith groups have a growing role in education. Muslim and Hindu state schools have opened in London in the last year, while Christian charity the Oasis Trust is expanding its chain of academies.

Delegates at the conference in Liverpool believe a diverse society requires revisions to the 60-year-old law. Gareth Lewis, a physics teacher from Wrexham, is proposing that "a daily act of worship should not be a statutory requirement in a secular school". He said: "Schools should have acts of worship as it's part of the youngsters' education, but the school should decide when, where and how."

The association has dismissed Children's Secretary Ed Balls's decision to keep the terms history and geography in the primary school curriculum after outcry over plans to replace traditional subject divisions.

Deputy general secretary Martin Johnson dismissed the row as "politics, not education" and said the name of the curriculum unit would make no difference to what children learned.