Education Act 1996

376 Religious education: county schools

(1) In the case of a county school, the provision for religious education for pupils at the school which is required by section 352(1)(a) to be included in the school’s basic curriculum is provision for religious education in accordance with an agreed syllabus adopted for the school or for those pupils.

(2) No agreed syllabus shall provide for religious education to be given to pupils at a county school by means of any catechism or formulary which is distinctive of a particular religious denomination (but this is not to be taken as prohibiting provision in such a syllabus for the study of such catechisms or formularies).

(3) If, in the case of a county secondary school so situated that arrangements cannot conveniently be made for the withdrawal of pupils from it in accordance with section 389 to receive religious education elsewhere, the local education authority are satisfied—

(a) that the parents of any pupils at the school desire them to receive religious education in the school in accordance with the tenets of a particular religion or religious denomination, and

(b) that satisfactory arrangements have been made for the provision of such education to those pupils in the school, and for securing that the cost of providing such education to those pupils in the school will not fall upon the authority,

the authority shall (unless they are satisfied that because of any special circumstances it would be unreasonable to do so) provide facilities for the carrying out of those arrangements.