The right of withdrawal from religious education in England: school leaders' beliefs, experiences and understandings of policy and practice

The right of parents to withdraw children from RE was conceived as a protection for the rights of religious minorities at a time when Religious Instruction in the community school was of a Christian confessional nature, this paper questions whether this provision is still coherent or necessary for contemporary multi-faith RE. Based on a survey of 450 headteachers and RE coordinators. Total of 70.5% of participants believe that the right to withdraw is no longer required. Participants' experiences of the right of withdrawal requests, such as the reasons given by parents, were correlated to their views on the right to withdraw. Exploring the roots of that belief in more detail we found that the majority of participants had experienced withdrawal requests for various reasons, and a sizeable minority (41.2%) had experienced requests to withdraw selectively from parts of RE. We also found considerable confusion regarding the legal status of withdrawal requests.