Northern Ireland Humanists

The public in Northern Ireland wants inclusive, balanced education about religions and humanism, not a system designed to deepen Christian faith. Promoting tolerance and nurturing understanding starts in school, and good RE does this. humanists.uk/2025/12/11/new…

'Foundation Stage, Learning Objective 1: The Revelation of God.' That’s what Northern Ireland’s RE curriculum starts with. Here’s our breakdown of what’s in it, and why – after the Supreme Court ruling – it urgently needs to become plural, objective, and inclusive. humanists.uk/2025/12/09/the…

Children deserve an education that respects their freedom of religion or belief, that teaches the beliefs of others, and helps them explore their own. This should be true for religions and humanism. They should not have a system that evangelises to them. soundcloud.com/humanistsuk/ni…

Children deserve an education that respects their freedom of religion or belief, that teaches them about the beliefs of others, and that helps them explore their own. Write to your MLAs today. humanists.uk/2025/11/26/ni-…

The ruling has clear, huge implications for how RE is provided in Northern Ireland and on its requirement for collective worship. The Minister of Education must now urgently review both. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

The Supreme Court recently ruled that an exclusively Christian Religious Education and collective worship is 'indoctrination'. We now need an urgent review of both from the Northern Ireland Executive. Write to your MLAs today and demand a review! humanists.uk/action/impleme…

When it comes to religion, pupils deserve an objective, pluralistic, and objective education. It's not about removing Christianity from a new curriculum, it's about not indoctrinating children through religious instruction in that curriculum. soundcloud.com/humanistsuk/th…

• RE is written by the 4 main churches • That content literally starts with 'THE REVELATION OF GOD' • Christianity is taught as fact. • ALL NI schools are Christian schools Listen to @NIhumanists Boyd Sleator on BBC Radio Ulster 👇 soundcloud.com/humanistsuk/ho…

Education in Northern Ireland: ✝️ RE written by 4 largest churches ✝️ Collective worship and Christian ethos in all schools ✝️Church representatives on Boards of Governors 'This in its totality amounts to indoctrination' Our Northern Ireland Coordinator Boyd Sleator speaking facts on ITV 👏

'This is what we've been working for since we set up shop 10 years ago.' Our Coordinator Boyd Sleator on the BBC. The ruling means the RE curriculum will need to re-written, ideally by education professionals and not only by the 4 largest churches. soundcloud.com/humanistsuk/su…

'A new curriculum needs to be written. Currently, it's written by the four largest denominational churches... It has to be written by education professionals and include humanist content.' @NIhumanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator featured on BBC Newsline. Boyd appears at 1:33 👏

The Christian religious education taught in schools in Northern Ireland is unlawful, the UK Supreme Court rules. bbc.in/4oRuBPE

This judgment is a historic win for the rights of children in Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court has concluded that the RE syllabus is 'indoctrination' and the right to withdraw from RE and mandatory collective worship is insufficient to deal with this humanists.uk/2025/11/19/sup…

This exposes the deeper problem: the framework still assumes a Protestant - Catholic binary, penalises areas where one tradition predominates, and gives ministers broad discretion to block change even with strong parental support, sidelining non-religious families and others.

The schools challenged the decision. The court backed Givan, finding 'no evidence' of demand for integrated education among local Catholic families and concluding that, on the current statutory test and guidance in use, the minister had acted within the law.

A major legal and political setback for integrated education in NI. The judgment upholds Paul Givan's veto on two schools seeking integrated status – demonstrating how outdated the law on 'integration' has become, and why it is failing parents. humanists.uk/2025/10/15/jud…

They also show something else. Northern Ireland is not the country it used to be. Gone is the era when the population might be stereotyped as entirely Protestant or Catholic. It is clear that there is a third major group in NI society today – and that’s us

It’s official: 15% of all marriages in Northern Ireland last year were humanist marriages. This means it is highly likely that there were more humanist marriages than religious marriages conducted by the three big Protestant churches. humanists.uk/2025/09/15/nor…

These figures confirm what we’ve seen in practice: more and more couples are choosing a humanist marriage ceremony because they want something authentic, personal, and reflective of their own lives and beliefs.