Last month, the Scottish government passed legislation that places children’s rights in direct tension with the responsibilities of parents.
By removing the long‑held parental right to withdraw a son or daughter from Religious Education, now reframed as Religious and Moral Education (RME), the state has continued its over-reach into family life.
New powers given to schools mean that if a pupil objects to being withdrawn from Religious Observance (RO) activities such as assemblies, the school must prioritise the child’s wishes above those of the parent.
Expansive Interpretation Of Children’s Rights
This shift represents yet another step in Scotland’s steady move toward an expansive interpretation of the UNCRC and its definitions of children’s rights, often applied in ways far removed from a traditional, biblical understanding of the family. Scotland has consistently been an early adopter of state‑driven interventions in family life, seen most clearly in the highly controversial Named Person Scheme, which Christian Concern and others helped to oppose until it was abandoned in 2019.
Despite substantial concerns raised during the consultation period, with 84% of respondents warning the proposals would have a negative impact, MSPs pressed ahead, passing the legislation by 66 votes to 51.
Under the new framework, younger children may be deemed “capable of forming a view” even where their capacity is questionable. As we have seen in schools’ cultures with regards to LGBT issues, children can easily be swayed by peer pressure and activist influence within schools against parental wishes. This could easily apply to religiously motivated decisions. The government guidance states: “A child is assumed to be able to form a view unless it is shown otherwise.”
And who is tasked with “showing otherwise”? The school staff themselves, placing teachers in the deeply uncomfortable position of arbitrating between parents and their own children. This could fundamentally alter the trust relationship between home and school, whenever such conflict arises.
Parents who object to the content or tone of “Time to Reflect” sessions, which is often highly values‑laden, may find themselves powerless if a child has been persuaded by classmates or staff to take the opposite view, should they refuse the parental instruction for the pupil to be withdrawn.
No Right To Withdraw Children From RME Lessons
At the same time, parents have permanently lost the right to withdraw their children from RME lessons, despite legitimate concerns about increasingly ideological content being embedded across the curriculum. Scotland’s Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting (RSHP) programme already prevents parental withdrawal, even when explicit materials or controversial identity teachings conflict with the family’s Christian faith.
Sadly, Christian Concern has seen this pattern elsewhere across the UK. Parents are repeatedly sidelined while the state expands its authority over children’s moral and spiritual formation. Our cases such as the Izzy Montague challenge in London, where a mother objected to compulsory Pride‑themed activities, and the case of Nigel and Sally Rowe on transgender policies in primary schools demonstrate how parental rights are eroded when government agendas are treated as unquestionable.
In Scotland, there is a well-worn path of being early adopters of LGBT teaching embedded across the curriculum, and in their desire to ban so-called ‘conversion therapy’.
The State Has Decided It Knows Best
These stories reflect a broader trend: when the state or state actors decides they know best how to raise children, parents who hold to biblical convictions are increasingly marginalised or portrayed as obstacles to ‘progress’.
The removal of parental withdrawal from RME marks a significant milestone in this shift. It reflects the Welsh approach to the new mandatory Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE) curriculum, which prompted legal challenges from Christian parents who rightly argued that no nation should compel children to engage in worldview instruction without a parental safeguard.
Many Christians across Scotland see the same overreach unfolding before their eyes and are uniting to assert their God‑given responsibility to bring up their children “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
Niel Deepnarain, the founder of Unite for Education Scotland explained, “While the Bill is framed around children’s rights, it raises profound questions about the balance of responsibilities between the state, the school, the child, and the family. At Unite for Education, we recognise the importance of listening to children and respecting their developing capacities. However, we also believe that parents are the primary educators of their children, especially in areas of faith, values, and worldview. This Bill signals a shift in how Scotland understands that relationship. And for many families, this shift feels like a diminishing of the parental role, rather than a partnership with it. We at Unite for Education continue to advocate for an education system that honours God, respects parents, and upholds the vital role of families in shaping this generation and the next”
Parents Are The Primary Educators
The state’s determination of a child’s capacity must never override the biblical and natural role of parents as primary educators. These new regulations do not strengthen families, they undermine them. They risk placing children in spiritual and emotional confusion, elevating the transient and malleable preferences of a minor over the wisdom, care and long‑term responsibility of the parent.
Our sons and daughters were designed by God to be nurtured within families, not monitored and managed by government structures who can never love them. Schools should support, not supplant, the vital partnership with parents, should they delegate some of their education role to teachers. As Scotland pushes further down this troubling path, Christians must stand firm, speaking graciously yet boldly, to defend the God-given freedom of parents to direct the moral and religious upbringing of their children.
