This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition Replace compulsory Religious Education in schools with Sign Language classes
Replacing R.E. with the option of Sign Language would give pupils who have no interest in religious studies a chance to learn a valuable life skill whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life for those in the wider community living with hearing impairment
More details
Religious Education is becoming increasingly irrelevant in our modern secular society and should be the remit of religious organisations and not schools. R.E., while it does include sections on various religions, is still predominantly Christian-focused. Pupils come from many different faiths and many come from non-religious households. R.E. is not useful in further education or our working lives. It is outdated, practically useless and a waste of valuable teaching time.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
Petitions need to call on the Government or Parliament to take a specific action.
We understand that you want to see changes to the national curriculum, but your petition refers to the option of sign language classes, so it's not clear if you want the Government to replace mandatory curriculum content on religious education with optional content on sign language, or do something else.
You could start a new petition explaining clearly what you would like the Government or Parliament to do.
We have published the following petition, which you might like to sign:
Add sign language on to the national schools curriculum: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599565
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.