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Joanne Harris, author of the bestselling novel Chocolat, has very strong views on the role of faith schools in society.

She believes they are outdated, divisive and that our taxes should not be used to fund them.

For Inside Out (Monday 1 March 2010, 7.30pm, Ö÷²¥´óÐã One Yorkshire & Lincolnshire), Joanne visits four very different schools: a Jewish primary school in Leeds; a Catholic high school in Wath upon Dearne; a private Muslim girls' school in Huddersfield; and a Sheffield comprehensive whose head is defying the law by refusing to hold a Christian assembly.

Joanne, who herself used to teach at a school in Dewsbury, argues that schools are places of learning not of worship.

She said: "I was a teacher for 15 years and have always believed that religion only has a place in school if it's being taught as a subject.

"It is important to learn about it. As a writer it's hard for me not to be fascinated by the stories told in the holy books.

"To divide pupils on the basis of their parents' religion can only be harmful to society."

She said: "Faith is something we choose to believe. We don't need it to be proved. Facts are things that we learn at school usually because they have been proved.

"Are these two things really compatible in our educational system?"

Samira Elturabi, Head of Islamia Girls' High School, argues that the children at her school benefit:

“They have just one life, when they go home they are Muslim women, when they come here they are Muslim. There are no two characters, personalities. This makes them feel more confident.

"At the same time, they are encouraged to go ahead for higher education, encouraged to go to university, some of them doctors, some of them lawyers.

"They benefit from this environment."

At a Catholic high school, Joanne questions how the school is able to tackle issues such as abortion within the framework of their curriculum.

Anne Winfield, Head of St Pius X Catholic High School, said: "Obviously we teach the students the Church's teachings, that abortion is wrong in all circumstances.

"But nobody ever says you have got to believe this. They will say we are Catholics, this is what the Catholic Church believes, they get the opportunity to talk around it and they give their views."

At the school, Joanne meets a student with no religious belief who says that there is no division between Catholic and non-Catholic students at the school.

She tells Joanne she has felt as welcomed as anyone else.

At a comprehensive school, Firth Park School, Joanne sees how the required act of Christian worship has been replaced with a secular assembly.

Mo Laycock, Head of the school, said: "We offer opportunities to children to have privacy to pray, to talk, to share their views and beliefs. But we won't be offering a daily act of corporate worship.

"I think young and vulnerable minds need to grow, need to understand the world and the communities we come from, and that needs to happen in the widest possible way.

"And therefore I personally can't and don't support faith schools."

At the end of her journey, Joanne said: "I still don't believe that our taxes are well spent on funding this slightly divisive religious worship.

"I think that it's time we decided that our moral instruction of our children is something that can be done in an entirely secular way and take the act of worship out of state schools for good."

HH2