Schoolgirls are forced to take off chastity rings - or be ordered out of lessons It is only a band of silver, imprinted with a Bible verse, worn by a schoolgirl. But the decision by one of the country's top state schools to ban American-style 'purity rings'. . . has prompted not just a standoff with local parents, but a debate over religious expression and sex education. Heather and Philip Playfoot have spent almost two years in dispute with Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, over their 15-year-old daughter Lydia's ring. While the school's uniform rules forbid jewellery, they argue that the rings - given to teenagers who complete a controversial evangelical church course preaching sexual abstinence - hold genuine religious significance. 'The ring is a reminder to them of the promise they have made, much the same as a wedding ring is an outward sign of an inward promise,' said Heather Playfoot. 'There are Muslim girls in the school who are allowed to wear the headcovering, although that isn't part of the school uniform, and Sikh girls who are allowed to wear the bangle although that isn't part of the uniform. The issue has now been taken up by the Tory MP Andrew Selous, chair of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, who raised the wearing of purity rings with the Schools Minister Jim Knight in the House of Commons last week. Knight told him in a written parliamentary answer that while school governors had freedom to set uniform rules, government guidance states that they 'should have regard to their responsibilities under equalities legislation' and be 'sensitive to pupils' cultural and religious needs'. Selous said while many schools banned jewellery he did not see a problem with purity rings, adding: 'Given that the government is failing to achieve its teenage pregnancy targets, you would have thought that schools would do everything in their power to help children help themselves.' However Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society defended the school, adding: 'If the school has the uniform policy I don't see why it should make an exception for this. I'm deeply distrustful of these Silver Ring Thing-type initiatives: the research is quite clear that they don't work.' [TBC: Anything that remotely resembles moral guidance from Scripture must be dismissed. That is the way of the world.] -----------------------------------------------------------------------