Rev Nigel Genders, Church of England Chief Education Officer, responds to yesterday's New Statesman blog on Church schools
Church schools: No problem
The New Statesman blog The problem with Church schools? (they don’t help the poorest residents, but are filled with middle-class children) is a repetition of an old, factually incorrect argument. As the article makes clear there is little hard evidence and much opinion. Our own secondary schools have an average of 10% selection by religious criteria – this is based on church attendance, certainly not about feigning faith. At secondary level we also have as many pupils on free school meals as the national average, some much higher.
The majority of Church of England schools do not prioritise their places on the basis of church attendance, and most of those that do still make places available for children in the school’s immediate community. New Church of England schools, which are being established to meet the pressure on pupil places in a locality, are using distance from the school as the criterion for at least half of the intake, but in most cases for even more than that. But every context is different and schools use their criteria to best serve the interests of their community – wherever they are. It is for the local governing body to decide and they are best placed to understand the nuances of their own context.
The popularity of Church of England schools present a number of challenges for us because of oversubscription. But there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, A simple admission by distance from the school leads to selection by house price as a school improves and becomes popular, and is more likely to favour the middle class. We do not accept that those schools which prioritise some places on the basis of church attendance favour the middle classes. Attending church is available to all, free of charge, at a church within walking distance from any home. Until recently the alternative was to rely on a distance calculation, which is effectively offering selection by house-price – a deeply unattractive option. This year schools have been given the option to prioritise pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in their oversubscription criteria, and we hope this will be a helpful tool for many of our schools.
Research last year by the Social Integration Commission showed that churches and other places of worship are more successful than any other social setting at bringing people of different backgrounds together. They proved the most effective at mixing people from different social classes and races.
Anyone visiting our schools across the country will see a range of pupils from all faiths and none, and from all backgrounds. We run Christian schools for everyone, providing an inclusive and effective education, we are not – as the article seems to imply – running schools for middle class Christians.
Rev Nigel Genders
5TH MAR 2015