The school is required to follow guidance from its local Archbishop, which mandates it to give priority to children from Catholic families when it is over-subscribed. An extract from the letter to affected parents read: “[Our] Trust Deed requires us to prioritise Catholics, and … as a school we cannot deviate from the Trust Deed…. [The Diocese lawyer] advised us that other schools had faced our predicament and consequently also sought advice from the Diocese, whereupon the issue had been referred to the (then) Director of Education for Westminster, Paul Barber. He confirmed that, given the terms of the Trust Deed, there was no scope for change.”

The case echoes that of Kentish Town Church of England Primary School in the London Borough of Camden, where nine children with an older sibling at the school have been denied a place this coming September, after a surge of applications were received from children who had attended a local Church. Under the school’s current arrangements children who attend Sunday Mass at the nearby St Benet’s & St Silas Church twelve or more times in the preceding year are prioritised over children with a brother or sister at the school. Earlier this month the school decided to change its admissions policy from September 2014 onwards, so that children who already had a sibling at the school were prioritised ahead of children admitted on faith grounds.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, said ‘Having religious selection at schools within the state system causes a wide range of problems, and these are not just realised at a community level, such as through the negative effects for social cohesion by segregating children, but they also directly impact upon numerous families throughout the county, as these two cases in London highlight.’

‘School’s conduct should be exemplary, and no state funded schools should be discriminating on the grounds of religion. The blinkered pursuit by religiously selective schools to serve their own, rather than the wider community, and in this case, the families of children at the school, brings into question whether they are fulfilling the social contract that people might reasonably expect of them.

‘A humane, and also a religious response would be to find room for siblings of existing children and not to use religious discrimination to split families. That does not sit well with the values of most faiths.

‘Although nine children with a sibling at Kentish Town Church of England Primary have lost out this year, and although the school will continue to privilege children on faith grounds in its admission policy, the recent change to its policy is to be welcomed as a step in the right direction, and Accord urges the Archdiocese of Westminster to critically engage with the issues that Kentish Town Church of England School has done.’

Notes

Sacred Heart Primary School’s case was highlighted this week by the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, a local group endorsed by the Accord Coalition, which campaigns against religious discrimination in pupil admissions at state funded schools in the London Borough of Richmond.

Guidance for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Westminster, including about their approach to pupil admissions, is contained in the document ‘The Trust Deed for Catholic Schools and Colleges in the Archdiocese of Westminster’.

Among the report’s key findings were calls to the Department for Education to ensure that there is better training for new and existing PSHE teachers, that schools have better access to guidance highlighting examples of best practice, and that the Department should give a clear message to schools about the importance of PSHE. However, these recommendations make awkward reading for Ministers, as they follow on from the conclusion of the Government’s own nineteen month review of PSHE, which was published in March.

The Government’s review did not set out firm proposals for improving teacher training, but instead its publication coincided with an announcement that the PSHE Association would have its funding reduced, while the Government did not consider whether PSHE should be added to the National Curriculum, which would ensure that all schools provide it. Meanwhile, the latest draft of the Government’s revised National Curriculum offers less information on the teaching of biological aspects of sex education than is included in the current National Curriculum.

This is despite there being a cross-party consensus in support of proposals to make PSHE, which includes Sex and Relationships Education, a statutory entitlement for young people as part of the National Curriculum, when an unsuccessful attempt to establish this was made during passage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009/2010. The proposals were also supported by the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales and the Church of England.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘Surveys show that parents want children to receive PSHE, that pupils want to receive more and better quality PSHE, and that teachers want extra support and materials to help in teaching it. The report from OFSTED also highlights various areas of major weakness in PSHE provision, which it thinks should be addressed.

‘However, in stark contrast the Government has done little to improve the standing and provision of PSHE, and may now even undermine it by reducing the modest amount of sex education that is currently required to be taught as Science in the National Curriculum. The Government’s position seems increasingly isolated, detached and hard to understand. To deny pupils information about how their bodies work, as well as personal boundaries, how to resist pressure, how to seek help and misleading and inappropriate messages in the media places the future health and well-being of children and young people at risk.

‘OFSTED’s report highlights a close correlation between schools rated as outstanding in their provision of PSHE, and also those schools that were rated as outstanding in their overall effectiveness and the grades that pupils achieved. This should send yet another powerful signal to the Government about how boosting pupils’ emotional, behavioural and social well-being also boosts their achievements and general fulfilment, both academically at school and during later life.’

OFSTED’s new report ‘Not yet good enough: personal, social, health and economic education in schools’ found that PSHE education was good or better in 60% of schools, but required improvement or was inadequate in 40%. It found that at 20% of schools staff had received little or no training to teach PSHE education, and that many teachers lacked expertise in teaching sensitive and controversial issues, which resulted in some topics such as sexuality, mental health and domestic violence being omitted from the curriculum. The report highlighted concern that a lack of high-quality, age-appropriate Sex and Relationships Education in schools may leave children and young people vulnerable to inappropriate sexual behaviours and sexual exploitation. It also noted that the weakest aspect of PSHE teaching was that the assessment of pupils’ learning was usually less robust for PSHE education than for other subjects.

Notes

OFSTED’s report ‘Not yet good enough: personal, social, health and economic education in schools’ can be found at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/not-yet-good-enough-personal-social-health-and-economic-education-schools.

The PSHE Association is the national subject association for professionals working in PSHE education.

The NSPCC report ‘Child cruelty in the UK 2011: An NSPCC study into childhood abuse and neglect over the past 30 years’ found that in 2009, one in four 18-24 year olds (25.3%) had been physically attacked by an adult during childhood, sexually assaulted, or severely neglected at home, and that one in twenty children (4.8%) had been sexually assaulted – either by an adult or another child.

The report ‘Sex and Relationship Education: Views from teachers, parents and governors’ (2010), commissioned by the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, the National Association of Head Teachers, the National Governors Association and Durex, found that 90% of parents and 93% of Governors thought schools should be involved in providing SRE, but that 80% of teachers do not feel sufficiently well trained and confident to talk about SRE. Only 9% of school leaders rated the teaching materials available to them as ‘very useful’. More than one in four school leaders and a fifth of governors believe that current SRE in schools is failing children by preparing them for the future ‘not well’ or ‘not at all well’.

A poll from Brook in November 2011 found that around one in four 12 to 18 year olds in the UK indicated that they didn’t receive any Sex and Relationships Education in school at all.

‘Schools in England and Wales are held back by laws that require they provide a daily act of collective worship of a wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, unless a school is a non-Christian faith school, when they are required to provide assemblies that are distinctive of their faith. However, while these requirements must be changed, schools should not only creatively use the current flexibility under the law to provide a programme of assemblies that are made a bit more appropriate to their student body, like Slough and Eton College, but they should provide assemblies that are accessible for all and draw upon and forge shared values, investigating ethical and moral values from a variety of sources, including religious and philosophical.

‘School’s conduct should be exemplary, and this kind of approach would be much more appropriate and respectful in a society such as ours with increasingly religious plurality and a growth in the non-religious. Slough and Eton College’s approach is just a small step, and they and many other schools still have a long way to go.’

Notes

This story first appeared in yesterday’s Sunday Times (£).

The latest guidance on Collective Worship for schools produced by NASACRE and AREIAC can be found at http://www.nasacre.org.uk/downloads/CollWorRevisit.pdf.

A July 2010 YouGov poll commissioned by the Accord Coalition found that 43% of GB adults agreed (to 30% against) that the laws that require schools to provide daily collective worship, including in faith schools, should be replaced by a requirement that they hold assemblies which consider spiritual, moral and ethical issues shared by different religions and by those who are not religious: http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Accord-Coalition-Opinion-Poll-by-YouGov-July-2010.xls.

‘Worship in School Study’ for the BBC by ComRes in July 2011 found only 60% of adults (to 36%) thought the Collective Worship laws should be enforced: http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/BBC_Religion_Worship_in_schools_results_(plus_regions)_July11.pdf

• maintained schools must consider, in particular, how the RE and assemblies they provide meet their legal requirement to provide a Curriculum that provides pupils ‘for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’
• maintained schools are reminded of their legal duty to promote community cohesion and to consider how their teaching may advance this
• the value of providing assemblies that forge shared values is stressed
• the sex education provided as part of science at the primary stage should ensure that both boys and girls know about puberty before they experience the onset of physical changes and know how a baby is born, as the Government’s own SRE guidance recommends
• sexual health and contraception is included in Key Stage Three
• schools are encouraged to raise awareness of gender variance

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain said, ‘We wanted age appropriate Sex and Relationships and Religious Education to be included in the National Curriculum, and are disappointed that the Government chose not to review the standing of these subjects, along with school assemblies, as part of its Curriculum review.

‘However, as there may still be room for debate about the wording of the Curriculum, we have made a range of suggestions about how it could make a stronger emphasis on schools promoting shared values and the growth of mutual understanding, as well enhancing the provision for sex education. The draft Curriculum is currently worded in a way that would allow schools to deny pupils vital knowledge about how their bodies work and risks they may face, as well as for schools to not consider their contribution to social cohesion.’

Last week the Accord Coalition joined over one hundred groups and individual experts in a joint letter, which argued that the current draft National Curriculum would have a ‘negative effect on sex education’ and called on the Government to include the ‘essentials of sex education in science’.

The letter, signed by Accord’s Chair, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, follows publication by the Government of its revised draft National Curriculum in February, which offers less information on the teaching of sex education than in the current National Curriculum. The Accord Coalition had previously written to the Government about its proposals for the provision of sex education in Science, describing them as ‘cursory’.

Rabbi Romain said ‘Accord believes that all schools should teach age appropriate sex and relationships education, and we supports a rights based approach to its provision, grounded on evidence and needs of children and young people. Children are bombarded by misleading messages about sex and relationships in the media, and should be entitled o know about how their body work and of risks they may face.

‘However, the sex education element of the National Curriculum for Science is the only sex education that schools have to offer, and thus that some pupils will ever receive, so has added importance. The development of high quality and thorough sex education in schools is being frustrated by a small, but vocal and ideologically driven lobby, whose opinions lack firm evidence. We consequently therefore enthusiastically support this letter.’

The SEF is the country’s leading authority on age appropriate Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), which Accord joined in August 2012. The joint letter and its signatories are reproduced below:

“Sir, We are deeply concerned that the science curriculum proposals will have a negative effect on sex education.

Children have a right to learn about their bodies, physical development and reproduction. We know there is easy access to explicit sexual images on the internet. The National Curriculum science is the only compulsory part of sex and relationships education in schools and must teach children about how their bodies work to prepare them for growing up and to protect them from harm. However, the science proposals omit any reference to genitalia, puberty or sexual health.

We believe that these proposals will not help schools to ‘create an honest and open culture around sex and relationships’, as set out in the new Framework for Sexual Health Improvement. It is time to put any adult squeamishness about sex aside. We urge the government to safeguard children by unambiguously including the essentials of sex education in science.

Dr Hilary Emery, National Children’s Bureau; Justine Roberts, Mumsnet; Jane Lees, Sex Education Forum; Dr Anthony Falconer, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Professor Lindsey Davies, Faculty of Public Health; Reg Bailey, Chief Executive, Mothers Union; National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People; Annette Smith, Chief Executive, Association for Science Education; Dr Chris Wilkinson, President, Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health; Dr Audrey Simpson, OBE, Acting Chief Executive, FPA (Family Planning Association); Sir Nick Partridge, CEO, tht (Terence Higgins Trust); Helen Lansdown, CEO, Deafax; Simon Blake, OBE, CEO, Brook; Royal College of Nursing; Institute of Health Promotion and Education (IHPE); Janet Atherton, President, Association of Directors of Public Health; Association of Young People’s Health; Martin Tod, Chief Executive, Men’s Health Forum; British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS); Jonathan Bartley, Co-Director, Ekklesia; Derek McAuley, Chief Officer, General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches; Martin Pendergast, Chairperson, Centre for the Study of Christianity & Sexuality; Leap Confronting Conflict; Charlotte Hill, Chief Executive, UK Youth; Susanne Rauprich, Chief Executive, National Council for Voluntary Youth Services; Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, MBE, Chair of The Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education; UK Youth Parliament; British Youth Council; Youth Net; ASDAN

And supported by the 75 member organisations of the Sex Education Forum:

Action for Children; APAUSE; Avert; ASHEC; BARCA-Leeds; Barnardo’s; Big Talk Education; Black Health Agency; Body & Soul; British Humanist Association; Brook London; Cambridge Education @ Islington; Caught in the Act; CHIV; Children’s Society; Church of England Education Division; The Christopher Winter Project; Cornwall Learning; CPHVA; CSN Consultancy Ltd; Deafax; Dept of Sexual & Reproductive Health Lewisham PCT Community Health Services; Esteem Resource Network; Family Lives; FFLAG; Forward UK; Grace Academy Foundation; Image in Action; KIDS; Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement; Loudmouth Education & Training; Marie Stopes International; MEDFASH; Mencap; The Methodist Church; NAPCE; National AIDS Trust; National Secular Society; Naz Project London; National Children’s Bureau; NGA; NHEG; Nottingham Domestic Violence Forum; NSCoPSE; National Youth Agency; Oasis; One Plus One; Oxfordshire County Council; Platform 51; Population Matters; PSHE Association; Relate; Richmond upon Thames College; Romance Academy; Scope; Sexpression:UK; SHARe Team (Sexual Health and Relationships Team); SRE in London; Stonewall; Straight Talking Peer Education; StreetwiseGB; Teaching Lifeskills; Teens & Toddlers; Tender; Womankind; Woodhouse College; Working with Men

And supported by life members of the Sex Education Forum:

Anne Weyman, OBE; Sue Plant; Dilys Went; Hilary Dixon; Liz Swinden; Lorna Scott; Melody Dougan; Hansa Patel-Kanwal, OBE; Jo Adams, MBE; Gill Frances, OBE; Alison Hadley, OBE”

Notes

In December a cross Party enquiry of MPs looking into the issue of teenage pregnancy recommended that schools be required to provide pupils with Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), and that teachers of SRE receive compulsory training in the subject. Their report, The Morning After: A Cross Party Inquiry into Unplanned Pregnancy, can be found here.

Similarly the House of Lords Select Committee on HIV and AIDS urged that SRE be made a part of the National Curriculum in their report ‘No vaccine, no cure: HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom‘, published in September 2011.

In July 2012 Channel 4 withdrew a resource that it had made available over the preceding ten years that supported the teaching of SRE in primary schools, so as to ensure that their products reflected the government’s ‘current policy’.

In January 2012 Nadine Dorries MP tabled, though later withdrew a Private Members’ Bill, which called for schools to teach girls aged 13 to 16 the ‘benefits of abstinence from sexual activity’.

The NSPCC’ report  ‘Child cruelty in the UK 2011: An NSPCC study into childhood abuse and neglect over the past 30 years’ found that in 2009 one in four 18-24 year olds (25.3%) had been physically attacked by an adult during childhood, sexually assaulted, or severely neglected at home and that one in twenty children (4.8%) had been sexually assaulted – either by an adult or another child.

Sex and Relationship Education: Views from teachers, parents and governors (2010) found that 90% of parents thought schools should be involved in providing SRE, but that 80% of teachers do not feel sufficiently well trained and confident to talk about SRE, only 9% of school leaders rated the teaching materials available to them as ‘very useful’, and more than one in four school leaders rated the current provision of SRE in schools in preparing children for the future as ‘not well’ or ‘not at all well’.

‘The Government’s commitment to PSHE is half hearted and inadequate. High quality PSHE, which includes age appropriate Sex and Relationships Education, improves children and young people’s health and wellbeing. Surveys show that parents want children to receive PSHE, children want to receive more and better quality PSHE, and teachers want extra support and materials to help in teaching it.

‘We welcome that the Government intends on providing a small grant to the PSHE Association to work with schools to advise them in developing their own PSHE curricula and improve the quality of teaching. However, PSHE teacher training and resources for teaching staff remain insufficient, and children and families continue to face a lottery about whether or how seriously their school takes PSHE.

‘At a time when children are bombarded by media messages about sex and subject to peer pressure, the Government has decided to stick its head in the sand. Its commitment to PSHE is half hearted, inadequate and has placed the future health and wellbeing of children and young people at risk.’

The Government statement was made this morning in the House of Commons by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, Elizabeth Truss MP. The Accord Coalition responded to the Government’s PSHE consultation back in November 2011.

Notes

The outcomes of the Department for Education PSHE review are available to view here.

The NSPCC report Child cruelty in the UK 2011: An NSPCC study into childhood abuse and neglect over the past 30 years found that in 2009, one in four 18-24 year olds (25.3%) had been physically attacked by an adult during childhood, sexually assaulted, or severely neglected at home, and that one in twenty children (4.8%) had been sexually assaulted – either by an adult or another child.

Addressing the Home Affairs Select Committee on June 12^th, 2012, Sue Berelowitz, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, gave a shocking testimony on the prevalence of sexual exploitation of children in England, which she claimed took place in every ‘town, village and hamlet’ in England.

Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) forms an integral part of PSHE and SRE provision in the UK currently lags behind that of many developed countries. A 2007 survey by the UK Youth parliament of over 20,000 young people found that shockingly 61 per cent of boys and 70 per cent of girls aged over 17 reported not receiving any information at school about personal relationships.

An Ofsted report on PSHE published in 2010 found that some aspects of SRE were less well taught than others, particularly relationships. Amongst the report’s key findings, it was concerned over a lack of discrete curriculum time in a quarter of schools visited, particularly at secondary schools, which meant that programmes of study were not covered in full. The areas that suffered most included Sex and Relationships Education and mental health issues.

The report Sex and Relationship Education: Views from teachers, parents and governors, commissioned by the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, the National Association of Head Teachers, the National Governors Association and Durex, found that 90% of parents and 93% of Governors thought schools should be involved in providing SRE, but that 80% of teachers do not feel sufficiently well  trained and confident to talk about SRE. Only 9% of school leaders rated the teaching materials available to them as ‘very useful’. More than one in four school leaders and a fifth of governors believe that current SRE in schools is failing children by preparing them for the future ‘not well’ or ‘not at all well’.

Support for making SRE statutory has extended to the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales and the Church of England. Both groups supported SRE becoming part of the National Curriculum at primary and secondary levels when proposed by the un-amended Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009-2010.

‘The Accord Coalition has long warned that omitting RE from the EBacc was effectively downgrading it and telling head teachers to give it less priority, and we are now seeing results of that omission. The report paints a disturbing picture of RE as a malnourished subject on the slide, and it makes a strong case for much better resourcing of training and career professional development for teachers, and better monitoring of the quality of the provision of RE in schools.

‘However, Accord welcomes, in particular, the report’s call for Ofsted to report on whether schools are meeting their legal obligations to provide RE, and also that Academies should be required to follow their locally agreed RE syllabuses. These two recommendations, along with including RE in the EBacc, would have little in the way of extra resource implications, but help restore the subject’s waning status.’

The report was published after a three month long inquiry by the APPG into the supply of and support for Religious Education (RE) teachers in schools, including a review of evidence from over 400 sources, which included from the Accord Coalition. Among its key findings were that over fifty per cent of those teaching RE in secondary schools have no qualification or relevant expertise in the subject; that a quarter of all primary schools that responded said the subject was taught by a teaching assistant, and that support for RE teachers at a local level has been dramatically reduced by local authority funding cuts and the expansion of the Academies programme.

The report found that a range of contributory factors had lead to a lowering of standards of RE in schools in addition to RE’s exclusion from the English Baccalaureate. These included a recent reduction in the number of RE teacher training places, and inadequate access to support for many teaching staff. The report argued that the combined effect of these factors left many teachers struggling to reach the levels of subject competence expected in the Department for Education’s own teaching standards.

Among its key recommendations were that the Department for Education should require secondary teachers to receive some training in any subject they teach, to restore bursaries for RE trainees, and to ensure that the local authority committees overseeing the provision of RE to be better resourced. The report also called for better online resources for RE teachers, both to boost their career professional development and subject knowledge.

Notes

A poll released by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE) last September indicated that 28% of schools were not adhering to their legal commitments with regard to the provision of RE at Key Stage Four, up from 28% when NATRE polled the same question in 2011.

The NASUWT’s ‘English Baccalaureate Survey Summary’, released in June 2011, surveyed over 2,400 NASUWT members working in the secondary sector in England to assess their early experiences of the impact of the English Baccalaureate performance indicator. It indicated that 10% of schools had reported a decline in their planned provision of RE since the English Baccalaureate was introduced, and found that a quarter of all academies and community schools did not provide statutory RE for their 14 – 16 year old pupils.

The annual Award, now in its fourth year, seeks to reward those institutions that do most to promote an ethos of inclusion and the growth of mutual understanding, with particular regard to inclusion and understanding on the grounds of religion and belief. The 2013 Award is the first time that special schools have been a recognised.

Pupils at Little Heath School.

Little Heath School won strong praise from the judges for its innovative approach to RE, which since its nomination for the Award was submitted has been highlighted by Ofsted as an example for other special schools to follow. The school’s approach builds on pupil’s life experiences, and children are taught about a wide range of world faiths and Humanism. The judges also praised Little Heath for its use of dance in its schools assemblies to inspire and develop pupil’s values and beliefs.

The second place school, Thornhill School, earned strong commendation for its multifaceted approach to tackling prejudice and intolerance. The school has developed a peer mentoring group designed to tackle bullying and harassment and ensure that pupils seek help, which has formed an important part of its pastoral care. The school had also formed a rap group, with respect as the central theme of its work, which has performed to local children in its local region. Meanwhile, pupils at the school took part in a professionally produced advert, made in partnership with the NHS, which challenged stigma surrounding mental health problems and has been broadcast in cinemas.

The third place school, Oakleigh School in the Borough of Barnet, won praise for its celebration of the different cultural backgrounds and religious and non-religious beliefs of pupil’s families in assemblies. The also school takes special care to ensure that pupils followed dietary and cultural rules in accordance with their parent’s or carer’s wishes, while pupils, parents, carers and siblings are offered arts therapy.

This year’s Award was judged by another diverse and experienced awarding panel, which comprised of:

• Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers
• Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords
• John Keast OBE, Chair of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales
• Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, Chair of the Accord Coalition
• The Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson, The Bishop of Buckingham

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain said ‘As this year’s Award highlights, the promotion of inclusion and the growth of mutual understanding can and should be embraced by all schools, and the panel were delighted to recognise the winning schools for their innovative practices and firm commitment to ensuring they promoted and inspired cohesiveness and respect’.

Responding to the news, Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, said ‘Many state funded faith schools do not select pupils on faith grounds, yet still maintain their ethos. The Deputy Prime Minister has successfully exercised his right of trying to send his child to a school with a religious character, and I urge him to remember the inequity of faith discrimination, the consequences for society of segregating young people on religious lines and advocate his Party’s policy surrounding faith selection within Government. So far little practical action has been taken to implement this policy, and we urge the Liberal Democrat Party to seek ways of doing so.’

In 2009 the Liberal Democrats adopted policy to ensure that schools within the state funded faith sector are inclusive. Their policy paper ‘Equity and Excellence’ committed the party to stopping schools being established that would select by faith, and requiring existing state-funded faith schools to come forward within five years with plans to demonstrate the inclusiveness of their intakes, with local authorities empowered to oversee and approve delivery of these plans, and for funding to even be withdrawn where ‘inclusiveness’ was not demonstrated. The Party later reaffirmed its support for the policy paper at its 2010 Autumn Conference.

When the Coalition Government was formed in May 2010 the Coalition Agreement called for ‘inclusive admissions’ in as many new faith schools as possible. Since that time the model funding agreement for new faith Academy schools has required that they select no more than half their pupils on faith grounds, while the Education Act of 2011 created a presumption that meant, in practice, almost all new state funded schools would be Academies.

However, Richmond Borough Council managed to help in setting up a faith school that was able to side step the 50% religious limit last year, despite joint legal action by a local ecumenical campaign group endorsed by the Accord Coalition and the British Humanist Association. To the surprise of some, the Department for Education intervened in the legal case on the side of the Richmond Council, thereby helping to keep open a loophole to its 50% religious selection limit.

Notes

Last November Accord commissioned a ComRes survey showing that 73% of respondents agreed that ‘state funded schools, including state funded faith schools, should not be allowed to select or discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy’, half (50%) stated that they agreed ‘strongly’. Only 18% of respondents disagreed.

ComRes interviewed 2,008 adults online between 2nd and 4th November 2012. Data was weighted to be demographically representative of all British adults aged 18+. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. The full survey results and field work data can be found here.

Identities in Transition: A Longitudinal Study of Immigrant Children, by Rupert Brown, Adam Rutland & Charles Watters from the Universities of Sussex and Kent (2008) found that “… the effects of school diversity were consistent, most evidently on social relations: higher self-esteem, fewer peer problems and more cross-group friendships. Such findings show that school ethnic composition can significantly affect the promotion of positive intergroup attitudes. These findings speak against policies promoting single faith schools, since such policies are likely to lead to reduced ethnic diversity in schools.”(p9)

Among the key findings of Social Capital, Diversity and Education Policy, by Professor Irene Bruegel of the London South Bank University Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group (2006) were that “Friendship at primary schools can, and does, cross ethnic and faith divides wherever children have the opportunity to make friends from different backgrounds. At that age, in such schools, children are not highly conscious of racial differences and are largely unaware of the religion of their friends … There was some evidence that parents learned to respect people from other backgrounds as a result of their children’s experiences in mixed schools.” (p2)

This is despite Tudor Grange not having a religious character, and there being several other local junior schools that are nearer to the Academy, which do not select pupils on faith considerations and do not serve as a feeder to any other secondary school. As an Academy, Tudor Grange is responsible for its own admission arrangements.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, said ‘Indirect religious selection at non-faith schools, by making discriminatory schools feeder schools, is something that we are seeing more of. We have written to Tudor Grange Academy, and urged that it amend its proposed arrangements, so that it cannot be accused of indirectly privileging or discriminating against pupils on religious grounds’.

Last month Surrey County Council suspended its plan to show preference to children seeking admission to one if its non-faith junior schools who attended an infant school that selects pupils on faith grounds when it is oversubscribed. The Accord Coalition and others had petitioned the Council to amend its proposed admission arrangements.