Accord set out its fear of how schools that segregate on religious grounds and provide a narrow education about the range of religious and non religious beliefs in society undermine community cohesion and narrow children’s horizons.

Accord also set out its worry about homophobic bullying in schools and a range of concerns about the curriculum. These included that many schools did not provide Personal, Social, Health, Economic education (PSHE), and that at those schools that did that it was not always provided it to a high standard. Accord also emphasized that the Government’s curriculum review had recommend down grading Citizenship education at the secondary level to the ‘Basic Curriculum’, while the place of Religious Education and Collective Worship remained untouched.

Mr Twigg made it clear that he welcomed the meeting and shared many concerns. He was particularly concerned that it seemed Citizenship teaching was to be down graded and keen that it should be an important part of the curriculum. He also expressed regret that the Government had relieved Ofsted of its duty to inspect upon the promotion of community cohesion in schools.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain said: ‘Our meeting was constructive, and we are very grateful to Stephen Twigg, both for meeting with us and his warm reception, but also for taking on board our wide range of concerns’.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain said ‘The issue of sex education is a topic that can provoke strong opinion and feeling. However, it is also an area of public policy which should be lead by professional experts in PSHE provision. It is not appropriate for a legislature to entrench or show favor to an ideologically driven approach, such as seemingly advocated by this Bill, and so we are thankful to Nadine Dorries for withdrawing it.

‘At a time when children are bombarded by messages about sex in the media and are subject to peer pressure, the Government should instead be ensuring that all state schools teach high quality Personal, Social, Health and Economic [PSHE] education, which includes age appropriate Sex and Relationships Education.

‘This will help ensure that young people make informed choices based on a broad-based education in sexual and personal relationships. It is important that schools neither avoid these issues, nor seek to limit horizons, as otherwise our young people’s health and wellbeing may be put at risk.’

Currently maintained schools that wish to become an Academy and also be granted a faith designation have to hold separate consultations, but the December 23rd edition of the Times Educational Supplement quoted Rob Gwynne, the Church of England’s Head of School Strategy, as stating that ‘Discussions are in progress with the Department for Education about how the process for community schools wishing to become CofE faith academies can be made quicker and easier. At present, there have to be separate consultations’.

However, David McVean, the Department for Education’s head of School Choice, Organisation and Fair Access Division, yesterday revealed to the British Humanist Association (itself a member of the Accord Coalition) that while the government is planning a revision of relevant regulations and will be conducting a consultation over proposed changes in May, that there was ‘absolutely no intention’ to allow the two consolations to be combined, or to make it easier for community schools to become faith Academies.

The Accord Coalition wrote to the Secretary of State for Education on January 5th to register its deep anxiety over any moves to make it easier for community schools to become faith Academies. Academy faith schools are able to discriminate on the grounds of religion in pupil admissions and in the recruitment and employment of teachers, as well as teach what they like in Religious Education – there is no requirement that they teach about the range of beliefs held in society.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said ‘It is pleasing that the government has been able to allay widespread concern that it might be helping facilitate a new boom in Academy faith schools. The government should be concentrating on making existing faith schools more inclusive, rather than opening  new ones that will operate in discriminatory and exclusive ways, and we will wait for its forthcoming consultation with interest’.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said, ‘At a  time when children are bombarded by media messages about sex, and also subject to peer pressure, high quality PSHE, which includes age appropriate Sex and Relationships Education, is vital to children and young people’s health and wellbeing.

‘We therefore urge the Government to listen only to professional experts in the provision of PSHE, and make sure that all children can make informed choices based on a broad-based education in sexual and personal relationships. It is important that schools neither avoid the issue nor seek to limit children’s horizons’.

The Accord Coalition has written to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to register its deep concern and ask for further clarification about proposals highlighted in a recent article in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) that the Department for Education is seeking to make the process for community schools wishing to become a Church of England Academy faith school quicker and easier.

At present separate consultations have to be held for a proposal for a school to become an Academy and then also a faith school, but the TES reports that plans are being devised that would allow the two consultations to be combined.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘Academy faith schools are able to discriminate on the grounds of religion in pupil admissions and in the recruitment and employment of teachers, as well as teach what they like in Religious Education – there is no requirement that they teach about the range of beliefs held in society.

‘Faith schools such as these help increase ethnic and religious segregation; undermine community cohesion and do not adequately prepare children for life in our increasingly diverse society. We are therefore very concerned that the Government may be making changes that will allow more schools like these to open.

‘Faith schools should be made more inclusive, while ones that will operate in narrow, discriminatory and exclusive ways should not be newly created. Allowing community schools to become faith Academies could therefore have devastating long term consequences for the health and wellbeing of our society, and I have asked Michael Gove for further information about his Department’s plans, and to register our deep anxiety.’

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘By downgrading the importance of Citizenship the Department for Education would completely undermine the Prime Minister’s widely covered speech in Munich in February 2011 about confronting extremism and the need for promoting a greater sense of citizenship.

‘The failure to recommend that Religious Education also be added to the National Curriculum is another missed opportunity – a subject vital to promoting not only general knowledge, but also the growth of mutual understanding among Britain’s increasingly diverse school population.

‘We urge the Government to reconsider the recommendations and bring the new National Curriculum in line with its declared policies.’

Citizenship currently has to be taught in all secondary schools that follow the National Curriculum, but if it were made part of the Basic Curriculum these schools would only have basic or cursory requirements for teaching the subject. This would give schools greater freedom to treat important issues in more narrow and obscurant ways, such as equality, human rights, responsibilities towards others and alternative viewpoints on social and political issues, or for schools to ignore these topics altogether.

Religious Education has to be taught in all state funded schools in England and Wales, but it can be of variable quality, while Religious Education in many state funded faith schools can be overtly instructional and fail to teach about the broad range of beliefs in society.

Mr Ward told the Accord Coalition “In places such as Bradford, segregation in the school system can serve to undermine social cohesion. Schools should be at the centre of their community and draw its pupils from across the community they serve; where parents mix at the gates and children mix and learn together. To help achieve this state funded schools should be made open and suitable for all children, regardless of their of their family’s beliefs, and on this basis I fully support the aims of Accord”.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said “We are delighted to welcome David as a Distinguished Supporter. His support further strengthens Accord’s voice and helps demonstrate the widespread support for schools to play an inspiring role in improving mutual understanding and preparing children for life in our increasingly diverse society, rather than helping entrench division.”

Before being elected to parliament for the Bradford East constituency in May 2010, Mr Ward served as a Bradford City Councillor for twenty six years and sits as a Liberal Democrat.

Mr Ward join Accord’s growing list of Distinguished Supporters, who come from a wide variety of different political and religion and belief backgrounds. It includes:

• Baroness Tessa Blackstone, Labour Peeress, Minister for Education (1997-2001) and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich
• Rt Rev Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh
• Naomi Long MP, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland’s first MP elected to the House of Commons; Northern Ireland’s largest non-sectarian party
• Dr Caroline Lucas MP, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
• Lord Glentoran, Conservative Peer and Olympic gold medallist
• Philip Pullman, author
• The Rev Professor Christopher Rowland, theologian at the University of Oxford
• Polly Toynbee, journalist and President of the British Humanist Association

Examples highlighted include:

• a child living 100 yards from a faith school being refused entry due to being of the wrong denomination
• Unitarians self-defining as Christian being denied a place at a Church of England school because the school did not consider Unitarians to be Christians
• a head teacher being forced to leave a Catholic school because the school considered  his remarriage to be against its religious tenets
• school teaching its pupils that gay people should be celibate

In July Accord launched a 46 page databank of contemporary evidence and research by independent academic sources about the implications of current policy on state funded faith schools and their practices.

The new portfolio now compliments the databank by providing real life examples of overt discrimination and unnecessary practices by schools that fail to properly respect the religious or non-religious beliefs of children, their families or staff.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said ‘Since Accord launched in 2008 we have become aware of numerous media reports and been contacted by many people telling us about their experience of exclusive and narrow practice by schools, and almost always faith schools.

‘Although these news items and personal testimonies are highly subjective and are not subject to academic scrutiny, we have produced the portfolio to help show that exclusionary practices by schools are not dry or hypothetical, but represent a real issue that negatively impacts many people in the education system.

‘The portfolio makes for disturbing reading and emphasises the pressing need for changes in how our state funded schools operate.’

Notes

Accord’s databank and portfolio can both be accessed at http://accordcoalition.org.uk/research/

Among the wide range of findings in Accord’s databank was evidence showing that faith schools:

• only achieve better exam results due to the different social and ability profile of their pupil intake
• admit fewer than average pupils in receipt of free school meals and with special education needs
• are less representative of their local community and suffer from worse homophobia  than non-faith schools

The databank also points to the positive effect of mixed schooling upon the growth of mutual understanding and improved community cohesion.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said ‘Single-faith schools have certainly not created all of Northern Ireland’s sectarian problems, but they do help perpetuate them by allowing children from different backgrounds to grow up apart from each other, serving to create environments where mistrust between groups more readily grows.

‘Peter Robinson’s call for Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland to attend the same schools and thereby end the “them and us” culture has lessons for Great Britain. We do not want our wonderfully multi-faith society to become multi-fractious, nor for children in the next generation grow up as strangers to each other.

‘Mixed schooling has a very positive effect upon the growth of mutual understanding. Rather than encouraging division by segregating children on the grounds of belief, all parts of the UK should implement an integrated school system, where those of all faiths and none attend together, learn about each other and mix socially every day.’

Notes

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)

‘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)

Ofsted, who inspect schools on a variety of measures and grade their performance according to a four point scale of “outstanding”, “good”, “satisfactory” or “inadequate“, found that only 55% of primary schools obtained outstanding or good ratings in their promotion of community cohesion, making this one of the primary sector’s weakest inspection areas. Secondary schools faired better, with 64% obtaining an outstanding or good rating for their promotion of community cohesion, while for special schools this figure rose to 71%.

Ofsted’s legal duty to inspect community cohesion was introduced in 2006 to address widespread public concern about how schools, and particularly faith schools, serve to undermine social cohesion. Despite a large rebellion in the House of Lords last month however, the Education Act 2011 took away Ofsted’s requirement to inspect in this area when it became law on November 15^th.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE said ‘The primary stage is a very important opportunity for schools to instil positive inter group attitudes. However, with so many primary schools underperforming in how they promote community cohesion, while at the same time many schools are being giving far more freedom over what they teach, combined with Ofsted’s cohesion inspection duty being removed, serious questions have to be asked and then answered by the Government about how to address these shortcomings.

‘Schools can serve to hinder community cohesion and create environments where mistrust between groups can more readily grow, or instead play a vital and inspiring role in improving mutual understanding. The Government needs to do more to help school’s realise their potential and reveal how they are going to help achieve this’.

Notes

Ofsted’s “The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills: 2010/11” can be found at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/about-us/annual-report.