Call to prevent community schools being forced to become faith Academies

The Accord Coalition has urged for guarantees that community schools will not be required or able to discriminate by faith or provide narrow or instructional Religious Education if they are forced to join faith Academy chains, following publication this week of the Education and Adoption Bill. The Bill proposes to grant new powers to the Secretary of State for Education to force a wider range of locally maintained schools deemed to be underperforming to become an Academy, including by joining an Academy chain.

Currently, governors and senior staff appointed to non-faith schools under the control of a faith Academy chain could be selected on faith grounds so as to uphold the chain’s religious ethos. A faith Academy chain’s influence may also impact the curriculum and assemblies of such schools, so that greater emphasis and deference is shown to its particular beliefs. There is also nothing to stop at a later date a future Secretary of State agreeing to allow such schools to be formally designated as a faith school upon the urging of the chain.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘The Government should make it impossible for community schools to become faith schools by the back door, and allow them to remain committed to bringing together families from a wide section of society and serving them equally. The public do not want an inadvertent land grab by any sectional interests for the minds of children, but for state funded schools to be inclusive.’