The databank of research into policy and practice of faith schools that the Accord Coalition maintains has been updated today with a range of new and rigorous pieces of information. The databank, which is free to access, is the most comprehensive source of information available on the implications of the current role of religion and belief in state funded schools.
Several of the new pieces of research have demonstrated further the consensus that has emerged regarding the relationship between religious selection of pupils by faith schools and socio-economic exclusion and bias. These include a Sutton Trust commissioned study, published in April, which explored where and why primary school intakes differed in their social composition from that of children living in school’s local neighbourhood.
The report found popular and highly rated schools often had a socio-economically exclusive intake and that such schools tended to operate more complex pupil admission criteria and, were often, faith schools. The academics found a significant difference however in the pupil profile of faith schools that operated a religiously selective over-subscription policy with those that did not, reinforcing many other findings pointing towards religious selection leading to social exclusion. They noted:
‘It is generally true that non-religious schools are not particularly socially selective and that Roman Catholic and other religious primary schools are, regardless of governance status. This reflects the fact that these religious schools consistently apply religious admission criteria. The pattern of social selection in Church of England primary schools is quite different, reflecting the variety of stances towards religious selection that dioceses have taken. They are far less likely to be socially selective than other schools with a religious denomination because many (particularly voluntary controlled) act as defacto community schools and do not apply any religious criteria.’ (p3)
The Sutton Trust’s findings were reinforced earlier this month by research from the education data analyst website SchoolDash looking at how different types of school were affecting opportunities for children from poorer families. The website similarly found faith schools to be a big source of socio-economic disadvantage and segregation, noting that while many faith schools were disproportionately located in poorer areas, they tended to cream skim and cater to children from more affluent families within those areas and ‘specifically those [schools] affiliated with Roman Catholicism and the small number associated with various non-Christian faiths.’ The website found Church of England schools – which can vary widely in terms of how religiously selective they are – to be more socio-economically inclusive than most other types of faith school, but less than non-faith schools.
In addition to cataloguing research, the databank also records position papers and other detailed statements from informed groups regarding the role of religion and belief in schools. Newly added are proposals made in June by the United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child in its fifth periodic report into the UK, which chimed with many calls Accord has long been urging. The Committee’s recommendations included forging a religiously mixed education system in Northern Ireland ‘to ensure that it facilitates social integration’, making Sex and Relationships Education mandatory, and repealing the legal requirements for daily Collective Worship in state funded schools.
Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘In addition to discovering new insights, it is important that existing assumptions be also examined, so that we can be confident and balanced in the positions we hold. The latest update to the databank reinforces much pre-existing research, and it is striking to the witness the consensus that has emerged on a range of issues that were, until recently, vigorously contested.’
