Overwhelming majority of the public think good schools should be mixed environments

Most people believe pupils being able to mix with those from different backgrounds is an important characteristic of a good secondary school. The finding has been revealed in a report released last month on public attitudes to schools by the education charity, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).

NatCen find 53% of adults in England and Wales record that they believe ‘pupils mix[ing] with others from different backgrounds’ is a ‘very important’ characteristic of a good secondary school, with a further 38% recording that they think it ‘quite important’. Only 9% of respondents record that it as ‘not very’ or ‘not at all important’. By comparison, fewer respondents are found to think a school having a ‘high proportion of pupils [that] go on to university’ is an important characteristic of a good secondary school (22% ‘very important’, 45% ‘quite important’, 33% ‘not very’ or ‘not at all important’).

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Chair of the Accord Coalition said, ‘In recent years, arguments around parental choice have been misapplied to try to justify religious discrimination against children in the admission policies of state funded faith schools. NatCen’s survey corresponds with other surveys, which all show that most people want the state funded school system to promote mixing and to not religiously discriminate against prospective pupils. Religious selection and segregation goes against what most families actually seek.’

An Accord commissioned opinion poll last November found 72% of the British public 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’. 14.8% of respondents disagreed, meaning faith discrimination was opposed by a ratio of almost five to one. A large majority of adherents of all major world faiths and England and Wales’ largest Christian denominations were all found to oppose faith discrimination.