Church schools move towards open door selection

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32587694

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"We've been praying a lot recently," admits one 40-something father with a smile.

His young daughter has just been accepted by a very popular Church of England school, which is heavily oversubscribed.

"We call it 'on your knees to save the fees'", he says.

"We would probably attend the local church anyway, but perhaps just not quite as much as we have done over the past year or so."

Others have nicknamed the phenomenon "pew barging", or "pray, not pay", as worried middle-class parents seek to secure a good education for their children without paying for an often unaffordable place at private school.

He is among several parents who asked not to be named, but admitted that their church attendance became rather more frequent when the time came to ensure a good state school place for their children.

In that sense, the Church of England has become the victim of its own success, with its schools among some of the most over-subscribed, especially in urban areas.

Some schools can - and do - use parents' church attendance as part of the "faith criteria" for attendance.

The education charity, the Sutton Trust, released a survey in 2013 which found that overall, 6% of parents would develop a sudden interest in church-going when it was time to place their children in school - a figure that went up to 10% among the middle-classes.

Attendance requirement dropped

The Church of England remains a major player within education, educating a million children at just under 4,500 state primary schools (one in every four such schools) and more than 200 state-funded secondary schools (or one in every 16).

Recently, though, one Church of England school dropped its faith selection criterion after complaints that parents had been attending church services purely to secure a place for their child.

St Luke's Primary School in Kingston upon Thames said it would no longer admit pupils based on the faith of their family after a sense that "cynicism" was motivating some parental church attendance.

The local vicar, Martin Hislop, said that he felt "uncomfortable" about the current admissions criteria, and that having to record church attendance among prospective parents did not contribute to a "positive and affirming atmosphere" in the parish.

"The Church of England and its schools have always seen themselves as serving the local community and not just those in the congregation," he wrote.

There is a sense that a gradual shift on the criteria may be coming.

Rev Nigel Genders, the Church of England's chief education officer, says: "Church schools take pupils from all faiths and none, reflecting the communities they serve.

"The majority of Church of England schools do not prioritise their places on the basis of church attendance, and most of those that do still make places available for children in the school's immediate community.

"Our secondary schools have an average of 10% selection by religious criteria - based on church attendance only.

"We also have as many pupils on free school meals as the national average, some much higher."

He says that new Church of England schools being established to meet the pressure on pupil places are using distance from the school as the criterion for at least half of the intake, but in most cases for even more than that.

"But every context is different and schools use their criteria to best serve the interests of their community - wherever they are.

"It is for the local governing body to decide and they are best placed to understand the nuances of their own context.

"That's why our schools are not faith schools for Christians, but Church schools for all."

Faith schools:

At the start of September 2014 there were 6,848 state-funded faith schools in England.

Of these, 6,210 were state-funded primary schools (37% of the total, 28.9% of total pupils).

Among primary schools, 4,395 were Church of England, 1,661 Roman Catholic, 36 Jewish, nine Muslim and five Sikh.

There were 638 state-funded secondary schools (19% of the total, 18.3% of total pupils).

Among secondary schools, 214 were Church of England, 324 Roman Catholic, 12 Jewish, nine Muslim and three Sikh.

Scotland has 370 state-funded faith schools out of a total 2,569 - 366 Catholic, one Jewish and three Episcopalian.

There are 239 faith schools in Wales out of a total of 1,544 schools.

Several campaigns have sprung up in recent years, with members speaking out against the faith admissions criteria, or against faith schools as a concept.

Some fear that separating children by faith does not make for a healthy or united society, while others worry that children from disadvantaged homes face fresh discrimination as a result of the middle-class "doughnut" effect around good church schools, where those who can afford to buy homes in the catchment area of a good school do.

Sensitive issue

Nick Spencer, research director at the religion and society think tank Theos, says education remains an extremely sensitive issue.

"My impression is that the Church of England is moving slowly to non-faith admission criteria.

"I don't see it as being a diktat from on high, but I think it is an awareness that these church schools are church schools because of their ethos rather than because of who they admit.

"There are knotty questions about how they can sustain that ethos - for example, if pupils don't belong to a particular faith.

"I think the Church of England's position, as the established church, orientates them towards a more 'open door' policy."

However, he believes that the UK's slow move towards a more pluralistic culture means that "dealing with difference is going to be a challenge".

"We have to avoid the secularist knee-jerk response which a lot of people have observed in France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre - which is that the only way to keep the peace is by a 'leave your faith at the door' secularism."

The other danger that he can see for the future is the possibility of a communitarian approach that could lead towards ghettoisation, rather than integration.

"If it's healthy, then you call it a community - and as it becomes less healthy, you call it a ghetto", he says.

"So you're left with a messy compromise, where you should recognise, legitimise, reflect, and facilitate the sense of belonging and identity of minority groups, but not at the expense of fostering a sense of public identity and belonging."

His conclusion is hard to disagree with: "The education system is only going to get messier."