23. Memorandum submitted by the Church
of England Board of Education (DP 26)
The Church of England Board of Education welcomes
the opportunity to submit evidence to this Inquiry, and sets out
below information that may be helpful to the Committee's deliberations.
The Board would also welcome the opportunity to offer oral evidence
to the Committee.
1. HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
The Church of England pioneered elementary education
in the first half of the nineteenth century, both to give children
an experience of learning within a Christian community and to
serve the nation. Between the establishment of the National Society
in 1811 and the first national Census in 1851, the Church of England
established some 17,000 schools with a view to "educating
the children of the poor in the principles of the Established
Church". State provision of education did not begin until
the Elementary Education Act 1870.
Under the provisions of the Education Act 1944,
Church schools were offered a new deal in which they could opt
for greater state funding and control as "Voluntary Controlled"
schools or lesser state funding and greater independence as "Voluntary
Aided" schools. At the same time, the 1944 Act required all
schools to have a daily act of collective worship and religious
instruction. The Act also extended the school leaving age to 15
and provided for secondary education in separate schools between
the ages of 11 and 15. As a result of the 1944 Act, the Church
effectively lost three years from its elementary schools.
Following the 1944 Act, the Church of England
did not pursue a coherent policy of establishing secondary schools,
except where individual bishops and dioceses viewed these as a
priority. Historically, therefore, there has been an imbalance
in the number of the Church of England's provision as between
its primary and secondary schools. Today, there are 4,505 Church
of England maintained primary schools (educating c 771,000 pupils)
as opposed to 192 Church of England maintained secondary schools
(educating c 156,000 pupils). Further details of Church of England
schools statistics are shown in Annex 1.
As a national average, only one in five of the
children educated in a Church of England primary school can therefore
access a place at a Church of England secondary school (although
the proportions vary from place to place, and there are whole
areas of the country where there are no Church of England secondary
schools).
2. THE CURRENT
POPULARITY OF
CHURCH OF
ENGLAND SCHOOLS
Church of England schools are popular with parents
(including parents from other faith traditions), and many of them
are oversubscribed. In a survey of some 80 Church of England secondary
schools carried out in 2000, the average level of oversubscription
was 1.6 applicants per Year 7 place (as compared with 1.3 applicants
per place in 1996). The reasons for their popularity are manifold.
Many parents perceive that Church schools in general offer a high
quality of education, founded on a clear sense of values. Paradoxically,
in an increasingly secular society, many parents are choosing
Church schools for their children. Research is needed into this
phenomenon, but it may well be that many parents—including
those who have no formal allegiance to a particular religion—find
some sense of security in an environment in which Christian values
and ethics are made explicit and celebrated. The demand for places
is particularly acute in many Church of England secondary schools.
3. THE WAY
AHEAD: CHURCH
OF ENGLAND
SCHOOLS IN
THE NEW
MILLENNIUM
In November 1998, the General Synod of the Church
of England passed a Resolution, "Believing that Church schools
stand at the centre of the Church's mission to the nation".
Following this debate, the Archbishops' Council established the
Church Schools Review Group "to review the achievements of
Church of England schools and to make proposals for their future
development". The Review Group was chaired by Lord Dearing
CB, and published its report, The Way Ahead: Church of England
Schools in the new millennium, in June 2001.
A summary of the report's main recommendations
is outlined below:
— Church schools should be distinctively
Christian and inclusive institutions fully integrated into the
life of parishes. The report argues for a growing unity of purpose
within the whole Church community working in a more effective
partnership with Church schools.
— The report recommends developing
the provision of Church of England schools, and specifically the
expansion of secondary provision equivalent to 100 additional
Church of England secondary schools over the next seven to eight
years. It also recommends enhanced primary provision in areas
where this is sparse. It recommends that any new Church schools
must be both distinctively Christian and inclusive communities,
seeking to bring children from different backgrounds together
as a distinctive expression of Christ's commandment to love one
another and of Christian service. The report makes clear that
the purpose of Church of England schools is not to proselytise
children, but rather to give children from many walks of life
the opportunity to learn within a Christian environment. The Way
Ahead gives an explicit welcome to ecumenical initiatives, and
emphasises the importance of working in partnership with LEAs
and the local community. It says the Church of England, in considering
new provision, should have an especial care for areas of social
and economic disadvantage and for those who have least in life.
— The report challenges the Church
at every level to encourage the vocation to teach, and to support
Christian teachers and leaders in all schools. It urges the whole
Church to be proactive in caring for Christian teachers and in
helping to recover the esteem of the teaching profession.
The report has been approved by the Archbishops'
Council, the General Synod and the House of Bishops, and is now
the official policy of the Church of England.
The recommendations about increased secondary
school provision are intended to help address the imbalance between
the Church of England's primary and secondary provision (as well
as helping to meet parental demand). If the equivalent of 100
additional Church of England secondary schools could be achieved,
this would increase the Church of England's overall share of secondary
school places from its current level of approximately 5% to about
8%.
Since The Way Ahead process began the following
Church of England secondary schools have opened:
Bradford Cathedral Community College [opened September
2000]* Immanuel C of E Community College, Bradford [opened Sept
2000]* Rossington C of E High School, Doncaster (Sheffield Diocese)
[opened Sept 2002]* St Michael's Catholic & C of E 11-16 High
School, Barnsley (Wakefield Diocese)—ecumenical joint school
[opened September 2001].* St Hild C of E High School, Hartlepool
(Durham Diocese) [opened September 2001]* Ven Bede C of E High
School, Sunderland (Durham Diocese) [opened September 2002].*
Nottingham Emmanuel School (Southwell Diocese) [opened September
2002]* Newcastle All Saints College (VC) (Newcastle Diocese) [opened
September 2002].* Sir Thomas Boteler C of E High School, Warrington
(Chester/Liverpool dioceses joint venture) [opened September 2002]*
St George's Church of England High School, Blackpool (Blackburn
Diocese) [opened September 2002]
We are aware of at least 20 further discussions
taking place in various dioceses about potential new Church of
England secondary provision (as well as the significant expansion
of some existing schools).
4. ADMISSIONS
TO CHURCH
OF ENGLAND
SCHOOLS
The national policy of the Church of England
is that its Church schools should be both distinctively Christian
and inclusive communities. A copy of the Church of England Board
of Education's National Guidance to Diocesan Boards of Education
on Admissions to Church of England Schools is attached as Annex
2[5]
The Education Act 2002 contains a provision
(Schedule 4, paragraph 13) amending the Diocesan Boards of Education
Measure 1991, empowering diocesan boards of education to give
advice to Church of England schools on admissions, to which advice
they must have regard. It is anticipated that in framing their
own advice to schools, diocesan boards of education will have
reference to the National Guidance on Admissions.
The great majority of the Church of England's
schools are "neighbourhood" schools in the conventional
sense, and they take all the local children irrespective of background.
The claim of "exclusivity" has, however, arisen in some
well-publicised cases of a small number of massively oversubscribed
Church secondary schools that have exclusively Christian intakes.
We hope that the National Guidance on Admissions will provide
a framework for helping those schools to consider their role and
responsibility as Church of England schools. The Way Ahead recommendations
for increased provision are an attempt to ease the pressure on
places in such schools so that they can have more inclusive intakes.
5. CHURCH OF
ENGLAND PERSPECTIVES
ON SCHOOLS
HAVING A
RELIGIOUS CHARACTER
Church schools make a distinctive contribution
within the whole provision of education to the spiritual and moral
dimensions of education. We emphasise the importance played by
schools based on an ethos of faith in preparing pupils to live
as citizens of a multi-faith and multi-cultural society.
The Church of England's aim in education is
to offer a distinctively Christian approach to human development
within an inclusive context: both to nurture Christian children
in their faith and to offer service to the wider community as
an expression of that faith. The balance of these elements will
vary from place to place. There are, for example, many Church
of England primary schools in urban contexts that have a majority
of children from other faiths, but there are many other examples
of Church of England primary and secondary schools that draw from
ethnically diverse communities and serve the local children irrespective
of their background. Many parents from other faith communities
prefer to send their children to a Church of England school because
it takes faith seriously.
As an example of a relatively new Church of
England secondary school, The King's School in Wolverhampton (a
former Community school that became a Voluntary Aided Church of
England school in 1998) is a good example of a secondary school
that has forged a strong Christian identity whilst being a truly
inclusive community. The Ofsted report (February 2001) states,
"This is a good and effective school which is growing in
popularity. Pupils are achieving well compared to their prior
attainment, the quality of teaching is good and the school is
excellently led."
Recent research by the Grubb Institute commissioned
by the Church of England Board of Education, in partnership with
the National College for School Leadership, has identified the
"added-value" of Christian leadership in case studies
of three Church of England secondary schools that have been transformed
(or are in the process of transformation) from being struggling
schools into successful ones. This research has not yet been published,
but it is hoped to publish it in the near future. It is sometimes
argued that "faith schools" will necessarily inculcate
narrow, doctrinaire and divisive attitudes to others. We believe,
on the contrary, that they can help to build up respect and understanding
for different faiths and cultures, precisely through giving pupils
a sense of security in a context of faith and cultural identity.
A position of uncommitted and equidistant neutrality is not the
only, or best, starting point in which to engage in society where
people live according to different commitments and identities.
The Church of England therefore supports the opportunity for other
faith groups to sponsor new schools.
The argument of those who oppose schools with
a religious character can be summarised in the comment by the
National Secular Society cited in The Way Ahead: "the more
religious schools there are, the more divided society will become".
They point to the disturbances in some of the northern towns (Bradford,
Oldham, and Burnley) in 2001, to the events last year at Holy
Cross School in Belfast, and to the atrocities of 11 September
2001 and their aftermath as examples of ways in which "religion"
is apparently dividing society. Much of the argumentation is,
however, emotive or factually inaccurate, whilst the underlying
assumption is that religion is inescapably divisive. It should
be noted, for example, that there is no Church of England secondary
provision in Burnley, whilst the two (new) Church of England secondary
schools in Bradford have inclusive admissions policies. It could
be said that the secularists" arguments are fundamentally
a wish to separate public institutions from any form of religious
expression or influence. If religion were to be excluded from
public life and institutions, this would remove it to the margins
of public discourse and expression, effectively creating divisions
in society.
In his Presidential Address to the Governing
Body of the Church in Wales given on 10 April 2002, the Most Revd
Dr Rowan Williams (then Archbishop of Canterbury-elect), noted
the positive aspects of religious schools in contributing to society:
". . . we have to ask whether it's such
a good idea to separate off religious learning from other learning
if we want a healthy and argumentative democracy (very different
from a divided and bigoted society). Anglican schools force Anglicans
to defend and explain their ideas in the context of a wider critical
world; they subject their teaching style and content, their religious
education and moral ethos to (literally) inspection. They make
the Church accountable in some significant ways. And by bringing
the Church into this wider world, they make for a more not a less
intelligent religious mentality.
"Instead of a religious identity shaped
behind locked doors by teachers with no responsibility to anything
except the religious community, we have the religious community
venturing out to explore whether it can really engage with the
work of education in a convincing and professional way. If our
Muslim neighbours became more involved in the same fashion, we
can look for a more intellectually and socially involved Islamic
community, well able to play a part in our society—not a
ghetto, dominated by deep suspicion of the wider world, so that
younger members lose faith because they cannot connect their faith
with their experience, or else (as we have seen) adopt distorted
and destructive models of faith because they have no encouragement
to reflect on it and argue it in the public sphere."
The full text of Archbishop Rowan Williams'
Address is attached as Annex 3[6]
Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments
for schools with a religious character is that articulated by
the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Rt Hon
Estelle Morris MP) in her Address to the General Synod of the
Church of England on 14 November 2001 (see Annex 4)6. Parents
have had the right to choose a faith-based education for their
children for a long time: it would be undemocratic and intolerant
to deny that right. Seeking to diversify educational provision
sends a strong message of inclusion to other faith communities,
many of which are in challenging social and economic circumstances,
where young people in particular feel disenfranchised from the
wider society and marginalized from the sources of influence and
power.
It may be argued that these challenging areas
are the very places which would benefit from an educational context
that respects the integrity of a distinctive faith tradition whilst
offering a positive and inclusive environment for learning. In
such a context, the "faith school" has the potential
to provide a bridge between different communities and cultural
traditions. Rather than promoting segregation, the "faith
school" can be a positive environment for promoting integration
into the wider society and the structures of public life, and
for forging new partnerships between different sections of the
community. It is therefore important to see the sponsorship of
schools as an opportunity for the different faith communities
to make a positive contribution to society.
Since the events of 11 September 2001 and their
aftermath, it has become even more important for people to have
a well-rounded knowledge and understanding of religion and of
different religious traditions. In a religious or "faith"
school, pupils will not only learn about religion, but they will
experience it as a living tradition. Pupils who can experience
at first hand what it is like to be part of a faith community
thus have a sound basis for making an informed and reasoned decision
about religious commitment.
The report by Mr Ted Cantle on Community Cohesion
(December 2001) recommended a quota of no less than 25% for the
"diversity" element in admissions to religious schools.
It also suggested additional ways in which mono-cultural schools
could achieve an inclusive approach to education, such as "twinning"
arrangements between schools, joint activities and community-based
programmes. The Church of England has made clear on the public
record[7]
its wish not to see a nationally prescribed quota, whether 25%
or some other figure, for the diversity element in admissions
to schools with a religious character. This would be too rigid
a requirement, and would not be appropriate (or possible) in some
localities. It could, for example, create a requirement to "bus"
some children in. The Church of England believes that the balance
in admissions between "Church" and "Open"
places in its Voluntary Aided or Foundation schools should be
left to the individual governing bodies to decide, in line with
its National Guidance on Admissions. The Church of England strongly
supports additional measures to promote inclusivity, such as those
outlined in the Cantle Report.
In the popularity of Church of England schools,
many parents see something that "adds value" to their
child's (or children's) education. Giving children a sense of
their divine origin and of human purpose gives them a particular
sense of self-respect and respect for others and of individual
worth. That sense of values is a strong foundation for learning
and for contributing to the well-being of society. That experience
can be carried forward into other "faith schools", where
the distinctive ethos can help to foster a sense of working for
the common good and, where the distinctiveness is matched by an
openness to different sections of the community, to developing
mutual understanding and respect.
25 November 2002
Annex 1
CHURCH OF ENGLAND SCHOOLS—COMPARISON
OF PROVISION 1 JANUARY 2000-1 JANUARY 2002
| Primary | 2000
| 2001 | %
Change | 2002
| %
Change | Secondary |
2000 | 2001 | %
Change
|
| 2002 | %
Change |
| | | |
| | | |
|
| Number of Schools | |
| | | |
| | | |
|
| Voluntary Aided | 1,912 | 1,913
| 0.1% | 1,916 | 0.2%
| 118 | 118 | 0.0%
| 119 | 0.8% |
| Voluntary Controlled | 2,572 |
2,558 | -0.5% | 2,551
| -0.3% | 67 | 65
| -3.0% | 64 | -1.5%
|
| Foundation | 38 | 38
| 0.0% | 38 | 0.0%
| 8 | 8 | 0.0% |
9 | 12.5% |
| Total C of E provision | 4,522
| 4,509 | -0.3% | 4,505
| -0.1% | 193 | 191
| -1.0% | 192 | 0.5%
|
| Total number of Maintained Schools | 18,158
| 18,069 | | 17,985
| | 3,550 | 3,481
| | 3,457 | |
| C of E proportion | 24.9% |
25.0% | | 25.0% |
| 5.4% | 5.5% |
| 5.6% | |
| Number of Pupils | |
| | |
| | | |
| |
| Voluntary Aided | 350,001 |
350,916 | 0.3% | 349,859
| -0.3% | 97,587 | 99,795
| 2.3% | 101,937 | 2.1%
|
| Voluntary Controlled | 415,617
| 414,015 | -0.4% | 412,015
| -0.5% | 46,821 | 46,469
| -0.8% | 47,385 | 2.0%
|
| Foundation | 8,459 | 8,610
| 1.8% | 8,685 | 0.9%
| 6,050 | 6,086 | 0.6%
| 7,096 | 16.6% |
| Total C of E provision | 774,077
| 773,541 | -0.1% | 770,559
| -0.4% | 150,458 | 152,350
| 1.3% | 156,418 | 2.7%
|
| Total pupils in Maintained Schools | 4,278,123
| 4,251,953 | | 4,214,192
| | 3,181,813 | 3,231,827
| | 3,264,086 |
|
| C of E proportion | 18.1% |
18.2% | | 18.3% |
| 4.7% | 4.7% |
| 4.8 | |
Source: DfES Statistics of Education
5
Not printed. Back
6
Not printed. Back
7
See, for example, the speech by Stuart Bell MP (Second Church
Estates Commissioner) during the second reading of the Education
Bill in the House of Commons, 6 February 2002 (Hansard Column
909). Back
|
