Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 520-539)

3 FEBRUARY 2004

MR FRANK MAGUIRE

  Q520 Mr Cummings: Do you believe that your model could be applied more widely? Can you envisage a religious school involving Christians and Muslims? You mentioned that you do involve your pupils in visits to mosques and temples.

  Mr Maguire: Anything is possible, but you would need to have an absolute desire for that to take place. You would also need to have total commitment from the people who were leading those organisations.

  Q521 Mr Cummings: Have you tested the water at all?

  Mr Maguire: No, we have not, except that parents whose children attend our school have a great desire for a secondary school for my children to transfer to, because they are so pleased with the way things move there.

  Q522 Mr Cummings: Have you received any approaches from the Muslim community or the Indian community to involve themselves in the school?

  Mr Maguire: No. There is not a strong Muslim element in the surrounding area. We have just two children from a Muslim background in the school at the moment.

  Q523 Mr Sanders: You say that the school is made up of 50% Church of England and 50% Roman Catholic intake. To what extent does that mix reflect the religious preferences of the population in the area where the school is based?

  Mr Maguire: The only evidence I would have is on the number of applications we have seen at the school and there is generally a higher level of Catholic applicants than Church of England ones. That may indicate to some degree the denominational allegiance of people in the community. I have no evidence of information other than that.

  Q524 Mr Sanders: You have no idea about non Catholic or non Church of England.

  Mr Maguire: I would suspect that in the community about one third of people have no particular denominational background, although I have to say that more people do seem to be seeking baptism now that the school is on the estate and requires children from a church background to attend.

  Q525 Mr Sanders: How much of that do you think is the school and how much of that do you think is religious conviction?

  Mr Maguire: Thank you for that question. I shall take that back with me and give it to the parents at school. One might say that the school has had a kind of evangelical effect in the area because of the admission policy which requires you to be baptised either Church of England or Roman Catholic. If we can take cynicism out of it for a moment, what I would say is that if people are of a mind to have their children baptised in order to gain a place at the school, it seems to me that once they have established the children in the school, they do become committed to the spirit of the school and to our ethos and in many cases are very supportive of the church which they then attend.

  Q526 Mr Sanders: I do not doubt that at all, but what about the parents who are not successful in getting their children into the school. Are they then still assiduous church attenders?

  Mr Maguire: Probably not, but, strange to say, some of them do, a small percentage. I know this because later on, when places have become available in the school these people have been successful in their application. The answer would be: probably not.

  Q527 Mr Sanders: If you are over-subscribed, how do you select?

  Mr Maguire: When we are over-subscribed, we take on a degree of faithfulness or support of their churches which would include commitment to the churches in how they work, or whether they have played some kind of a role, or to do with church attendance and so forth.

  Q528 Mr Sanders: How does that work for somebody who perhaps has to work on a Sunday?

  Mr Maguire: It is very difficult for them; very difficult. However, they are entitled to put in an application with an accompanying letter and ask for a special discretionary clause to be applied and so on. The governors view every application very, very carefully and spend a remarkable length of time on them. It is the most difficult aspect of the school, along with the transfer to secondary school. They are the two main issues that the school has problems with. There is no issue with the joint denomination of the children at all, although I did anticipate that being a problem. It has absolutely not been an issue at all, it has been wonderful. Having enough places for children and then finding good quality and appropriate schools for them to transfer to is the real difficulty that we have.

  Q529 Chairman: The Cantle review did suggest that if you were going to have faith schools, then perhaps 25% should be able to come from people of a different faith. Would it not be logical in your case to have 25% of your school population coming from people on the estate who have no faith?

  Mr Maguire: I think you ought to ask that question of the people who have Church of England and Roman Catholic faith when they are unable to take up a place in the school themselves. There was not going to be a school at all until the two churches formed a working party to establish one. It is difficult for people who have supported their churches and continue to do so, then to be told that their children are unable to attend. It would certainly be possible to maintain the two denominations in a school such as mine and then also engage another quarter or third of children who were of other faiths who wished to attend a church school.

  Q530 Chairman: You talked about two children in the school coming from a Muslim background. Were they able to get in because you had space?

  Mr Maguire: Yes, that happened simply because there were spaces in two particular year groups.

  Q531 Chairman: Do you not see the church having a wider role in encouraging harmony within communities?

  Mr Maguire: I do, but I cannot rewrite the situation in my own school. It would be something for people to think about if they were to begin a new project, or even a secondary school project; it would be something very worthwhile then.

  Q532 Chairman: A lot of your parents will actually have raised money over the years, particularly the Roman Catholic ones, to extend Catholic education across a great deal of the diocese. Do you think that they ought to be a little more tolerant and feel that some of those places in some of those schools in Oldham and some of the other communities ought to be more widely available for non-Catholic children?

  Mr Maguire: Raising funds to develop Catholic schools for Catholic children should not be regarded as intolerant, if that is what you are saying.

  Q533 Chairman: What I am suggesting is that if children are brought up in schools which are parallel but separate, they would have less understanding of each other, would they not?

  Mr Maguire: Yes, they would.

  Q534 Chairman: Therefore there are advantages to encouraging them to be in the same schools.

  Mr Maguire: Right.

  Q535 Chairman: So would it no then be reasonable for some of those Catholic schools across the North of England to make available some of their places to non-Catholic children?

  Mr Maguire: And would you have an answer for the children who were Catholic who wished to seek a place in that school?

  Q536 Chairman: Would it not be a question of nearness to the school?

  Mr Maguire: Not necessarily. Admission policies often do use proximity to the school as a criterion. That question is not so much the exclusion of other groups, but the inclusion of additional groups to a school. I personally would see it as an excellent idea, but I do not feel that you will create harmony be preventing Catholic children taking up places in Catholic schools.

  Q537 Chairman: What you are really saying is that if a school is short of pupils, then it is happy to take anybody in, but if it is over-subscribed, then it is reasonable for it to stick to pupils from the faith which supported the school.

  Mr Maguire: Yes, but I would also say that it is also reasonable, when thinking about the forming of a new school, to take into account all the things you have raised today.

  Q538 Mr Cummings: By establishing a church school involving two denominations, how have you avoided creating barriers with other cultural groups? Do barriers exist?

  Mr Maguire: That is the point I was going to make. I do not see any barriers. You do not avoid creating them, you just do not create them. They do not exist.

  Q539 Mr Cummings: Has the local authority or the local education authority helped you to prepare policies and strategies to deal with the issue of improving social cohesion?

  Mr Maguire: Yes, I think so. Liverpool are quite proactive in all of that area and are very, very supportive in equal opportunities and race equality, advisory support and policy writing as well.


 
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