Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
THE RIGHT
REVEREND STEPHEN
VENNER, THE
RIGHT REVEREND
PATRICK O'DONOGHUE
AND PETER
IRVINE CBE
12 MARCH 2008
Q240 Fiona Mactaggart: Certainly,
I would not expect a school to promulgate material that is lies,
but I also think that children should encounter great work even
if they need to be given the tools to criticise it. Your advice
does not suggest that, but would you advise that such work should
be excluded from children's experience?
Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue: No,
I would not. I would have to look at the material that was being
provided, as would others, and ask whether it was legitimate.
On your initial question about Red Nose Day and Amnesty International,
I have been a member of Amnesty, not all my life but for many
years, and I have supported its work in a big way. The problem
is not with Amnesty's work, but as a Catholic bishop I am very
concerned that its executive has recently taken a decision on
abortion that of course I would not agree with at all. I do not
object to 99% of Amnesty's work, but I do object to the fact that
it should take up a position that is totally alien to me.
Q241 Fiona Mactaggart: Do Catholic
schools in your diocese participate in Red Nose Day?
Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue: Yes,
they have done, and also in Amnesty.
Q242 Fiona Mactaggart: I am more
interested in the official mechanisms. I understand that, as a
regional bishop, you have used your position to influence the
curriculum in the schools in your area, but I think that Peter
can probably help on this question. What subjects have you given
guidance to schools about?
Peter Irvine: The most recent
guidance that will be of interest to you, I guess, is on Catholic
schools and community cohesion. It is an attempt to respond to
the Government's stated policy and it points out, among other
things, that the section 48 inspections of the religious life
of the school that are carried out generally at the same time
as Ofsted inspections have had community cohesion as a focus for
some time. It is not new, so I hope that from September, when
Ofsted start inspecting that and including it in reports, that
Catholic schools will not be taken by surprise. On the contrary,
they ought to be ahead of the game. That is fairly typical of
our guidance documents. As a national body, the Catholic Education
Service has a broad national perspective and cannot be involved
in the day to day promulgation of curriculum policy around the
country in individual schools. That is a typical document and
we could replicate it in several areas. It looks, for example,
at ways that schools might tackle globalisation and sustainability.
Notably, what tends to be left out of community cohesion is the
problem of old age, and older people. As someone feeling an increasing
sympathy for the age group involved, I note that it is striking
in our society that old people are generally very neglected. A
sobering figure is that last week 10% of 75-year-olds did not
speak to a single person. That is a staggering figure, and it
is an area in which schools could have an enormous role to play.
Many Catholic schools do so, as do many community schools. We
have to be careful not to claim that a concern for the community
is unique to Catholic, Anglican or other Church schools. That
is far from being the case. I could point you to numerous cases,
many of which are cited here, of Catholic schools that play a
full part in their local communities. The evidence in the Ofsted
inspection document that I quoted from earlier would take you
down the same path. Looking at the extent to which pupils are
encouraged to play a part in their school and local communities,
the Ofsted judgments are strikingly positive.
Fiona Mactaggart: I can tell that
the Chair is trying to speed me up, so I will ask you to speed
up.
Chairman: I was looking at Peter. I thought
that I might have trouble with keeping some of his answers brief.
Q243 Fiona Mactaggart: When you are
preparing this kind of guidance for schools, have you found areas
of difficulty between Catholic teaching and the national curriculum?
How do you address those?
Peter Irvine: I am thinking about
that and I cannot easily summon examples. Catholic schools in
various parts of the country are very involved in children's centres,
for example. Hartlepool is a striking case, where a number of
Catholic primary schools act as the base for the children's centres
in local areas. That has not given rise to difficulties. Liaison
with local services has not been problematic. I cannot think of
examples; I do not know if there have been any in the past. I
am reminded by a colleague to draw your attention to dioceses.
We work largely through dioceses and there is a network of 22
diocesan education offices around the country, as you will know.
Our work is largely with the diocesan school commissioners. We
have alerted them, for example, on governors' guidance on trafficked
children. A letter went out to all the commissioners this week
to alert them to the Government guidance and the necessity for
them to be aware of it in their dealings with schools.
Q244 Fiona Mactaggart: Bishop Venner,
can you tell us about the Church of England?
Rt Rev Stephen Venner: The way
in which we are ordered is very similar to the Roman Catholic
Church. We have a national board of education, of which I am the
acting chair because the Bishop of Portsmouth has been ill with
cancer for a couple of years. Our small central group keeps in
very close contact with diocesan teams. Some of the advice comes
nationally—by diktat, as it were—but it actually
just explains how national legislation will be rolled out: admissions
criteria are a case in point. On the whole, it comes from discussions
among the diocesan directors—all 44 of them—and they
cover all the things that you would expect. One of the main things
is leadership, which is more and more critical to how schools
develop. I have jotted down a few things—admissions, which
we have been talking about; the development of RE, including how
we explore other faith beliefs and people who hold no faith beliefs,
and worship. What do we mean by the ethos of a school? That is
a slippery concept that covers so much of what we have been talking
about. How do we encourage links with initial teacher training
establishments, some of which are Church universities, in order
to encourage both teachers to teach within Church schools and
Christians to teach as Christians within community schools? Then
there are all the broad questions about social cohesion. You know
our own history. We have concentrated very much on secondary schools
today, but primary schools in particular are at the very heart
of many of their communities. Their relationship not just with
the Church community but with the wider community is vibrant and
it supports and encourages children and the community. It is a
two-way relationship. Those are the sorts of things that are going
on, and there are lots of others.
Q245 Fiona Mactaggart: You have given
guidance on admissions policy. What did you think about what you
heard about it earlier? I could see you sitting there.
Rt Rev Stephen Venner: Yesterday?
Fiona Mactaggart: Also during the earlier
session. I think that you were sitting in the room then.
Rt Rev Stephen Venner: Yes, I
was. What we heard yesterday was interesting. Our response, and
my response in public yesterday, was not the slightest bit defensive.
If and when what was after all a very small exercise on paper
is translated into reality, and if there are instances of Church
of England schools falling short of the ideals that we have set
them, we will want to know about that at diocesan level. That
has already happened. Some of the research is out of date, and
we know some of the stories already. We have only picked up one
or two in the past 24 hours, but take for example the question
of moneys, which you raised earlier, Chairman. The one story that
we heard about a school asking for a donation actually involved
a primary school that was undersubscribed, so asking for money
towards a governors' fund for the life of the school had absolutely
nothing to do with admissions. It had to do with the life of the
school, and such things need to be unpacked. My reaction, particularly
to the two experts on this side, is that most of the research
that they were talking about has been around for a long time.
It was all secondary—and is something that needs to be repeated
over and over again—and an awful lot of it was London based.
I think that the evidence from this side of the table is that
if you rolled that out, particularly into the north-west—I
was the bishop responsible for Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside before
I moved to Kent—you would see a very different picture.
Q246 Fiona Mactaggart: Bishop Venner,
I love your focus on primary schools—that is one of the
things that I normally do—but primary schools generally
admit from everywhere in their neighbourhood. That is quite normal,
and it is one of the strengths of our primary education. The tussles
over pseudo forms of selection happen at 11. It is something that
we, as politicians, and you, as people responsible for schools,
need to address. You are right that this evidence comes from before
the admissions code and let us hope that the code will make a
difference. However, some of yesterday's report suggested that
it has not made as much difference as the Government had hoped.
If that evidence turns out to be right, what are you going to
do?
Rt Rev Stephen Venner: Yesterday
we said that we were very happy to work with the Government to
see what we could do together. It is a matter of partnership.
You asked about things happening. There is a piece of research—we
will ensure that you get to see it—dated 2005 that says
that some of the research that the two experts on this side spoke
about, such as regarding percentages of underprivileged children
with social depravation, is probably true, although it covers
the voluntary-controlled sector as well the voluntary-aided sector.
There is clear evidence that between 2001 and 2005 there was a
significant change in the percentage of children with particular
needs of different sorts being admitted to our schools. We are
improving the situation. There is statistical evidence to show
that that percentage is growing and we will do all that we can
to encourage that. May I go back to the primary school issue,
although I know that you want to concentrate on the secondary
schools? In some senses, we can say that the primary school situation
is okay, but for our Church primary schools there is the real
challenge, which is then rolled out into secondary schools, of
how we can do what Lord Dearing challenged us as the Church of
England to do in 2000: to be on the one hand inclusive, but on
the other hand clearly distinctive. Keeping those two factors
together is the challenge that will be ongoing and that will change
as society changes.
Q247 Paul Holmes: I return to the
question of statistics. At the start of the debate, both Peter
and Patrick talked about the truth of the statistics, and Peter
talked about Ofsted showing that Catholic schools were taking
people roughly in line with national cohorts of free school meals
and SEN. However, the whole point of the academic evidence that
we heard in the first session, and all the other reports that
I read over the last year, is that if you look at schools in the
context of their local community, not national averages, faith
schools tend not to take the proportions of children with free
school meals and SEN that they should be doing to be representative
of their local communities. Are you saying that all that academic
research is wrong?
Peter Irvine: I certainly received
some of the evidence that we heard this morning with qualification.
It was made clear by the speaker that a lot of the evidence was
London based—
Q248 Paul Holmes: Can we stop there?
I wrote on the front of my notes, as this was said, that Rebecca
Allen mentioned earlier that the most disproportionate differences
in intake were to be seen in London and the north-west. We have
just heard people saying that the north-west is much better. Actually,
it is as bad as London.
Peter Irvine: To be honest, I
would need to look harder at that disparity. Our evidence is from
Ofsted. It is not partisan and it uses balanced samples, both
primary and secondary. It shows that, across the country, the
percentages on free school meals are, I think, 15% in Catholic
secondary schools, whereas the national average figure is 16%.
There are rather more special needs children in Catholic secondary
schools than in community secondary schools, and quite significantly
more ethnic minority children in Catholic schools.
Q249 Paul Holmes: Can I stop you
there again, as that was specifically dealt with by the people
who gave evidence in the first session? They said that if you
look at the national figures, faith schools, which tend to be
in urban areas, usually have higher percentages for free school
meals and special educational needs than the national figures.
However, if you look at the neighbourhood that those schools are
in, the numbers are lower than for the rest of that neighbourhood.
They are higher than the national averages, but lower than for
the actual neighbourhoods that they serve.
Peter Irvine: That will be true
for some, but you did not let me finish.
Q250 Paul Holmes: No, those are the
figures across the whole of England and across all faith schools,
not just this one here or that one there.
Peter Irvine: But the natural
consequence of that is that there must be many faith schools for
which the reverse is true, because otherwise the national averages
could not be the same. Correct me if I am wrong.
Q251 Paul Holmes: Go back to the
research of Allen and West, for example. It is about London in
particular, which, after all, has 20% of the nation's population,
so you can hardly say that it does not matter. The faith schools
in London educate only 85% of the number of pupils eligible for
free school meals that they would if they educated the pupils
in their neighbourhood. The figures are for all faith schools,
across the board, across London. Three quarters of them have free
school meal levels below the London average, and many actually
have almost no free school meal pupils. So, many of all the faith
schools in London, which has one fifth of the country's population,
take almost no free school meal pupils at all. Some will have
very high ratios, but it is clear that the majority are massively
discriminating in some way against children from poor backgrounds.
Peter Irvine: I am not sure that
you have proved that it is the majority.
Q252 Paul Holmes: The statistics
say that it is. Are you saying that all the research is wrong?
Peter Irvine: Can you tell me
from which research you are quoting? Is it for 2007 to 2008?
Q253 Paul Holmes: It is Allen and
West.
Peter Irvine: We have not had
the advantage of seeing it in detail. We find it quite hard to
comment on the detail without the figures.
Q254 Paul Holmes: There was also
research last month—I think that it was from a London university—that
looked at the whole of England. It came out with figures on faith
schools, and the newspaper reported that religious leaders said,
"We don't accept it." You cannot just not accept it.
Peter Irvine: No, I agree.
Q255 Paul Holmes: One piece of research
after another shows the same thing all over the country.
Peter Irvine: I would like to
see the disaggregated figures—they have not been disaggregated.
The same is true of the research of the National Foundation for
Education Research that was published last year, which was for
voluntary schools in total. The figures were not disaggregated.
We pursued that with the NFER and tried to get disaggregated figures,
which were not available, or perhaps could not be made available.
Perhaps that is an area that we ought to look at closely. One
would expect secondary schools with large catchment areas to go
through a sort of regression towards a mean. It is very clear
from Ofsted's evidence—nationally, as well as in London—that
there will be fewer Catholic schools with a high number for free
school meals, but there will also be fewer with a low number because
of the broader catchment area.
Q256 Paul Holmes: So when national
figures are for all faith schools, you say that they need disaggregating,
otherwise we cannot trust them—
Peter Irvine: No.
Chairman: One at a time, please.
Q257 Paul Holmes: Andy Slaughter
gave an example from his area of Hammersmith and Fulham borough
of a gross distortion between faith schools and local state schools.
Somebody wrote to challenge me with the wonderful performance
of some faith schools in Southwark, so I looked at some figures.
I got my researcher to disaggregate the figures for the faith
schools and the state schools that were mentioned. Again, the
difference between the proportions of children with free school
meals and special educational needs that the high-flying academic
faith schools such as Sacred Heart were taking and the proportions
that the local state schools at the bottom end were taking was
an absolute disgrace. When the figures are disaggregated, you
say, "Oh, that is not typical," and when they are aggregated,
you say that we have to disaggregate them before we can evaluate
them.
Peter Irvine: No, I am saying
that if you can show me examples of clear discrimination involving
poor children entering Catholic schools, I would find them deplorable
and agree absolutely that action should be taken. You have had
the chance, I am sure, to read our statement yesterday in response
to the admissions code document. We will not defend the indefensible.
If Catholic schools are not abiding by the admissions code, that
is highly reprehensible and should be dealt with. As Bishop Venner
said, you sometimes have to look at individual cases pretty closely
in order to be sure that you are actually tackling the right problem,
but, if that were the case, we would deplore it. However, I repeat
that in national terms there seems to be no doubt that for measures
such as free school meals, special needs and ethnicity, all of
which are used for good—or, sometimes, for ill—as
proxies of disadvantage, Catholic schools are absolutely typical
of community schools.
Q258 Paul Holmes: That is not what
the evidence that we received in the first half of the session
said. It said that, on a national level, the general picture across
faith schools of all kinds, not just Catholic—we heard specifically
that it does not matter whether the school is Catholic, Anglican
or any other—is that they are not taking the percentages
of local children with free school meals and SEN that the local
percentages indicate they should be taking. You cannot just sit
there and say that it is clear that nationally this is the picture
when all the evidence says otherwise.
Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue: I suppose,
Paul, that we would have to look very closely at that research
and all the other research that has been done. For me, it supports
the principle in respect of partnership that Stephen was speaking
about a while ago: the faith schools in partnership with the state.
We should look at evidence closely and if there are things going
wrong, we can do something, working closely together. Otherwise,
we would spend our whole morning arguing about an important point.
We have seen the evidence and the research.
Q259 Paul Holmes: In that welcome
co-operative spirit, we heard from some of the academic researchers
earlier that they cannot get hold of the figures in respect of
who applies to faith schools, and who gets turned down and who
gets accepted. Will you encourage those figures to be released
by the Church of England and the Catholic Church so that academic
researchers can analyse what is actually going on?
Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue: I certainly
think that they must be open and that there must be transparency
in all of this.
Rt Rev Stephen Venner: The simple
answer to that question is yes. We would all be very interested
to find out how it worked out and the facts, as long as people's
individual privacy was retained. I want to make a couple of points,
if I may, in response to Paul. The first interesting statistic
is that, focusing on London—you cannot take London out of
the situation—we see that 49% of voluntary-aided schools
in London are not faith schools. That is quite a significant group
and we need to bear that in mind when looking at the London statistics.
I mentioned to Fiona the statistics on movement, which are in
Rebecca and Anne's paper on page 2.[1]
Those statistics say that in voluntary-aided schools between 2001
and 2005, the increases in the percentages of schools giving priority
to children were as follows: priority to children in care went
from 0% to 74%; priority for those with medical and social needs
increased from 42% to 54%; and priority for those with special
educational needs increased from 18% to 26%. So, we are moving
in the right direction. All the help that we can get to improve
that would be useful. In the advice that we have sent to dioceses
about admissions, we are saying, first, that all new Church of
England schools will have a minimum of 25% of children admitted
on no faith criteria at all. But we are actually encouraging our
schools to look to create different sections within the admissions
policy so that we will ensure that there is a proper percentage
of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, a percentage of people
with other faiths or no faith, as well as a significant percentage
of people with Christian faith, to try to provide the sort of
community in which children can flourish. Of course, you will
always come up against the problem of social engineering. It is
going on, sometimes despite us, and sometimes as a deliberate
policy by Government and faith communities to avoid certain situations.
For example, in a school in an area that is 100% Muslim, you are
likely to find that every child in that school is 100% Muslim.
Do we accept that or work with it, or do we do something about
the take-up of places? That is a real question for the whole of
our society.
1 See Ev 41. Back
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