Keep faith Schools Admissions Cap

Chief Officer Derek McAuley joined religious leaders, parliamentarians, education experts, and public figures in signing an open letter calling on Education Secretary to keep the faith school admissions cap.

“We represent a diverse range of educational, religious, political, academic, and other stakeholders from across British society, and our views on the merits or otherwise of faith schools are diverse too. However, we are all in agreement that our state schools, of whatever character, should be open, inclusive, diverse, and integrated, and never exclusive, monocultural, or segregated.

The Government rightly identifies the promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance for those of different religions and beliefs as one of the most important roles for schools. As we are all aware, children are blind to the differences and immune to the prejudices that so often divide society. The duty of the education system, therefore, should not be to highlight and entrench such differences in the eyes and minds of young people, but to emphasise instead the common values that we all share.
Removing the 50% cap on religious selection at faith-based free schools runs entirely counter to this ambition. It is difficult to bring to mind a more divisive policy, or one more deleterious to social cohesion and respect, than one which allows schools to label children at the start of their lives with certain beliefs and then divide them up on that basis. 

The Department for Education is yet to respond formally to its consultation on these proposals – opposed by 80% of the public, including 67% of Catholics and 71% of Christians overall. All the evidence shows categorically that the cap has achieved its stated aim. It is not too late to maintain it.”

See the letter printed in the Telegraph:

For further information and list of signatories

Accord Coalition Faith Schools Manifesto - Religious Education

I participated in the launch of the Accord Coalition's manifesto for faith schools at Central Baptist Church Bloomsbury. Further details of the six point manifesto and the launch event chaired by Rabbi Jonathan Romain are to be found of Accord's website.

My particular focus was on the need for inclusive religious education arguing that all children should learn about the full range of faiths and belief systems in Britain - not just one or none - by adding Religious Education to the National Curriculum.

At the press conference I said:

"We propose that Religious Education is added to the National Curriculum. We live in a diverse and multi-religious society and it is imperative that all children learn about the full range of faith and belief systems in Britain. It is so easy for stereotypes to build up about the beliefs of others which, of course, do not reflect the complexities and diversity within faith groups as well as between them. In referring to faith and belief systems this should include the range of non-religious belief systems.

Many schools provide excellent RE, including some faith schools, however, RE in others is narrow in scope and/or is instructional. Academy schools and most faith schools are able to determine for themselves the RE they teach which can lead to pupils not receiving broad and balanced religious education.

The relationship between religious freedom, culture and ethnicity and indeed politics requires knowledge of religion to ensure an understanding of a digital world where events in seemingly far-off countries can through the internet and social media be on our mobile phones and laptops.

As well as learning about religion it is also important that children learn from religion. That they make connections between what they learn in class and their own lives as part of their spiritual and moral development. Effective religious education can open up possibilities for all children."

Pictured at the event

back row from left: Derek McAuley, Rev Richard Bentley (CoE), Simon Barrow (Ekklesia). 

front row from left: Jonathan Bartley (Ekklesia), Symon Hill (Quaker), Rabbi Jonathan Romain, Martin Prendergast (Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality)

Accord Coalition Inclusivity Award 2012

Unitarians have a strong concern for inclusive schooling and have been working  with like-minded partners in the Accord Coalition. Accord today named Lammas School and Sports College in Leyton, East London as the winner of this year’s Inclusivity Award.

The Inclusivity Award, open to all schools in England and Wales, recognises and celebrates those schools that do most within the legal framework and community that they find themselves in to promote inclusiveness, the growth of mutual understanding and forge links within and between different communities.

Lammas School won strong praise from the expert panel of judges for its use of inclusive assemblies to forge shared values, the importance assigned to community cohesion, the popularity of its Religious Education, which was the school’s strongest subject at GCSE in 2011, its sensitivity towards the diverse backgrounds of it pupils, who speak over fifty languages and its ability to adapt to the changing cultural and religious profile of its student body

In second place is St George’s Voluntary Aided School, a Christian faith school in Harpenden, Hertfordshire which earned high praise from the judges for its outstanding work in tackling homophobic bullying. The Independent had an article today which focused on the exceptional anti-homophobic bullying work of the second placed St George’s School.

In third place is Crown Hills Community College in Leicester. The College, which is in the top 4% of schools for Oftsed’s Value Added Score, was praised by the judges for its effort to challenge prejudice and the dangers of stereotypes, such as through focusing on conflict in Israeli and Palatine, and for its attempts to broad the horizons of its pupils through a range of external and extra curricula activities.

I was pleased to be invited to be one of the judges for the 2012 Award earlier this year. The others on the panel of judges were:

• Baroness Kishwer Falkner (Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice in the House of Lords)

• Lisa Nandy MP (Labour MP for Wigan and member on the House of Commons Education Select Committee)

• Manzoor Moghal (Founder and Chair of the Muslim Forum)

• Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE (former Chairman of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Minister of the Maidenhead Synagogue)

For more information on the Award and the Accord Coalition