Faith school admission policies criticised

Released 02/11/2010

Complaint watchdog highlights unfair practices

Faith schools' admissions policies risk favouring the middle classes, the chief schools adjudicator warned in his report yesterday.

Gotta have faith?

Schools Adjudicator Ian Craig said faith schools were skewing their intakes towards the middle classes without realising it by favouring pupils whose parents volunteered at a church, for example. He felt such practices disadvantaged parents who do not have the time to volunteer.

Speaking at the publication of the tribunal's annual report, Craig said: "We are bothered by the complexity of some faith schools' points systems. We have come across points that benefit white middle-class areas and don't benefit the immigrant children in the community." He said the issue affected all faith groups, but predominantly Christian schools because these outnumber other faith schools.

"We haven't found schools are deliberately skewing their intake, but our view is that this has been the effect. In some cases the faith schools are measuring parents' commitment to the church over and above the number of times a family attend church. Is it a measure of a parent's Christianity if they are bell-ringers at their church? In working-class areas, there might not be the option to do this."

Craig also warned that some comprehensive schools were illegally selecting pupils according to their academic ability. Schools with specialisms, such as music or languages, are allowed to select 10% of their pupils according to their "aptitude". However, the difference between ability and aptitude is not clear, according to Craig.

"You tell me how you can select pupils on their musical aptitude using some sort of test that isn't also testing ability. We have spoken to some of the best brains in the country about this and they don't know how to do this."

Craig said the number of parents' complaints in the last year had risen to 539 from 399 the previous year. Of these, 387 were about admissions - almost double the 201 last year. He put the rise down to increased "parental engagement".

Pupil premium as a solution

Education Secretary Michael Gove said it was absolutely right that every parent should want their child to go to an excellent school, so school admissions will continue to be a controversial and sensitive issue. He pointed to the pupil premium as a solution.

"I am committed to driving up educational standards so all parents have that choice of high-quality schools close to home, which is why we are encouraging providers to set up new schools and turning round under-performing schools. And so no child is disadvantaged because of their background, I am introducing the pupil premium."

Gove said he also intends to make the school admissions framework, including the School Admissions Code, simpler and fairer. "I have asked my officials to start speaking with key stakeholders," he added.

Popularity vs. success

Commenting on Michael Gove's response to the Chief Schools Adjudicator report, NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby said it made sense for popular schools to expand in areas of high demand. "In fact it makes more sense to allow proven providers to grow than to set up untested new schools," he says.

"A serious concern is that changes in school size may not always reflect school performance," Hobby continued. "For example: aspirational parents might choose to send their children to a ‘good' school in a nearby affluent area to be with 'people like them' rather than the local ‘outstanding' school which is doing great work in a seriously deprived and troubled community. This weakens the local school's ability to serve its community - as research suggests that a balanced intake is required if schools are to be truly inclusive.

"Until we develop an accountability system that measures schools on the progress that all their children make this will stop greater freedoms leading to improved performance.

"Choice will not guarantee improvement where some parents are unable or unwilling to exercise choice. This means that unfettered expansion may not remove weaker schools, merely make them slightly smaller and less efficient. The result could be schools that are 'down but not out' and increased social segregation.

This is not an argument against allowing great schools to grow (assuming they would want to) but an argument in favour of assessing and regulating the impact of expansion on other schools."

Additional source: The Guardian

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