Revealed: 100% faith-selective schools will open under new plans

Evidence is piling up that the new arrangements for opening schools in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will lead to new 100% faith-selective schools. This can be seen both from a new analysis of how schools have opened in the past, and from oral evidence from faith groups provided to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee yesterday. 

Humanists UK has called for the Bill to be amended in order to prevent this from happening, including in response to the Committee’s call for evidence on the Bill – and is working with the Liberal Democrats on an amendment to achieve just that.

100% faith-selective schools have opened in last decade despite the cap

Since 2011, when a local authority in England has thought a new state school is needed, it has had to seek proposals for a free school. Similarly, past governments periodically invited proposals for free schools. Religious free schools are subject to the so-called 50% cap, that limits faith-based admissions to half of all places. As these have in general been the only two ways in which new schools have been funded, essentially all new state faith schools have been subject to this cap.

The Bill proposes to do away with the free school presumption and revert to the previous system whereby a local authority can invite proposals for all types of school. That can include types that can be 100% religiously selective.

A new analysis by Humanists UK has identified places where a competition under that previous system led to new 100% religiously selective schools opening. For example, Cambridgeshire County Council ran a competition for a new school in Northstowe, in which a 100% selective Church of England school won out over a proposal for a school of no religious character. The resultant school, Pathfinder Primary, opened in 2017, and is still 100% selective.

Another example was when Peterborough Council approved a bid for a 100% religiously selective Church of England school, St Michael’s, in 2012.

Catholic Church states intent to open new 100% selective schools

At the Bill Committee evidence session, Paul Barber, the Director of the Catholic Education Service, repeatedly confirmed his desire for the 50% cap on faith-based admissions in oversubscribed schools to be repealed, and for Catholic schools to be able to be 100% selective. He said ‘We would very much like to see the cap lifted.’

Further questioned by Lizzi Collinge MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, on whether the Catholic Education Service would like to see new 100% faith-selective schools, Barber replied ‘We are talking about oversubscription criteria, which only kick in when there are insufficient places to satisfy parental demand. In those cases, we would wish to continue to give priority to Catholic families.’

Humanists UK has led the campaign to keep the cap on faith-admissions, with the Catholic Education Service being one of the leading proponents of its repeal when the last UK Government consulted on removing the cap.

Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer for the Church of England, asserted ‘in the provision of new schools, whether voluntary-aided free schools or voluntary controlled, we would not be looking to do 100%.’ But within the Church of England, new school proposals can be advanced by dioceses, rather than the central Church – and, as above, the previous system saw 100% selective Church of England schools open. And once a school is open, it is responsible for setting its own admissions policy, so could then move to 100% selection.

Jewish, Muslim, and other faith groups weren’t called to give evidence before the committee, but 100% religiously selective schools of other denominations have also previously opened.

Government response to suggestions that 100% schools may open

In response to concern about 100% selective schools, the Department for Education has advanced two arguments. The first is that pupil numbers are falling, and so not many new schools are likely to open.

The second was given on the Sunday programme, in a segment featuring Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson, where it said ‘Under the proposals the local authority will be able to commission the right new schools for their area that meet local authority need for places. It is highly unlikely that the need for places would be met by schools that intended to operate a 100% faith-based admissions arrangement.’

Humanists UK welcomes the general reassurance, showing that 100% selective schools are not what is intended, and highlighting that their possible opening may be inadvertent. But it is concerned that neither of these arguments will reflect what will follow the Bill.

On the first, pupil numbers may generally be falling but that is not true everywhere in the country. Nor will it always be true.

On the second, a local authority could very conceivably decide that a 100% selective faith school meets a basic need for places as after all it may create as many pupil places as a non-selective school. It may free up places in other schools locally. As above, this has indeed happened in the past.

The opening of new 100% faith-selective schools in recent years, and the public position of the Catholic Education Service in favour of repealing the 50% cap and continuing to give priority to Catholic families in admissions, is clear evidence of the risk that such new schools could open following the change in law. An amendment to the Bill, such as the one tabled by the Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Munira Wilson MP, is necessary to prevent this outcome.

Humanists UK’s Education Campaigns Manager Kieran Aldred commented:

‘The possibility of new entirely faith-selective schools opening has been made clear in evidence presented to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee. The Catholic Education Service has long lobbied every government to have the 50% cap repealed so they can give preferential access to children of Catholic parents. We have seen new 100% faith-selective schools open under the proposed system, in the past. Parliamentarians must act to prevent this unintended consequence of the Bill as written.’