From Mr John Swanson
Sir, - The Church of England's Board of Education, the Bishop
of Oxford, who chairs it, and your own reporting ("Figures
suggest schools do not 'select by the back door'", 22 November)
all suggest that church schools are inclusive, and not "skewed to
favour middle-class families", on the basis of statistics that the
proportion of children on free school meals (15 per cent) and from
black and minority-ethnic backgrounds (25 per cent) are the same as
in schools in general.
This sounds, however, like a basic error in statistical
reasoning. Whether or not one agrees with Archbishop Welby that
reducing the element of selection in church schools is a good
thing, unsound reasoning never helps. If church schools were more
often found in needier areas, as we often like to portray, the
communities they draw on would have higher percentages than the
national average. Merely to equal the national average of free
school meals would then be evidence that, within each community,
more affluent families were indeed disproportionately gaining
access to our schools, the very criticism so often made against
church schools. Without extra information, the conclusion is
wishful thinking.
Of course, if the statistics show that our schools are not to be
found disproportionately in poorer areas, the claimed conclusion
could be valid; but we would be open to the alternative criticism
of not going where the need is greatest. Damned either way,
perhaps?
JOHN SWANSON
9 Randalls Road
Leatherhead
Surrey KT22 7TQ
From the Revd John Thackray
Sir, - Canon Roger Hill (Letters, 22
November) writes of people coming to church and signing an
attendance register. This is intriguing. I hold permission to
officiate in two dioceses, and am licensed in a third. As a
chaplain in a (principally) day school, I have a very peripatetic
interregnum ministry, at any one time saying mass occasionally in
at least a dozen parishes. And, in my quarter of a century of such
a ministry, I have never encountered, or heard of, such a register.
Church life in Lancashire sounds different from that in Kent and
Essex!
Canon Hill asks why "church schools exalt church attendance
above other wholesome aspects of the Christian life." The school I
serve has for 1400 years understood the worship of God by the
school to be the foundation on which its life is built, and from
which other wholesome aspects of Christian living flow. Surely, no
other foundation of life for young people could be more
exalted.
JOHN THACKRAY
Chaplain
King's School, Rochester
Kent ME1 1TE