*** DEBUG START ***
*** DEBUG END ***

Report questions ‘community’ admission policies of Church of England schools

24 November 2017

iStock

THE Church of England’s Board of Education should stop saying that their schools are “not faith schools for the faithful . . . [but] church schools for the community”, given that only five dioceses advise their schools against selecting pupils by faith, the Accord Coalition said this week.

A new report, Mixed Signals: The discrepancy between what the Church preaches and what it practises about religious selection at its state-funded schools, produced by the coalition on behalf of the Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC), says that 35 out of 40 dioceses “do not advise schools to refrain from using religiously selective admissions criteria”, and that ten of them “recommend that schools engage in some religious selection”. The remaining five were: Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Oxford, and Truro.

State-funded faith schools are permitted to operate an admissions policy that selects pupils on religious grounds when the school is over-subscribed. In a blog written last year, the C of E’s chief executive officer, the Revd Nigel Genders, wrote: “Our schools are not faith schools for the faithful, they are church schools for the community, and we don’t propose to change that.”

Accord is asking the Board of Education to stop making this claim until admissions policies are changed.

Guidance from the Board of Education says that church schools should have “a bias in favour of the disadvantaged in whatever way disadvantage is manifest in the local circumstance of the school”, but also that having pupils who are brought up in a Christian family “enhances” the Christian character of schools as places where pupils can “engage at a profound level with faith in general and the Christian experience and way of life in particular”. It speaks of the need to balance “nurture and service”.

On Tuesday, Mr Genders said that church schools were “often over-subscribed”, and that the Accord findings “do not provide an accurate picture of admissions to or the diverse make-up of Church schools”.

Sixty per cent of C of E schools had no religious affiliation admissions criteria, and those that did give “some priority” to Christian children, he said, did so “in areas where competition for places is acute, and, often, providing places purely on distance from the school would mean that only the wealthiest, who can afford to move house near by, can access the best schools”.

Browse Church and Charity jobs on the Church Times jobsite

Forthcoming Events

 

Festival of Preaching: Preaching Truth to Power

13 September 2025

Join us at London's Southwark Cathedral for this one-day event — a transformative gathering of bold voices, prophetic vision, and Spirit-led conviction..

tickets available

 

Finding inspiration in the Psalms : a Church Times one day festival

2 October 2025

Join us in York for this one-day event exploring the gift of the Psalms through poetry, art, liturgy and music.

tickets available

  

Visit our Events page for upcoming and past events 

Welcome to the Church Times

 

To explore the Church Times website fully, please sign in or subscribe.

Non-subscribers can read four articles for free each month. (You will need to register.)