More evidence that “faith school” selection causes segregation

The unique selection privileges that “faith schools” enjoy means that they are the least reflective of all schools of their local community. According to a new report schools with religious entry requirements are ten times more likely to be unrepresentative than community schools.

The study from the Institute for Public Policy Research has found that intakes at non-faith schools such as academies, who act as their own admissions authorities, were six times more likely to be “highly unrepresentative” of the ability and social class of local pupils than community schools. The report urges the Government not to extend the number of academies and trusts without making the system fairer.

It also recommends that if the new admissions code proves ineffectual, academies, trusts, foundation and “faith schools” should be drawn into a local system with an independent admissions administrator.

Richard Brooks, IPPR head of public services, said recent reforms to prevent schools selecting were welcome, “But the system is like asking pupils to mark their own essays while providing them with detailed rules designed to prevent them from cheating.”

The IPPR report also recommends that oversubscribed schools should select by “fair banding” to generate more representative, mixed-ability schools. In the long term, it says, fair-banding should be applied across schools in whole areas. Faith schools could also select by ability banding, but could give priority to applicants on the basis of faith within each band.

Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society commented: “The evidence keeps mounting that the Government is storing up a social catastrophe by continuing with this destructive ‘faith school’ expansion programme. Let’s hope the new regime under Gordon Brown is more prepared to listen to voices other than that of Lord Adonis, who has created this unfair and dangerous situation with his insistence that religion in schools is a good thing. There is little cause for optimism though, the structures have already put in place that will ensure a major expansion of academies of religious schools for the foreseeable future.”

See also: Johnson ticks off anti-gay faith schools