Ep 52: A new Catholic school for Peterborough

A new Catholic primary school is about to be constructed in Peterborough. It will be the first state-funded Catholic school in England for a decade.

The school is to be built in the growing housing development of Hampton Water. It has been pushed through despite strong opposition from local residents – even though their money has been used to help fund the construction.

In this episode, Emma Park speaks to a member of Peterborough City Council, Terri Haynes, along with Tracy Butler, a resident who was involved in the campaign against the school. They discuss some of the problems both with the principle and the process. These include their encounters with the Catholic Diocese of East Anglia, which proposed the new school, and the obscurity of the Department for Education's reasons for refusing a bid put forward by Hampton Academies Trust for a community ethos (non-faith) school. They also discuss why many parents of different faiths and none would have been happier with a non-denominational school for their children.

Emma is then joined by Alastair Lichten, the NSS's head of education and co-ordinator of the No More Faith Schools campaign, to put the Hampton Water case in the wider national context.

Watch this episode on YouTube | Direct MP3 Link | Transcripts

Notes

• Local anger over discriminatory new Catholic school in Peterborough
• No new faith school in Hampton Water
• Challenge to new selective Catholic school in Peterborough rejected
• Hampton residents angered by decision to approve new Catholic school

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Podcast produced by Emma Park for the National Secular Society (2021). All rights reserved.