Religious Schools: Admission Policies

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, academies are required to put their admissions policy on their websites so that they are quite clear to parents who apply. As I mentioned in response to an earlier question, the vast majority of parents get a school in the top three of the ones they choose to apply to. I mentioned in my opening remarks that the schools adjudicator is there as the final resort for parents who are concerned about admission arrangements. It is very reassuring to know how few objections are raised. In 2015-16, there were 300; in 2016-17, 100; and in the last academic year, 129.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, my father was the headmaster of a Church of England junior and infant school for some years. There is a danger of a caricature emerging. Over the last two centuries many village schools were, in practice, schools for everybody but they were Church of England maintained schools—I am sure that the right reverend Prelates will know how that works. On the one hand we have to make sure that there is no question of religion being stuffed down people’s throats, which I think is the implication of some of the questions, and, on the other hand, to recognise that we now have a very diverse society and ensure that the Church of England maintained schools, which are subject to local authority criteria, are not out of place in modern society.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord talks absolute sense.