Religious preference a key concern for CofE bid for north Kingston secondary school (From Surrey Comet)
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Religious preference a key concern for CofE bid for north Kingston secondary school
2:58pm Thursday 24th June 2010 in News By Martin George
Church of England proposals to give religious affiliation a higher priority than whether a child has older siblings at the new north Kingston secondary school, emerged as a key concern of parents hearing an outline of their bid to run the school.
The Kingston Church School Appeal told parents less than half the school’s pupils would be admitted to foundation places, which can rank children according to faith, although it was unable to say what the exact proportion would be.
John Russell of the Southwark Diocesan Board of Education said Kingston was the only borough where it did not run a secondary school, despite there being 10 Church of England primary schools in the area, and that 83 per cent of its secondary schools were good or outstanding.
He told parents attending the meeting at St Luke’s school on Tuesday, June 22, he would take on board their comments before the board submitted its bid before the August 23 deadline.
Tim Pullen, whose child could be among the school’s first students, said: “The reason I would not be supporting the bid is we need a school open to everyone, regardless of belief or religion.
“If there were sufficient places we would welcome this but as it is there is a desperate need for places open to all children, regardless of religion.”
The campaign is asking supporters to sign petitions and letters to demonstrate public support, and will hold a final public meeting at Christ Church School, New Malden, at 7pm on Tuesday, June 29.
See kingstonchurchschool.org for details.
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Jhow says...
6:35pm Mon 28 Jun 10
In addition, I think the results of a recent study by York University are very interesting. The research analysed the extent to which Ofsted Inspectors rated schools at achieving their new legal duty to "promote community cohesion". The analysis suggests that secondary-level ‘faith schools’ (of all faiths and denominations, taken as a group) received average grades more than 11 per cent higher than ‘community schools’ for their promotion of community cohesion, and outperformed such schools by almost nine per cent for their effectiveness in tackling inequality.
I gather that known research suggests that a new Church School would also likely improve educational outcomes, especially benefitting children from troubled backgrounds.
Therefore I would like to commend the C of E initiative.