Leadership

Illegal admission criteria for religious schools

This year's annual report by the chief schools adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter, has confirmed that a disproportionally high number of faith schools failed to fully implement the government's new code on admissions. Yet, whilst the statistics are high, how many of the complaints made by parents are justified?

This year’s annual report by the chief schools adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter, has confirmed that a disproportionally high number of faith schools failed to fully implement the government’s new code on admissions. Yet, whilst the statistics are high, how many of the complaints made by parents are justified?

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      string(256) "Faith schools have never been more popular and they are widely regarded as centres of academic excellence. But are religious state funded schools also discriminatory in terms of religion, race and social and economic segregation?"
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      string(479) "... with Leadership Briefings.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/school-totals_2603122) Illegal admission criteria for religious schools – It’s true that a disproportionately highnumber of faith schools are breaching government admissions rules, but how many of thecomplaints made by parents are actually justified?www.teachingtimes.com/articles/illegal-admission-religious-schools ..."
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      string(256) "Faith schools have never been more popular and they are widely regarded as centres of academic excellence. But are religious state funded schools also discriminatory in terms of religion, race and social and economic segregation?"
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      string(4011) "and the separation of children within schools reinforceswider divisions, as parents do not meet at the school gate and families are not drawntogether through shared sporting and cultural events.Considering the situation globally, it is highly unusual for even religious state-funded schools to discriminate as we do in the UK. School Choice and Equity, a reportpublished last year by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD), found that the UK is one of only four OECD countries that allow some of itsstate schools to religiously select – the others being the Republic of Ireland, Estoniaand Israel. Therefore to those looking in from the outside, it must seem very odd thata good number of taxpayer funded schools in Britain are allowed by law to refuse oraccept pupils on the basis of their religious ornon-religious background. Yet this is the systemwe have inherited from the last government.But even within the UK there is variance.In Scotland, no state school religiously selects.In Northern Ireland, religious segregation inschools is much more prevalent, but in thelast few years there has emerged a politicalconsensus that the Protestant and Catholicschool sectors should be integrated. In Englandand Wales, the amount of selection in schoolshas been going up, as faith schools continue togrow as a proportion of the whole.What should we do?It seems that in a time of growing extremism,we need to recognise that religiously selective schools create a divided society.And instead of moving towards the integration of communities, current policy isintroducing more divides through a growing number of minority faith schools withselective admission policies. Furthermore, a key value in education should be fairness.Yet with faith schools we not only divide children according to their belief systems, butteach them to discriminate at the very age when we should be promoting inclusivityand equality. It is the wrong message at precisely the wrong time.Instead, our teachers should be encouraging interaction, not separation, in ourpublicly subscribed schools, as well as enabling those from less diverse areas to crossboundaries, and encouraging good quality, committed-but-open learning in civic andreligious communities.These three tasks belong together, and faith schools are not able to deliver them.All faiths should be made to feel that their traditions and convictions can be heard,understood and respected within any public educational institution. It is something wecan and should all be committed to, whatever our starting point.Knowledge trails1) School Totals – England’s faith state schools are failing to mirror their local communities byshunning the poorest pupils in their area. Available with Leadership Briefings.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/school-totals_2603122) Illegal admission criteria for religious schools – It’s true that a disproportionately highnumber of faith schools are breaching government admissions rules, but how many of thecomplaints made by parents are actually justified?www.teachingtimes.com/articles/illegal-admission-religious-schools.htm3) Diversity of Schools: Faith schools – The Children, Schools and Families Committee discussthe results of religious selection on a faith school’s intake of students. Transcript.www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmchilsch/c311-iii/c31102.htmhttp://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/school-choice-and-equity_5k9fq23507vc-enhttp://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/school-totals_260312http://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/illegal-admission-religious-schools.htmhttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmchilsch/c311-iii/c31102.htm"
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Leadership

The risks of religious selection

11 Jul 2013

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      string(5139) "Admissions Codeis a key piece? Gove appears to believe that the English education system hasbeen too uniform, uninspiring, dominated by the vested interests of the teachingunions and petty-minded local politicians. Prior to the last election he statedunequivocally that his mission would be to ‘transform the education systemfor the better’. What he is actually doing is fragmenting provision, diversifyingit, opening it up to the powerful pressure of local opinion while, paradoxically,taking to himself as Secretary of State more power than anybody has ever hadin his position. Academies, for example, are bound in a seven year agreementsigned with him. He can instruct and direct schools to be opened and closed in away no previous English Secretary of State has been able to do.The next stage will be the opening-up of state education to the private sector.Already we can see the growth of the edubusiness world as the private sectorjostles to pick up lucrative contracts to provide services, build and manageschools, provide equipment. Further down the line it is not impossible that for-profit companies will take over entire chains of schools as people realise thatschools cannot exist in isolation and need to work together.■■■■■30Vol 4.2School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comPolicyPolicy:School Admissions Gove skilfully rushed through the main planks of his reform in the first coupleof months of the coalition. Subsequent social reforms such as the NHS proposalshave had much greater scrutiny and some of the excesses cut back. Not so witheducation. With academies and free schools in place, with the new admissionscode and shortly the new curriculum, the picture on Gove’s jigsaw will becomeclear.When people see it for what it really is, I doubt they will like it. Way back inSeptember 2010, at the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool, I attempted,Cassandra-like, to alert my party to the potential dangers of what was happening. Iargued that Gove’s reforms would prove to be costly, divisive and unfair.We have already seen how the government has somehow found millionsof pounds, probably in excess of £600m, to ‘bribe’ schools into converting toacademy status.As for being divisive, the process has not only divided local schools into proand anti factions, it has proved to be divisive within schools as parents, governorsand staff squabble about whether ‘getting the best deal for their own school’predominates over the ‘greatest good for the largest number’.The Admissions Code now reinforces the concern about unfairness. Someschools will get stronger and probably improve their performance by recruitinga higher proportion of more able pupils and by having the size and therefore thecost-efficiency to provide good facilities and more, perhaps better-paid, staff. Butmany others will struggle with declining rolls, demoralised staff, reluctant learnersand shortage of funds.A market for educationGove’s vision was transformation for the better. Will it all make our educationsystem better? The evidence so far is mixed: some of the early academies setup by Labour have done well by improving the performance of pupils fromdisadvantaged backgrounds but many have not. It is too early to say whether thenew wave of converter academies, mainly drawn from already successful schools,will get even better.However much you change the system, educational establishments are full ofhuman beings with their strengths and weaknesses, their foibles and fallibilities.Already we have seen some high profile cases of fraud within an academy chain.Some academies have been inspected and put into the lowest category for whichthe normal rescue package is to convert compulsorily to become an academy,but they already are, so what next for them?Underlying all the changes of the last two years is the fundamental questionof the place of education in society. Is it a marketable product, to be purchasedand subject to the competitive pressures of the market-place, or is it a publicgood, to be available equitably to all members of society, wherever they happento be born and in whatever circumstances? The prevailing Govian principlesfavour the former construct. Will those who disagree ever be able to break thejigsaw up and re-build it more equitably. We shall see!Peter Downes was a comprehensive school Head for 21 years in Witney,Oxfordshire and Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. He was President of theSecondary Heads Association (now the Association of School and CollegeLeaders) and went on to be their Funding Consultant. He is now ‘retired’ i.e.he is a primary school governor, County Councillor in Cambridgeshire andVice-President of the Liberal Democrat Education Association. He writes in apersonal capacity.Knowledge trails1) Gove attacks inequality of society2) Illegal admissions criteria for religious schoolshttp://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/gove-inequality-society.htmhttp://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/illegal-admission-religious-schools.htm"
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Leadership

The admissions time bomb

30 Oct 2012

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      string(5832) "ResourceSCHOOLS ADJUDICATOR ANNUAL REPORTOriginal DocumentSchools Adjudicator Annual Report.  This is the annual report of the Schools Adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter. During 2007/2008 Sir Philip Hunter was asked to take on two new tasks in his role as Schools Adjudicator. The first of these was to review compliance with the Admission Appeals Code by admission appeals panels. The second was to review the compliance of admission authorities with the School Admission Code.KeywordsSchools Adjudicator, annual report, Admission Appeals, compliance, codeSummaryThe remit for the Office of the Schools Adjudicator is to:· Resolve disputes about statutory proposals on opening, closing and changing the size and character of schools;· Resolve disputes about admission arrangements;· Determine applications from admission authorities for variations to admission arrangements mid-year.· Dealing with objections by parents to school admission arrangements. · The OSA had 121 of these cases referred in the last two years;· Settling disputes between local authorities, schools and church authorities about the ownership of land. · There have been four of these cases;· Ruling on objections from schools that have been directed by local authorities to admit hard to place pupils.· There have been 38 of these cases in the past two years;· Deciding on competitions for schools where the local authority wishes to participate in one of the competing bids. · There have been two of these cases referred to the OSA;· Determining objections by local authorities to the establishment of Trusts. · The OSA had two of these cases this year.During 2007/2008 Sir Philip Hunter was asked to take on two new tasks in his role as Schools Adjudicator: · The first of these was to review compliance with the Admission Appeals Code by admission appeals panels. · The second was to review the compliance of admission authorities with the School Admission Code.In his review, the Schools Adjudicator has examined a large sample of school admission arrangements in England – looking at arrangements of all 150 local authorities, which control admissions in the majority of schools, and a further 3000 foundation and aided schools.He identified no apparent breaches of the code in the vast majority of community schools. However, he identified aspects in more than half of the foundation and aided schools that might not comply with the Code. Of these about half appeared to have clear breaches of the Code.Key Findings:· There have been 369 objections to admissions rules referred to the schools adjudicator this year, more than double the 173 referred in the previous academic year.· The watchdog has settled 289 of these – more than double the 117 dealt with in 2007/08.· The report showed that a large proportion of complaints, which were against proposed admissions arrangements for 2009, came from parents – 108 out of the 289 dealt with.· In addition, 142 complaints were from local authorities.· Whilst the inquiry, involving nearly 4,000 schools and councils, has found ‘widespread’ breaches, Sir Philip puts them down to ‘administrative confusion’ rather than ‘wilful disregard of the law’. Most were ‘technical’ breaches, often concerning vague definitions or unclear wording of policies, for example failing to specify whether siblings admissions criteria included step-siblings. · In other cases, schools had not correctly measured distances from applicants’ homes to the school gates or given priority to children in care. · Even when schools had sought banned information such as parents’ marital status or occupations, there was no evidence they were trying to cherry-pick pupils.The report concluded there was ‘evidence of widespread and serious departures from the Code’.Sir Philip’s report also included the findings of a study ordered by schools secretary Ed Balls into compliance with the admissions code:· The study of all 150 local authorities in England and more than 3,000 voluntary aided and foundation schools, found almost 4,000 breaches of the code – mainly on technicalities, with faith schools among the worst offenders.This included:· More than 2,000 schools which were not properly defining terms such as “place of residence”, or “distance from home to school.” · More than 800 schools which were asking illegal questions such as parents’ occupation on supplementary admissions forms. · More than 800 “substantial” breaches, such as failing to give priority to siblings. · Some schools keep priority places for siblings even when older brothers and sisters have already left the school, which is banned under admissions rules. Others fail to clarify whether half-brothers and sisters are eligible for reserved places.The report concluded there was “evidence of widespread and serious departures from the Code.”Action· All schools should be made to follow the same rules on a number of key admissions criteria – including on how they measure the distance between a families’ home and the school, a crucial factor in whether they get a place.· The Government and faith groups should draw up model “supplementary information forms” – questionnaires used by faith schools to mark religious adherence – to stop them asking for banned information.· An updated admissions code should also contain definitions for a number of terms such as ‘parents’,"
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Leadership

Schools Adjudicator Annual Report.

15 Nov 2008

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      string(388) "... local authority:· Faith schools that are their own admission authorities are ten times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than faith schools where the local authority is the admission authority.· Non-religious schools that are their own admissions authorities are six times more likely to be ..."
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      string(6012) "ResourceSCHOOL ADMISSIONS: FAIR CHOICE FOR PARENTS AND PUPILSOriginal DocumentSchool Admissions: Fair choice for parents and pupils This report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) suggests that secondary schools that are their own admission authorities are much less representative of their local area than other schools, and suggests that schools have no reason to be their own admissions authorities, other than to select students by ability or socio-economic background. KeywordsSchools, admissions, segregation, choice.Summary· Schools that are their own admission authorities are much more unrepresentative of their local areas than schools whose admissions are controlled by the local authority:· Faith schools that are their own admission authorities are ten times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than faith schools where the local authority is the admission authority.· Non-religious schools that are their own admissions authorities are six times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than community schools for whom the local authority is the admission authority.· Schools can develop a strong individual ethos without needing to control their own admissions.· There are less than 170 grammar schools. However, a third of secondary schools – 1,085 schools in all – are either Voluntary Aided or Foundation schools, and are their own admissions authorities. In addition, there are 10 City Technology Colleges and 47 Academies but the Government plans up to 400 Academies and is converting private faith schools into the state system.· Overall, secondary schools are twice as segregated by ability than they would be if they took the pupils living nearest to the school. There is evidence of peer effects on individual student performance and evidence that high levels of social segregation are associated with lower results overall.· Schools are more segregated than their surrounding neighbourhoods. If all secondary schools were ranked by their share of the top 20% of pupils, as measured by Key Stage 2 results, then the school that is 10% from the top of the distribution would have six times more of these high attaining pupils than the school that is 10% from the bottom of the distribution. However, if all schools took their nearest pupils this ratio would be halved.· Over 50,000 parents appealed against school admissions last year. More than 20,000 won them. There was a 10% rise in complaints about primary school admissions. Over 8% of applications for a secondary school place resulted in an appeal. Of these, over two thirds were heard by an appeals panel. A third found in favour of the parents.· Under ‘fair banding’, schools would have to admit equal proportions of pupils from each band of ability after meeting their existing commitments to looked after children and children with special educational needs. Other admissions criteria could then apply within each band, for example parental preference, siblings at school, distance to travel and religious faith. Under ‘single school fair banding’, each oversubscribed school is required to accept an intake that is representative of the range of ability of the pupils who applied. Under ‘area wide fair banding’, all schools in the area would be required to accept an intake that is representative of the range of ability of the area as a whole.     Conclusions:While the new School Admissions Code improves upon the previous arrangements, local authorities should actively monitor its effects on pupil segregation. Regardless of the rules of the admissions system, it will always be in a school’s interests to try to select the most able pupils if it can do so. While many schools act responsibly, there is some evidence that some schools are covertly selecting their pupils, and that these are much more likely to be schools who have authority over their own admissions.Unless the new Code dramatically reduces current levels of segregation, then schools should cease to be their own admission authority. The report suggests local authorities should perform the role of allocating places, and that there should be appropriate safeguards and a means of appeal for schools and parents.In the long term all local authorities should move towards a system of area-wide banding, where the objective of achieving a mixed ability intake of pupils at every school would sit alongside other factors such as parental preference and the distance from home to school. A fair banding system, where all schools admit pupils from across the whole ability range, can be combined with the use of parental preferences within each band to create a new system of fair choice. This argument applies equally to schools with a religious character, which means that religious faith would no longer take strict precedence over all other factors in allocating places to these schools. 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        array(0) {
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Leadership

School Admissions: Fair Choice For Parents & Pupils

13 Jun 2007

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