Nicolas Kennedy (Tablet Education supplement, 17 May) poses the frequently debated question, “What are Catholic schools for?”. Forty years ago as a young Catholic teacher living in Southall, west London, I was told that diocesan authorities would not allow any of their schools to drop below 80 per cent Catholic roll. I well remember back then that the Catholic intake of local Our Lady and St Anselm’s School declined so much that the school was transferred to Sikh ownership and control. This was done for precisely the same reasons as Kennedy’s Blackburn school’s loss of Catholic status.In the intervening years, I have taught in a variety of Catholic and Church of England schools, urban and rural, and I know just how different have been the mission statements o