CES seeks apology for Catholic school slur

Paul Barber, the Church’s education director, has met the Government’s chief schools’ inspector to “set the record straight” about a Catholic ­secondary school that was listed as failing to deal effectively with extremism and radicalism, writes Christopher Lamb.

Mr Barber, of the Catholic Education Service (CES), raised the matter with Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted and himself a Catholic, on 16 December.

Earlier, Mr Barber had called on Ofsted to apologise for listing St Benedict’s, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, as one of 11 schools “not preparing pupils for life in Britain today”, including a failure to teach respect and understanding of other faiths and tolerance of other ­communities. He said Ofsted had made “an unsubstantiated ­accusation” and stressed that Catholic schools are robust in ­promoting values that are both “Catholic and British”, including respect, tolerance, inclusiveness and service of the poor.

Accusations were ­levelled at the school after a no-notice Ofsted inspection in October but were later repealed. The head teacher of St Benedict’s has said that Ofsted so far has failed to provide an adequate response and that the inspection was “flawed”.

Schools are now required to teach British values, including tolerance and mutual understanding. 

A spokesman for Ofsted told The Tablet that the meeting “went well” and said that St Benedict’s had been listed because it had been one of those schools found needing improvement following a no-notice inspection.