The Chairman of Governers at a Catholic primary school that is being transferred to the Church of England after its intake became overwhelmingly Muslim is calling for a national review of the purpose of Catholic education.
Nicolas Kennedy, chairman of governors at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School in Blackburn, is critical of Salford Diocese’s decision to hand over the school to an Anglican academy. In an article in this week’s Tablet, Mr Kennedy claims that the Church is effectively saying that it does not see a role for itself in educating non-Catholics.
He writes: “At a time when community cohesion is a major issue in many of our towns and cities, the Church’s view is that its interpretation of the role of Catholic education is more important than contributing to better understanding between ethnic groups and religions.”
Last month, the diocese announced that from September the school will be run by an academy trust set up by the Anglican Diocese of Blackburn following months of talks between the dioceses and the Department for Education. A spokesman for Salford Diocese said then that the school was “no longer fulfilling its responsibility” to its trust deed for providing education for Catholic children.
Sacred Heart, which will change its name when it becomes a Church of England school, has seen a steady decline in numbers of Catholic pupils over recent years, and of 190 pupils currently at the school, more than 95 per cent are Muslim.
“I am calling for a full review of the basis of Catholic education and the trust deeds that govern it,” Mr Kennedy writes. “We need … to clarify for the many other schools that have minorities or majorities of non-Catholics what their future path is so that their leadership is not undermined.”
Mr Kennedy also states that the diocese has sought a “material sum” from the new academy for the use of the school buildings. But a church source said the payment was merely a small ground rent for buildings built by the diocese. “If we wanted to make a profit we would have sold the school,” the source added.
A spokeswoman for the Catholic Education Service [CES] said that “this school is not representational of all Catholic schools” and that the national average of Catholic pupils in maintained Catholic schools in England is over 70 per cent.
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