There is an important distinction between how Catholic and Church of England schools teach about faith. But they can learn from one another and pass on a richer experience in the formation of their pupils

One of the root meanings of the word “education” is “drawing out what is already there”. This does not mean that imparting a body of knowledge is not a significant part of the job. But it does mean that formation is always primary. As parents of three children born only 17 months apart (it does work if two of them are twins), we have always been fundamentally concerned with that – drawing out and developing what is given. Indeed as parents of non-identical twins, one of the extraordinary things we have learned since their birth is just how much was already given in terms of character.

As parents, we have therefore taken the job of formation very seriously, while also recognising the limits to our role. Until two years ago, when all our children started university simultaneously (financially ruinous but a fantastic experience of launching them into adult life), school  figured intensively in our daily lives. In almost all my parishes I have been a school governor of at least two schools, and I am married to a secondary school teacher. Our involvement in education has not been just about the children.

We have had an absolute policy of sending our children to the nearest state school. They started school in an area of multiple deprivation in west Newcastle and finished in the rather different context of Harrogate. As a result, most of their primary education was in a community ranked in the two per cent most deprived in the country; most of their secondary education in a place ranked in the two per cent least deprived; the years in between were in Derby, which stands almost exactly on the 50 per cent line. That pilgrimage for all of us has been an education in itself.