The first fully-selective faith school to be built in England in almost a decade has been approved by its local city council.
Hampton Water Roman Catholic Primary School in Peterborough, in the Diocese of East Anglia, will be the first fully religiously selective faith school to be established with state support since 2010, when the Government introduced a cap on the number of pupils who could be selected on the basis of their religion.
The last decade has seen a series of Government u-turns over that cap, including the reversal of a decision that would have allowed new free schools to select all of their pupils on the basis of faith. In May 2018 the Government said that instead of removing the cap for free schools it would instead support the opening of voluntary aided faith schools, that would be allowed to select all their pupils on the basis of faith.
Although the Department for Education assigned funds for 14 such schools, the school in Peterborough is the first one to reach the planning stage.
Hampton Water is expected to select 80 per cent of its pupils on the basis of faith in its first year, with this figure potentially rising in future years. A certain number of places are reserved for children living in the locality of the school regardless of faith.
The councillors endorsing the proposal argued that current admissions data indicate that faith admissions are already underrepresented, and it is reasonable to expect that the 80 per cent “roof” on faith selections will not be reached in practice. The National Secular Society’s “No More Faith Schools” campaign, however, has stated that it is considering a legal challenge to the decision, which they describe as “discriminatory”.
Meanwhile in Newham, several schools – St Michael’s, St Bonaventure’s and St Angela’s – have taken or considered industrial action as part of a dispute over Brentwood diocese’s plans to convert Catholic schools into academies. Although St Angela’s has confirmed that they would not be seeking Academy status for five years, the other east London schools have not received such assurances.
Loading ...
