Distinctive and Inclusive

CHURCH OF ENGLAND NATIONAL ADVICE TO DIOCESAN BOARDS OF EDUCATION RELATING TO THE DfES SCHOOL ADMISSIONS CODE 2007

This guidance should be read in conjunction with the School Admissions Code 2007.

Background

• Church of England schools that are their own admissions authorities must obtain the advice of their Diocesan Board of Education and have regard to that advice before consulting with their Local Authority and other admissions authorities on their proposed admission arrangements. The Church of England schools required to obtain such advice are: Voluntary Aided schools, any Voluntary Controlled schools with delegated admissions powers, and Foundation schools.

• Lord Dearing’s report The Way ahead: Church of England schools in the new millennium (2001) proposed, and General Synod approved, the policy that church schools should admit a proportion of their pupils on the basis of their and / or their parents’ Christian commitment and another proportion on the basis that they adhere to another faith or that they live near the school. The policy did not specify respective proportions.

• The House of Bishops issued a statement in January 2002 committing the Church to practising inclusion of those of other faiths and none in school admissions policies. The Board of Education issued guidance to DBEs to that effect in November 2002.

• Since then there have been several developments on school admissions. The Children Act 2004 led to changes in government guidance urging admissions authorities to give priority to looked after children. More recently, s106 of the Education Act 2005 allowed the government to issue regulations about priority for looked after children.  These emerged as The Education (Admission of Looked after Children)(England) Regulations 2006. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires admissions authorities to act in accordance with the Government’s Admissions Code and strengthens the powers DBEs already had by giving Diocesan Authorities a new power themselves to refer a school’s admissions arrangements to the adjudicator. No doubt the adjudicator in coming to a decision whether or not to change the admissions arrangements of the particular school will be guided to some degree by the advice the diocese had given.

• On 3 October 2006 the Bishop of Portsmouth wrote to the Secretary of State to say that new Church of England schools should make 25% of places available without test of faith. This would be consistent with diocesan practice in relation to ‘Dearing’ schools.  The Secretary of State replied welcoming more Church of England schools where there was parental demand and community support.

The School Admissions Code 2007

• The School Admissions Code 2007 provides DfES guidance for all schools, Local Authorities, Adjudicators and other interested bodies, such as dioceses.  It is a substantial and important document of which all admissions authorities must take account in respect of admissions for September 2008 and beyond. This in practice means that its provisions must be reflected in school admissions prospectuses with immediate effect. All admissions authorities must act in accordance with the mandatory provisions of the Code.

• Chapter 1 of the Code sets out the law in respect of Equity and Fair Access in School Admission Arrangements.  Dioceses should note in particular:

1.21 Once an admission number is published it may not be exceeded unless exceptional circumstances apply. Other than two further limitations, these circumstances are not defined, but clearly will need to be very unusual.

1.51 Looked After Children are referred to in this Code as children in care.

1.52-1.63 This section on children from overseas may well be of greater relevance to more schools now than in the past. Governing Bodies should therefore take account of these paragraphs in drafting their revised policies.

1.65 We know that the Adjudicators will require compliance with this paragraph. Admissions policies must therefore be clear, objective, fair, and equitable. Complicated policies are likely to be challenged.

1.71, 1.72 and 1.76 Note the specific but limited power for supplementary information.

1.82 Schools where some form of voluntary donation for governors’ funds is common will need to be very careful how this is set out in the school prospectus and any other literature and should make it clear in admissions policies that donations are not expected.

1.87 (b) Dioceses should remind Local Authorities of this fourth school provision. We understand that the funding for this transport comes from national sources and that an LA may not refuse to make this provision on grounds of cost.

1.91 We must all be proactive in addressing perceived disadvantage.

• Chapter 2 sets out Fair Oversubscription Criteria. Dioceses should note in particular:

2.8 Church schools must either admit all children in care as their first priority or must admit all Church of England children in care as their first faith priority and then admit all other children in care as their top local priority. The Church of England accepts as eligible for faith priority under this regulation all children who have undergone Christian baptism or a Christian initiation ceremony.

2.10 Avoiding over-complex criteria has been stressed also by the Chief Adjudicator. Dioceses should note that points systems are not forbidden by this paragraph. Complicated points systems, however, are likely to be challenged.

2.13 It is clearly important that dioceses should advise schools not to infringe these prohibitions. (a) and (b) have been not uncommon in some parts of the country and are now completely forbidden. In (l) the religious authority is the diocese – as throughout this Code.

2.27 Thus it is appropriate to admit a child under this criterion, if the school has a swimming pool, for medical/disability reasons but not because (s)he is a potential Olympic swimmer.

2.32 Most Local Authorities are willing to allow other admissions authorities to use their systems for calculating distance and congruence with the LA method is clearly desirable to ensure fairness.

2.34 Dioceses should encourage schools to look carefully at the local implications of this paragraph.

The Church of England Board of Education provides the following additional guidance for dioceses in determining their advice to their schools on local priority places:

Local children – “local priority” places

• Every Church of England school should identify the proportion of places it intends to make available on the basis of local priority rather than faith priority. Local priority places are places offered without a faith test. They will be taken up by people living near the school, usually with a tie-break of proximity to the school, though it would be open to a governing body to allocate them by random selection or lottery between those living within a given distance from the school. These local priority places may of course be applied for by practising Christians or people of other faiths or none.

• In cases where the provision of church schools is plentiful, the proportion of local priority places would normally be higher than where provision is scarce. In some parts of the country 3 out of 4 primary schools are provided by the Church of England. There it might be appropriate to make 75% or even 100% of places available on the basis of local priority. In such cases, all those who lived within the parish or parishes the school served would be offered places as a priority. In other parts of the country, possibly in the same diocese, only one in twelve primary schools is provided by the Church of England. There it might be appropriate to make as little as 15% of places available on a local priority basis.

• Only one in twenty secondary schools is provided by the Church of England, although that number is growing. Many of them are heavily oversubscribed. To be consistent with the policy of the Church of England as expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, General Synod and the House of Bishops, at least 15% of places (or at least 25% in new schools) should normally be made available on the basis of local priority rather than faith priority.

• Many new Church of England secondary schools are being provided in socially and educationally disadvantaged communities. Dioceses are committed in such circumstances to making a Christian education available to the people of that particular community. Admissions policies for such schools could reasonably make available a much higher proportion of places on a local priority basis. Several new schools are allocating 50% or even 100% of places in this way. Decisions about these matters are the responsibility of the admissions authority having regard to the guidance offered by the diocese.

9.  Additional guidelines for faith schools form an especially important part of Chapter 2.

Noted here are points which seem to need stressing from the paragraphs in this section and further guidance from the Church of England nationally which dioceses are asked to consider in offering advice to their schools. This guidance has been formally agreed by both the Church of England Board of Education and the National Society Council.

2.41 Note that (for the first time, we believe) the child’s own religious practice can be taken into account as well as the practice and wishes of the parents. This will be especially important in secondary and post-16 admissions.

2.43 The religious authority referred to here is the diocese. However, the Church of England Board of Education provides the following guidance for dioceses in determining their advice to their schools:

On 14 March 2006, the Archbishop of Canterbury asked the Church to find “some simple objective criteria, applicable across the country, for admissions; and, to avoid misunderstanding, some clear public commitment in the whole sector to guarantee places for local children and for children of other faith backgrounds”.

Christian commitment – “faith priority” places

• Baptism is the basic criterion for the identification of the children of practising Christian families. Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child could also be taken into account for those Christians who do not practise infant Baptism. However, that will not normally be enough on its own, if over-subscribed schools are going to be able to distinguish those most clearly admissible on faith grounds. There needs also to be some evidence of Christian commitment and practice for those seeking admission on the basis that they are of the faith of the school.

• Governing bodies’ understandable and proper commitment to objectivity can conflict with the requirement of simplicity. Points systems can appear complex and be thought to reward those with the time or family circumstances to do more in church. For theological, political and social reasons, therefore, admissions policies that appear to be based on and promote a doctrine of justification by works, that look like covert social selection and that appear to parents to be complex and forbidding should be avoided.

• Instead, we propose a simpler three-tier stratification for faith-based places. It would be for governing bodies to determine whether to use all or some of the tiers, but our recommendation is that policies should normally list all three:
  • known to the church
  • attached to the church and
  • at the heart of the church.

• Applicants for a faith priority place should be asked to identify themselves as being: known to the church; or attached to the church; or at the heart of the church. The period in question would normally (we suggest) be the past two years. Applicants new to the area would need to provide evidence from a previous church or churches.

• We further suggest that the definitions of these tiers should be broad and objective. Thus, an applicant ‘known to the church’ would not be a frequent but probably an occasional worshipper, someone who is perhaps known through a family connection, or one or more of whose family would be involved in some church activity, such as a uniformed or other church organisation.

• An applicant ‘attached to the church’ would be a regular but not frequent worshipper, by which is meant (for example) one who usually attends a monthly family or church parade service or is regularly involved in a weekday church activity including an element of worship.

• An applicant ‘at the heart of the church’ would be a regular worshipper. We suggest that this might normally mean one who worships usually twice a month. To accommodate difficult patterns of work and family relationships account should be taken of week-day worship. The worshipper could be the child for whom application is made or one or both parents.

• It is recognised that these are relative judgements and therefore should be formulated and interpreted according to the context of the school. The phrasing and divisions appropriate to a village primary school are not likely to be the same as those for a large city secondary school serving a wide geographical area.

• Church of England schools should offer places to non-Anglican Christians within the faith priority proportion. These applications should normally be listed within each of the three categories after the applications for children of Anglican families. It will be important to determine locally whether it would be appropriate to admit Anglicans who only satisfied the ‘known to the church’ criterion before admitting non-Anglican Christians who were ‘at the heart of’ their church. The Church of England’s covenant relationship with the Methodist church and any other local covenants should be taken into account.

• In the same way, schools may offer places to the children of other faith communities. We suggest that in doing so they should use similar criteria, but with an understanding that these may be easier to apply within some communities than in others. Consultation with local faith leaders will probably help achieve workable formulations. These are also likely to differ from one neighbourhood to another in accordance with the make-up of the local (or wider) community.

• We advise that the “three-tier” approach will be easier for parents to understand, will simplify procedures for parents, parishes and governing bodies and will be less likely to be challenged as potentially leading to some form of “covert selection”.

• However, there will be schools (perhaps mainly large secondary schools) within which the large bulk of applicants will fall within the top tier – “at the heart of the church”. This will require further tie-breaker criteria. We propose that serious consideration should be given to proximity of residence and to random allocation as tie breakers. However, within this overall category, it may be that some further element of stratification is required and thought locally to be desirable. Nothing in legislation prevents this as long as any further criteria are clear to parents and objective. However, any points system introduced at this point would need to be very carefully judged against local circumstances since it could be viewed as favouring: children with two parents at home; families with more than ordinary free and leisure time; parents whose work pattern rarely or never requires them to work on Sundays. These are the kind of situations where challenges about “covert selection” may arise

Application form and church reference

• Applicants for faith priority places will need an application form to give evidence of their Christian (or other faith) commitment. It is strongly recommended that this be kept as simple as possible. It is also important that the process does not socially distort by favouring those who can give more time to church activities other than worship. This form need only be a set of tick boxes for the three tiers, space for a signature and a note about the inclusion of a baptism certificate or equivalent.

• Christian applicants should give evidence that the child for whom a place is sought has been baptised or had a service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child. A copy of a certificate of Baptism or of a service of Thanksgiving should be included if possible with the application.

• There needs to be confirmation through a worship community reference of applicants’ claims, where they are applying on a faith priority basis. This reference should, we believe, simply confirm or reject the objective facts as proposed by the family: this family is known to the church; this family is attached to the church; this family is at the heart of the church.

• We also suggest that it would relieve personal pastoral pressure on the clergy if two representatives of the parish church (or cathedral, where that is the place of worship of the family) should both sign the reference form. These need not include one of the clergy. Neither of the representatives should be a member of the governing body of the school at which the application has been made. One of them might appropriately be actively involved in children’s work in the church.

• A degree of local relativity is inevitable on the part of the church referees in these judgements, if the process is to take account of individual families’ (or indeed church) circumstances, and is not to disadvantage those with difficult family situations. This would usually be assisted by appropriate local definitions of each of the three tiers being published in the school admissions document. The church referees should not normally discuss their reference with the applicants.

• Once the reference is available to the governing body of the school in question it becomes objective evidence for the admissions committee in forming their judgement on the application. The same would apply in the case of any subsequent appeal or adjudication.

• We believe that the above criteria (modified as necessary to meet local circumstances) meet the requirements set out here to be clear, objective and fair and understand that they are likely to be accepted as such by the DfES and the Adjudicators.
• Note that admissions authorities should have regard to diocesan advice. They are not bound to accept it but are quite likely to be challenged if they do not. In such circumstances the diocese itself may if it wishes refer the governing body’s policy to the adjudicator.
• This and the following paragraphs protect the diocesan position in respect of new schools.

10.   Chapter 3 covers Admission Arrangements In-Year and In-Year Fair Access Protocols. It is important that all Church of England schools should play their full part in enabling hard to place children to receive an education. A faith school may have an especially positive role in respect of such young people and their families.

3.14 notes the new name – In-Year Fair Access Protocols.

3.18 and 3.20 set out a Local Authority’s limited powers of direction under the Schools Standards and Framework Act and the school’s power to refer the direction to the Adjudicator. We advise that this should only be invoked in cases of extreme difficulty.

3.26-8 Dioceses should ensure that schools are well aware of these provisions with regard to waiting lists, where they exist.

11.  Chapter 4 provides guidelines for monitoring and ensuring a Fair Admissions System.

       4.3 notes that all governing bodies that are admissions authorities may nominate a member of  the admissions forum for their area. They are encouraged to do so.

       4.17 (j) permits dioceses to refer to the adjudicator their own schools’ proposed admission arrangements where they believe this to be appropriate. This may sometimes be preferable to the Local Authority making such a move.

12.  Appendix 1  notes relevant legislation.

       8 and 9 summarise the exceptions available to faith schools under the Equality Act 2006. It is sometimes necessary to remind Local Authorities or other parties of this legislation.

13.  Appendix 2 summarises the membership and role of Admission Forums.

14.  Appendix 3 sets out the statutory requirements for Coordinated Admission Schemes.

15.  Appendix 4 sets out the important rules governing Consultation and Publication. Everything to do with the admissions process must be transparent.

16.  Appendix 5 addresses Choice Advice.

       6 and 7 set out the delicate balance required in this role.

       11 notes the independence of such advice from the Local Authority’s own roles as either provider or commissioner of schools. Dioceses should be vigilant to ensure that this independence is not infringed.

17.  Appendix 6 provides more detailed guidelines for Boarding Schools.

18.  The Glossary is helpful but contains no faith definitions!

19. All substantive parts of this guidance are taken from papers agreed in detail by the Church of England Board of Education and are offered to Diocesan Boards of Education to assist them in their roles viz a viz their schools.

D. J. Whittington OBE

Acting Chief Education Officer

January 9th 2007