BHA claims faith schools abusing admissions system

The report divulged that 69 out of the 70 secondary faith schools investigated failed to properly comply with the Admissions Code. The report was produced on behalf of the Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC) and lists a string of violations to the admissions arrangements, committed by religious selective state schools. A significant issue concerned the lack of clarity regarding the frequency and duration of worship necessary.

A number of schools failed to prioritise looked-after and formerly looked-after children. In addition, the majority of faith schools appeared to request unnecessary information from parents.

Of the 70 schools investigated, 39 prompted the BHA and FAC to submit objections to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA). Over 1,300 breaches of the code were found during the investigation.

The report concluded that 1.2 million school places in England are subject to religious selection criteria and thus there are a great number of children who are unfairly losing out. The BHA and FAC are calling for a reform of the system, including a revision to the code in particular areas and the establishment of an independent monitoring system to enforce better compliance.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the BHA, said the system of religious selection should be abandoned altogether.

He said: “Over a million state school places in England are subject to religious selection and it’s well known that religious schools have been abusing the admissions system for some time.

"Even so, no one can have imagined the problem was as widespread as this report shows.”

Paul Barber, director of the Catholic Education Service, disagrees with Copson. He says: “School admissions are extremely complex and are accompanied by hundreds of pages of legal framework, so the most likely causes of breaches in the code are unintended admin errors.

“The BHA ‘research’ only takes into account a small cross-section of schools and fails to represent the national picture outlined by the OSA in its most recent report.

“We expect all Catholic schools to comply with the code and local dioceses provide support for schools to do so. It is because of our admissions system that Catholic schools are the most ethnically diverse in England and contain higher than the national average of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We want every child to have access to the best education possible, and where there is evidence a school does not have fair and transparent admissions arrangements, swift action will be taken.

"We will consider the findings of BHA's report carefully. All of the objections they have listed have now been resolved."

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