Faith schools seem to do pretty well in the league tables. But look more closely and you see they do it by top slicing the local community. The other schools in the area do rather badly. The presence or absence of faith schools does not affect the overall results.
This does not mean their impact is neutral. Their admissions are often based on parents’ or pupils’ religion or belief. When recruiting or employing staff they are allowed to discriminate on grounds of religion or belief. They are not required to provide an objective, even handed programme of religious education. Faith schools exist to promote a brand; they segregate. Social cohesion is rarely one of their concerns.
The ACCORD coalition for inclusive schooling aims to change all this. Christians, Humanists, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers were among its founding members. Its Chair is a Rabbi, and supporters include Hindus, Sikhs, the chair of the Muslim Foundation and many others. Inclusive schooling means doing away with discrimination in admissions and employment, and every publicly funded school providing comprehensive and objective religious education and having inclusive and inspirational assemblies instead of compulsory acts of worship “of a broadly Christian character”.
ACCORD already has strong allies, among them the Liberal Democrats and the National Union of Teachers. And there are other interesting signs of people moving away from old entrenched positions. The Anglican Archbishop of Armagh says it is time to think about joint Catholic/Anglican schools in Northern Ireland. And in their Easter messages both the retiring Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor and the Archbishop of Canterbury said Christians should lead by example; Christian faith and values should not be imposed.
At a time when the government seems eager to have more faith schools, when it is impossible to discover the secret agendas of some of those promoting academies, and when Surrey County Council is facing damages of more than £400,000 for failing to protect head teacher Erica Connor from false accusations of religious phobia, ACCORD’s is the voice of reason and tolerance.
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