The announcement that a Church School has been criticised for its admissions policies is not something that is particularly newsworthy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/education-15793881). This decision by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator will have reinforced the views of those who are critical of the existence of these institutions, whilst supporters of faith schools will feel that their views and traditions are yet again being threatened by a secularist state. Yet not all Church Schools set their own admissions policies, preferring instead the policy set by the LEA. The largest provider of Church Schools is the Church of England and less than half of the Schools they run are in control of their own admissions policy. However this is a substantial number of schools and in the case of this Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided School the governors do have responsibility for setting such policies. 

Giving a group of people (often with a number of existing parents in the mix) the chance to decide a criteria for school admissions is not limited to faith schools. This is how many academies work and also the new Free Schools introduced by Michael Gove. The temptation for these parents (irrespective of any religious motivation) to set  policies that they think will favour their own children and ensuring that the intakes are ‘people like us’ must be very acute. Anyone who has had to decide which school to send their children to, will understand this. In the case of the Coloma Convent Girls’ School who feature in this story, even the local Diocese were concerned that the school was being far too protective of its intake. 

For some schools the ‘luxury’ of a discriminatory admissions policy will be simply a distant concept. It is only in our urban settings that such ideas can be enacted. Many faith-based schools operate in a setting where the nearest school might be some miles away and so the selection criteria is simply all those who live in the locality.

However, even in urban settings it is not a given that where the admissions policy is set by the church community, that this policy will favour members of the church. In at least one setting that I am aware of, the church has decided to give priority to 50% of the places to students who do not have a church background. This is because they recognise that their institution is one that offers an education which is well-respected, but that the education is successful because of the diversity of intake as well as the spiritual values enshrined in the way they educate their charges. This example may be more of an exception than the norm but it does offer an alternative to the sense of protectionism created by the Governors at Coloma and many other voluntary aided church schools.