Church schools for the whole community

The Revd Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer for The Church of England, looks ahead to Education Sunday this weekend by celebrating Church schools and reflecting on recent government announcements on the future of education.

Education Sunday is a chance to celebrate, rejoice with and pray for all those involved in the vital work of education.

High quality education should be available to all and we continue to work to ensure that excellent provision is available everywhere for everyone. With many schools reporting that they feel under increasing pressure to make artificial choices between academic rigour and the wellbeing of their pupils, we are unequivocal in our message that there is no such distinction - a good education must promote life in all its fullness.

But the educational landscape is a finely balanced ecosystem and changing one aspect of it can lead to unintended consequences in another. Therefore, like everyone else in the education world, we will look carefully at the proposals about grammar schools announced by the Prime Minister today and respond fully to consultations as they are published. The proposal represents a major change in the landscape and we will ensure that our experience of providing schools in areas where there are selective schools is used to contribute to the debate, because we know the challenges and complexities of the system.

We are glad that the Prime Minister recognises the need to ensure that the whole system serves everyone and removes disadvantage. Our fundamental commitment in providing schools is that every pupil should be enabled to flourish, whatever their background. The priority for an improving school system should be to ensure that this is made possible for each person, no matter the circumstances into which they are born or the struggles they may face as learners.

Competition for places occurs where our schools are oversubscribed due to their popularity.  We are confidently planning to open new Church of England schools, particularly new secondary schools so that more of the 800,000 pupils who choose a Church of England primary school education can have access to a secondary education that shares our vision for education which promotes life in all its fullness. And we want to provide more primary schools too, because there is a constant demand for more school places of the quality that our schools rightly have a reputation for as they promote education for wisdom, hope, community and dignity.

The government proposals may lead to a lifting of the cap on faith-based places, but we remain committed to ensuring our schools serve their local community. Our schools are not faith schools for the faithful, they are Church schools for the community, and we don’t propose to change that. Very few select exclusively by Christian affiliation and many of our schools have large numbers of children of other faiths or no faith. Those that give priority to Christian children, do so in areas where competition for places is acute and providing places purely on distance from the school would mean that only the wealthiest, who can afford to move house nearby, can access the best schools.

So, this Education Sunday more than ever, we need to pray for all those working in education. For leaders and teachers, support staff, politicians and government officials, praying for wisdom to do the very best for every child we serve.

The Revd Nigel Genders