‘Concentrate on the quality of schools’
THE BISHOP of Bath and Wells has called for the Government to focus on the quality of schools rather than getting hung up on structures.
Bishop Peter Price also said there was a lack of engagement between the free schools programme and black and minority ethnic communities.
In a debate in the House of Lords, he said: “Our concern is that, with so much attention and energy being devoted to this ideology about school structures, the risk is that we divert our attention from the needs of the vast majority of children in our schools, especially in the primary phase.
“We need to frame our debate as being about the effectiveness of schools and the ways in which to achieve greater levels of collaboration and effective partnerships that result in more good and outstanding schools, irrespective of their status as academies or maintained schools.
“For example, in Southwark diocese, 88 per cent and, in Liverpool diocese, 85 per cent of Church of England schools are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted, with only a handful of those schools being academies.
“So the need to ensure that we learn the lessons of what makes for effective provision without limiting the debate to academies and free schools continues to matter a great deal.”
Bishop Price said that free schools often offered a “good way to introduce new providers and bring fresh ideas to the needs of the community”.
But he suggested that limited resources should be focused on providing extra pupil places in areas with growing populations rather than adding more places in areas where there was already ample provision.
He added: “There remains a continuing lack of engagement with BME communities in the free schools programme, particularly those that have been acutely disadvantaged in education, such as the African, Caribbean and Pakistani communities.
“Some such communities are attempting to seize the pre-school programmes as an opportunity to improve educational outcomes for BME and other pupils, but they face barriers to success.
“Other such communities remain largely unaware of the programme, and it is important that the Department for Education gives attention to the engagement of such underrepresented communities.
“Many free schools being established with the aim of improving education in deprived urban areas are enrolling people from disadvantaged backgrounds at much lower rates than other local schools. Barriers linked to financial expertise, financial resources and social capital all have implications in relation to this.”
In a separate intervention, Bishop Price welcomed the Government’s decision not to go ahead with a plan to replace GCSEs with EBaccs.
“Our concerns about the Government’s EBacc plans have always focused on the downgrading of religious education as a core subject,” he said. “In modern society, understanding about faith has never been more important for both civic discourse and cultural enrichment.”