Have church schools ever been challenged on grounds of discrimination by ethnicity?

[BranchingOut]

I was wondering if any person or organisation has ever challenged an individual church school or the overall existence of church schools on the grounds of discrimination by ethnicity?

Taking a quick look at the church of england diversity figures, these two paragraphs jump out:

This survey reveals the vitality of a younger profile that people from minority
ethnic backgrounds bring to local church congregations. It confirms the similar
finding in the 2005 clergy audit. In particular, among younger adult congregation members under 35 years of age, the ethnic minority proportion matches the proportion in the whole population, around 15%.

1.2.4 The largest proportion of minority ethnic Anglicans (two-thirds) are clustered in the main three dioceses around the London conurbation and, consequently, bring a younger profile to the churches in the London area. Over the whole country, urban Church of England parishes recorded an average of 9% minority ethnic Anglicans in their core adult congregations while suburban and rural parishes recorded 4% and 3.6% respectively.

www.churchofengland.org/media/1032500/celebratingdiversitygsmisc938.pdf

So, the population attending church in the Church of England would seem to be broadly white. While we all know that church schools are obliged to admit children of any faith, this is often so far down the admissions criteria that it is almost wholly ineffective. Are church schools effectively discriminating on the basis of ethnicity because the black and minority ethnic pupils are much less likely to attend a relevant church?

If church schools make up a significant proportion of the country's school places, which are currently under huge pressure in many parts of the country, then surely this is an issue? It would seem to hugely limit school choice for many sections of the population. In an oversubscribed area, someone who is a white CofE churchgoer can choose either a community or a church school (two school choices), whereas someone who is Hindu only has the community school (one school) to choose from. Setting religion aside, there may be many reasons why that church school might the best school for that Hindu pupil - SEN provision, grounds, location, curriculum, parental preference - yet they are very unlikely to get in. Why is faith seen as the overwhelming factor?

This is a question I am interested in, rather than trying to persuade anyone to any particular point of view. Does anyone have any insight?

'An argument' I said - i.e. a discussion in which a point is debated.

Polly - yes, people should try that thought experiment. They're unlikely to have to try it for real because most atheists are secularists; it would be against their ethical principles to start a discriminatory school.

Unfortunately, churches have no such inhibitions. Formerly non-denominational schools are getting taken over by them - essentially if you can get a bunch of people onto the board of governors you can stage a coup and - with no mechanism for reversal - declare it to be a faith school. The church doesnt have to buy the building or anything.

You don't have to be white to be a Chrisitian so why would they be discriminating on ethnicity?

You don't have to be white to be a Chrisitian so why would they be discriminating on ethnicity?

I suppose there could be an argument that - while there is no intent to discriminate by race - that can be the effect. Sort of like the situation with sex equality where there was effective discrimination because 'womens' jobs tended to pay less than 'mens' . I can't see anyone bringing such a case though.

I think that giving priority to those whose babies have been baptised as infants is discriminatory. Many asian christians are converts and its more likely they or their children will be baptised when older. It is indirect discrimination to insist on infant baptism.

"For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one bodywhether Jews or Greeks, slave or freeand we were all given the one Spirit to drink"
1 Corinthians 12:13

It should not matter at what age a person is baptised if you are going to follow the bible.

However I see no problem with priority on church attendence. A black or indian family can easily attend church. Its not racial discrimination.

A black or indian family can easily attend church.

In the case of an Indian family, I'm not sure that 'easily' always pertains. I had a friend at uni who was from a Sikh family who became a Christian - it was far from 'easy' for him. In the case of a family from an Islamic background, there could be severe penalties for apostasy.

"I had a friend at uni who was from a Sikh family who became a Christian - it was far from 'easy' for him. In the case of a family from an Islamic background, there could be severe penalties for apostasy."

There is plenty of grief for white people to decide to become christians. Any way if an ex muslim had threats from their family because they had converted then that would be police matter. In my experience people like your ex Sikh friend tend to be very enthusiasic about church.

Black and asian people can and do become Christians. Often they pick the more evangelical churches, but they are WELCOME in the church of england. Our local church school which my children don't go to asks people to attend church 12 times a year in the year of application. There is no mention of baptism in its admission criteria.

If a muslim family was worried about apostasy they won't pick a church school as their first choice. They will ask for their children to be withdrawn from worship/ RE lessons if they had no other choice of school.

"This thread has a hefty piece of the green-eyed monster about."

if you lived in an area - eg Chichester - where your choice of schools was 1) boys/girls both under section 8 (ie 3/4 ofsted rated) or 2) a faith school with excellent results and Ofsted rated 1, which would you choose?
If the fact that you haven't been going to the 'right' church, or no church at all, wouldn't you feel your rights as a taxpayer contributing an equal amount as the Christian living next door to you were being trampled all over?

The Christian community in the UK is whiter and wealthier than average -in a country where the base population is 90%ish white anyway..
(note: RC have gained due to recent East European immigration in terms of diversity, but this still applies - google 'tear fund research')

I do believe discriminating on faith for admissions is a form of ethnicity discrimination, and also a stronger form of social discrimination that excludes many poorer groups (e.g. single mothers are less likely to have faith, even less regular attendance at the same 'correct' church .. and also a particularly financially disadvantaged group)

It would be interesting to know how many of the "green eyed" monsters on this thread are actually black or asian.

I agree that regular church attendence as a requirement excludes children with behavioural SEN. However that is not a race issue. Ironically our local church school has a category for children who practice a faith but aren't actually christian.

I agree that more needs to be done to ensure that EVERY state school has a varied social/ ethnic mix and their fair share of badly behaved kids.

Hi Collager, in my OP I pulled up some figures from the church of england which said that the percentage of people from BME backgrounds attending church was around 15 percent.

So although you are more likely to be from a white background than not if you are a churchgoer in the c of e.

I am not raising this thread from an angle of jealousy - my eyes are not green - but from wishing to have a debate and find out more. This is why I have taken the time to search for some national figures from the c of e. Not 'gunning' for it, but it is the church with which I am more familiar and I didn't have time to look up those for the RC church!

Apologies for any lack of clarity above - on phone.

I think the 15% percent figure refers to BME attendance at C of E churches and not all churches. It does state that "Black and Black British adults have been found to be more likely to belong to Church of England local congregations than their white counterparts." and "Among approximately 100,000 under 35s in core parish congregations, the ethnic minority proportion of the church matches the proportion in the whole population, around 15%."

It also appears that you assume BME families have been applying for these school places and not getting them which i suspect may not necessarily be the case. Is there any data on the proportion of the various ethnic groups who unsuccessfully apply to church schools to support such a challenge? that would be interesting to analyse

The CofE school that my children attend has children of all different religions. The over subscription criteria has no mention of baptism or church attendance. The criteria used is the LEA's standard one. Not all admissions of CofE schools are based on faith or church attendance

I don't see that there is a problem at all with ethnic minorities in churches or church schools.

In the OP it says that urban churches have a congregation that is about 9% ethnic minority. Given that around 90% of the uK population as a whole is White then the religion figures don't seem that different from the general ones?

I would have thought that, on average, all schools were about 90% White, 10% other races. Obviously some will be weighted differently depending on area but that would be reflected in both church figures and general population ones.

There are some areas where it is an issue.

We were once in the little aquarium in the museum in Bolton. There were two nice fishy collages made by the pupils of two schools, the names of whom were listed. The CofE school, the names were without exception 'English'. The 'community' school, the names were without exception Islamic.

Now, that may have arisen entirely through parental choice. It might be that the same sort of stark split could have occurred with a purely catchment-based admissions system. But it was pretty sad to see, and the existence of faith schools in some areas does seem to promote division. I'm quite sure the churches never intended such a result, but neverthereless its there.

In our area, the CofE schools have "looked after" children above anything else. The Catholic schools have "looked after Catholic" children. I found that difference surprising.

Yes, its suprising that the RC has this difference from CofE and (AFAIK) every non-dom school. The labelling of children as being 'catholic children' or otherwise is pretty to me anyway, but that's probably a whole other debate.

Where I live in central London this is a real issue. There are a significant number of North Africans (inc DH) and Bengalis in our area. 3 of our nearest primary schools are faith schools. Each of the faith schools prioritise faith applicants and at least on allocates at least half of their places to Christians. Last year only 1 place between all three schools went on distance all others were Looked after, faith or siblings.

In fairness to all the schools they do have a reasonable to high proportion of children with English as a Second Language (ESL) but the non faith schools have higher

Faith School1 - ESL 67.2%
Faith School2 - ESL 34.9%
Faith School3 - ESL 58.1%

Community School1 - ESL 76.8%
Community School2 - ESL 81.3%
Community School3 - ESL 87.5%

These figures suggest to me that a split is occuring and more of the minority (for want of better word) communities are going to the community schools. As all the schools are over subscribed then maybe the admissions criteria are skewing the intake.

We are not religious and didn't get into any of our 3 primary schools the first one was a non-faith school which we particularly wanted our daughter to go to. In the end she got a place at a catholic school despite my stating specifically that we didn't want a catholic school! How ironic that so many people will do anything to get their child into a faith school when we are forced into one against our beliefs and yet the community school is full (presumably of mainly church goers) and we don't stand a chance of getting into a CofE school because w e don't go to church. I never seems to hear of anyone experiencing the issue from this side surely there is an ethical issue here; regardless of whether the child is obliged to participate in religious worship either way this is going to impact on social inclusion and therefore emotional welfare?

SoonToBe - that's bad - though tbf the community school probably isn't full with mainly church goers because its only a small minority of people who are regulars if they're not trying to get their kids into a faith school.

The simple fact is that the proportion of faith school places is far more than the proportion of active churchgoers in this country.

Local oversubscribed c/e school
Looked After Children (LAC) i.e. children who are in the care of a local authority or being provided with accommodation by a local authority, in their exercise of their social services functions as defined in The Children Act 1989 Section 22 (1), and previously looked after children who were adopted, or subject to a child arrangement order, or special guardianship order, immediately following having been looked after. Applications made under this criterion must be accompanied by details or circumstance and professionally supported evidence (e.g. from a social worker). Evidence will be verified by the LA.

1. Children who have a sibling at the school at the time of entry and live within 2.5km of **School. (This includes full, step-, half- and adopted siblings living in the same household).

Once places have been allocated according to criteria 1 and 2, the remaining places will be divided as follows: Foundation Places (70%) 70% of the remaining places will be offered to children of whom one or both parents are regular worshippers (see note 1) at a Christian church which is a member of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) or the Evangelical Alliance (EA) and live within 2.5km of ***School. These are designated as Foundation Places and will be allocated in the following order: a. Parent(s) who are regular worshippers at (next door )Church and live within 2.5km of the school. b. Parent(s) who are regular worshippers at a church or chapel which is a member of CTBI/EA and live within 2.5km of the school. Open Places (30%) a. Proximity to the school

Hertfordshire as a whole has a low level of BME pupils. There is no way the school can engineer a white dominance. Admissions are determined in accordance with their admission criteria.

Similarly 20% of pupils are receiving SEN support which is in line with the national average. The most recent Ofsted report was positive about this school's SEN provision.

I will not dignify your comments on the teachers with a response.

You are clearly unhappy with your son's school but I would suggest this is not the way to deal with whatever problems you are facing.

Locally the RC schools are the ones with the most diverse population- most schools are almost exclusively white middle class British but at both primary and secondary the catholic schools have more BME pupils than the general population. Large numbers of Indian, Phiiipino, Sri Lankan, Spanish and Polish health care workers choose the catholic schools.

OP; the South Glos school you used as an example has changed its admission arrangements for 2017

Admissions Arrangements 2017

Should the number of applications for reception places exceed 45; the places will be allocated using the following criteria:

Firstly–children in public care (as defined by section 22 of the 1989 children Act).

Secondly to children who already have a sibling on roll in the school at the time when the child is admitted.

* Children are siblings if they are half or full brother/sister, or they are adoptive brother/sister
* And they are children of the same household.

In the event of a tie break places will be allocated as outlined in criteria four.

Thirdly to children whose families regularly worship as part of a Christian church. Applications must be supported by a Minister’s reference confirming attendance over the last two years and sent directly to the school (the ‘Supplementary form’ is attached to this policy and is available from the school).

Christian church means:

The Church of England or other Anglican Church, or
A Christian church which is in membership of Churches Together in England (or its partner bodies in Scotland, Wales & Ireland), or
Church or a congregation, which can provide evidence of the Evangelical Alliance.

In the event of a tie break priority will be given to children falling into criteria three and then criteria four as described below.

Fourthly to other children who live in the local area, beginning with those who live closest to the school. Distances from home to the nearest school gate are measured using the latest South Gloucestershire Council Routes to school Gazetteer.